Holding Silvan: A Brief Life

FOR READERS OF ONCE MORE WE SAW STARS AND WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

When her newborn son is given days to live, a mother's impossible choice becomes a searing meditation on what makes both death good and life worth living

In the opening of Holding Silvan: A Brief Life, Monica Wesolowska gives birth to her first child, a healthy-seeming boy who is taken from her arms for “observation” when he won't stop crying. Within days, Monica and her husband have been given the grimmest of prognoses for Sil...