More Than It Hurts You

by Darin Strauss

Overview

Read Darin Strauss's posts on the Penguin Blog

Josh Goldin's happy yet unexamined existence is shattered one morning when his wife, Dori, rushes their eight-month- old son to the emergency room in severe distress. Dr. Darlene Stokes, an African-American physician and single mother, suspects Munchausen by proxy, a rarely diagnosed and controversial phenomenon where a mother intentionally harms her baby. As each of them is forced to confront a reality that has become a nightmare, Darlene, Dori, and Josh are pushed to their breaking points.

Darin Strauss's extraordinary novel is set in a world turned upside down-where doctors try to save babies from their parents, police use the law to tear families apart, and the people you think you know best end up surprising you the most.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780452295520
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/30/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Darin Strauss is the award-winning author of the national and international bestseller Chang and Eng, as well as its screenplay for Disney Films and director Julie Taymor.  His work has been translated into 14 languages and he teaches at New York University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

What People are Saying About This

This book is harrowing, hurtling, heartbreaking and -- more than anything -- devastatingly accurate. Darin Strauss (a novelist whose talents sometimes seem limitless to me) has created characters whose complexities and dark motivations -- though they are always hidden from each other, and even sometimes from themselves -- are never hidden from their author. This is a brilliant, sharp, suspenseful novel, impossible to turn your gaze from. --Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Darin Strauss has written a novel that is -- suture by suture, idea for idea -- peerlessly brilliant. Here is a supreme, mature novelist at the height of his powers. --Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook

A prize-winning, front-cover-of-the- Times-Book-Review type of story that's sure to be one of the few novels of this era to be remembered in thirty years-and not just because it's going to be made into a movie. Destined to be the most important popular novel since The Corrections. --Kevin Baker, author of Paradise Alley

That rare thing: a blockbuster with a can't-miss commercial hook-and it's also a great story, a cross between Bonfire of the Vanities and The Lovely Bones. --David Lipsky, author of Absolutely American

Darin Strauss's latest is an eviscerating portrayal of contemporary American life, surgical and exact. At turns funny and disturbing, unsparing in its insights yet generous with understanding, More Than It Hurts You is a relentlessly rewarding piece of art. --Colson Whitehead, author of Apex Hides the Hurt and John Henry Days

From the Publisher

"[A] brilliant, sharp, suspenseful novel."
-Elizabeth Gilbert

"Wrenching and flawlessly involving."
-New York Daily News

"Chilling, insightful and bold."
-Chicago Tribune

"Riveting."
-Publishers Weekly

Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION

Josh Goldin was savoring a Friday afternoon break in the coffee room, harmlessly flirting with coworkers while anticipating the weekend at home where his wife, Dori, waited with their eight-month-old son, Zack. And then Josh's secretary rushed in, using words like intensive care, lost consciousness, blood. . . .

That morning, Dori had walked into the emergency room with her son in severe distress. Enter Dr. Darlene Stokes: an African-American physician and single mother whose life is dedicated both to her own son and navigating the tricky maze of modern-day medicine. But something about Dori stirred the doctor's suspicions. Darlene had heard of the sensational diagnosis of Munchausen by Proxy, where a mother intentionally harms her baby, but had never come upon a case of it before. It was rarely diagnosed and extraordinarily controversial. Could it possibly have happened here?

As their four lives intersect with dramatic consequences, Darlene, Dori, and Josh are pushed to their breaking points as they confront the nightmare that has become their new reality. Darin Strauss's extraordinary novel is set in a world turned upside down—where doctors try to save babies from their parents, police use the law to tear families apart, and the people you know the best end up surprising you the most.

ABOUT DARIN STRAUSS

Darin Strauss is the award-winning author of the national and international bestseller Chang and Eng, as well as its screenplay for Disney Films and director Julie Taymor. His work has been translated into 14 languages and he teaches at New York University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

• Author Darin Strauss opens his novel with a quotation from Anton Chekhov. What do you think it means? How does this quote set the stage for what transpires in More Than It Hurts You?
   
• When you began reading More Than It Hurts You, what did you know about Munchausen syndrome by proxy? Do you believe that its origins are biological, or do you agree with the viewpoint that there is no medical evidence for such a condition and that it's a way for abusive mothers to be absolved of their actions? Is Munchausen syndrome by proxy a metaphor for something else in the book?
   
• Talk about Dori. When did you suspect that she might have harmed Zack? As she imagined someday confessing her actions, did you think she believed people would actually understand her motivations for hurting him? Did you have any empathy for her?
   
• "The question for Josh had always been, how much blindness does a happy life require?" (page 277). What does this sentiment reveal about Josh's personality? Was the fact that he loved his wife "honestly, faithfully, and blindly" the reason why Josh didn't suspect Dori sooner? Why did he feel such antagonism toward Darlene Stokes?
   
• "Maybe the truest way to know a person is to learn what she's ashamed of." (page 63). This statement refers to Darlene—what was her secret shame? How does this statement apply to other characters?
   
