When Henry, the 11-month-old son of Catastrophe actor Rob Delaney and his wife, Leah, began vomiting, his parents weren’t worried – they had two older boys and were accustomed to their kids being ill. But the sickness persisted and, after a series of tests (and several misdiagnoses), Henry was found to have a large tumour near his brain stem. On hearing the news, Delaney recalls: “We sank inside ourselves. The heaviest pain in the world. I felt like I had suddenly quadrupled in weight, and an oily, black whirlpool began to swirl where my heart had been.”
A Heart That Works – the title is taken from a Juliana Hatfield lyric – is his tender, visceral and improbably funny memoir detailing the gruelling treatment that followed, and Henry’s eventual death, aged two, at home surrounded by his family. As the narrator, who also happens to be a seasoned standup, Delaney knows how to land a one-liner. When his father-in-law says he wishes it were him with the terminal diagnosis rather than Henry, Delaney tells him: “We do too, Richard.”