• Do you think it's fair for a person to be judged on actions they took years before? In what other instances are incorrect assumptions made about characters based on their pasts?
   
• What was your opinion of Darlene? If you were in her shoes, would you have done the same things she did, whether in her role as a doctor or as a woman? How do you think her life would have been different had her father stayed with the family, or had she and Leo been able to work things out? Do you think she knew joy?
   
• "Because if a woman never feels the full power of a man's affection all at once, there are ways to increase how he rations it out." (page 186). Talk about Dori's manipulations of Josh and of the people around her. Do you think she realized how much they would cost her?
   
• When Darlene heard from her father for the first time in forty years, she realized that "her strongest wish . . . was to hang up on him." (page 230). Was her reaction surprising to you? Can you understand why she would feel this way?
   
• Discuss the wrenching scene in which Zack is removed from Dori and Josh's custody by Child Protective Services. Was it difficult for you to read? What would you have done if you were Josh or Dori? Do you think CPS did the right thing in placing Zack in foster care?
   
• The author reveals certain plot twists after they've taken place. What did you think of this device? Did it enhance your reading experience? How would the novel have been different had all the events unfolded in real time?
   
• What is the role of prejudice in the book? Which characters exhibit it, or otherwise allow themselves to accept stereotypes? In Part VI, Josh refers to Darlene as a "reverse racist"; do you think there is such a thing?
   
• "When did Dr. Stokes know the public case had tipped against her?" (page 331). Did you expect the court case to end the way it did? Talk about the subsequent encounters between Darlene and Josh. Would you have acted in the ways they did?
   
• After the court case was dropped, Martin Seidel thinks to himself, "The good guys have won." Do you agree? Were there any "good guys" in More Than It Hurts You?
   
• What was your opinion of the book's ending? What do you think might have happened after Dori uttered the book's last line?

Editorial Reviews

"[A] brilliant, sharp, suspenseful novel."
-Elizabeth Gilbert

"Wrenching and flawlessly involving."
-New York Daily News

"Chilling, insightful and bold."
-Chicago Tribune

"Riveting."
-Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

If you don't belong to a book club, Darin Strauss's bitter and brilliant new novel is reason enough to start one. You can always disband afterward, and in any case your discussion of More Than It Hurts You may be so heated that you'll never talk to those people again. Strauss has packed this gripping story with the whole radio dial of divisive, hot-button issues…Strauss made a name for himself with two historical novels based on real celebrities: Chang and Eng (2000), about the original Siamese twins, and The Real McCoy (2002), about a boxer at the turn of the last century. This time around, with an extraordinary degree of breadth and confidence, he's moved to a hyper-contemporary setting and invented his own characters.
—The Washington Post

Ron Charles

Strauss's third novel is the story of three ordinary individuals whose paths interconnect in extraordinary ways. Arthur Morey's exquisite performance brings those characters and many others to life in a believable and honest manner. His slight shifts in dialect are subtle yet flawless; his pacing is steady and allows the story to unfold nicely. There is an underlying sense of urgency and panic in each of Strauss's characters, and Morey allows it to sharpen his reading without going overwhelming it. Ultimately, listeners will be enthralled by the touching stories Strauss offers here, but Morey goes one step further and manages to bring the stories to vivid life. A Dutton hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 7). (June)

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Publishers Weekly

In Strauss's (Chang and Eng) third novel, TV airtime salesman Josh Goldin learns that his wife, Dori, has just taken their eight-month-old son, Zach, to the emergency room. This sets off a series of events that eventually forces Josh to question the state of medical care, the legal system, and his wife's sanity. When Zach is treated a second time for mysterious, life-threatening symptoms, head pediatrician Darlene Graves becomes suspicious and calls in Child Protective Services (CPS). Suddenly, the Goldins' suburban Long Island lives are made difficult by visits from the CPS investigator, and Darlene's life, too, becomes stressful as a newspaper reporter attacks her for going after innocent people and her long-lost father, a former prison inmate, suddenly turns up wanting to build a relationship. Ultimately, it is Josh who finds himself most conflicted, caught between his love for his wife and the mounting evidence that Dori might, in fact, be harming their son. The narrative switches from medical to psychological to courtroom drama as each character is gradually forced to face his or her own reality. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/08.]—Joshua Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. Syst., Poughkeepsie, NY

Library Journal

Meet the Goldin couple, who are indeed golden. Josh, a fair-haired ad exec, and his beautiful wife, Dori, have a perfect 8-month-old son and even a fabulous sex life. But Arthur Morey's narration hints at something beneath their self-congratulation. When their son becomes unconscious while at the hospital, the couple faces the scrutiny of Dr. Darlene Stokes. Stokes accuses the couple of Munchausen by Proxy and then finds she must cope with hospital politics as well as shadows from her past. Ultimately, the fact that Dori has bled her child into unconsciousness is overlooked by a hospital more concerned with its reputation than with child abuse. The irony is not lost on Morey, whose narration illuminates the extent to which mundane appearances can mask dark motives. S.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

OCT/NOV 08 - AudioFile