The End of Miracles: A Novel
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781631520556 |
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| Publisher: | She Writes Press |
| Publication date: | 05/03/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | NOOK Book |
| Sales rank: | 180,919 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
The End of Miracles
4.8 out of 5
based on
0 ratings.
8 reviews.
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Reviewed by Heather Osborne for Readers' Favorite
The End of Miracles by Monica Starkman is a novel about a woman’s battle with depression following the loss of a child. Margo has longed for a child, but infertility leaves her with little hope, until she finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. Overjoyed, she and her husband, Steven, eagerly await the arrival of their child. However, when Margo goes into premature labor, the subsequent recovery sends her in a downward spiral into severe depression, leading her to do the unthinkable. Upon beginning this novel, I knew it would be a difficult subject to read. So many women suffer from fertility issues, and for some, this results in endless strings of miscarriages and heartache, not just for them, but for their families as well. Even more heartbreaking was Margo’s rational sense of what was going on, but her inability to control her actions.
While I enjoyed the overall message conveyed in the story, I was a bit confused by the change from past to present tense in the second half of the novel. I almost felt a bit bombarded by medical terminology as well as psychiatric terms. I feel that while this might be beneficial as a note at the end of the novel, it drew away from the overall emotions of Margo as a character. However, I did feel that The End of Miracles by Monica Starkman has a powerful message about mental health and raised an awareness that it’s important to have readily accessible help for those in need of it, as well as shedding light on what might be considered a taboo subject. There was some great description and, overall, I did enjoy this novel.
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We read stories to explore new worlds and this story gives great insight for someone unfamiliar with the infertility world. From the opening of the book, I felt as if I were in the hands of someone writing with authority about the psychological aspects of infertility, the emotional devastation of miscarriage and stillbirth, and how numbing grief can be.
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The End of Miracles is a spellbinding fast-paced read—a beautifully written debut novel. Particularly so for those interested in mind-body connections. As someone who suffered unrelieved grief for years over the death of my young mother in childbirth, I identified with Margo, with the hidden damage done by the death of her beloved father. No child should ever have to grieve the death of a loved one alone. If left to one’s own devices, the mind can play deadly tricks on the body. And vice-versa. Highly recommended.
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How much is a woman’s identity caught up in the desire for motherhood? What are the emotional consequences of not being able to have a child of one’s own? Monica Starkman has written a masterful portrayal of a woman with a complicated and traumatic past who falls victim to a little-spoken-of psychological and physical phenomenon after her first pregnancy ends in stillbirth.
The novel is enriched by the perspective of a writer with many years of experience as a psychiatrist, and it builds in emotional power. Starkman’s talent as a writer makes us intimately aware of Margo Kerber’s hopes and despair. The novel shows us how Margo enters her grief and succumbs to it, propelling her towards a startling act and painful reckoning. Her life unravels, despite the strength of her marriage, her meaningful role as a surrogate parent to a mentally ill child, and the continuing support of a deep friendship. Told with accuracy and compassion, it takes you down a path that is both shocking and, perhaps, inevitable.
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Monica Starkman's beautifully-written and perfectly-paced debut novel should appeal to anyone who enjoys a good read and especially to those with an interest in mental health issues. The central character, Margo, has a strong marriage, a supportive husband, and a satisfying career, but without the child she longs for her life seems incomplete. When an almost miraculous pregnancy ends in a hopelessly premature delivery, Margo's life goes seriously off the rails. The author is a prominent psychiatrist and her descriptions of Margo's overwhelming grief, her descent into depression, her treatment, her truly shocking crisis, and her eventual recovery and redemption have the ring of truth. I warmly recommend this book and hope to see more from this author.
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Starkman is psychologically astute and clinically accurate. Her writing is lyrical. Consider the book’s opening sentences.
"The dream was always the same—a flood of babies dribbling out of her mouth, dozens, tumbling head over heels. It was like coming up from the sea sputtering a mouthful of water, salty and alive with life forms. The dream was not frightening, not even unpleasant, but today Margo didn’t want to linger with it, with the strange images, the faint sensation on her lips and tongue. Better to get up, move about, dispel all traces of it. She opened her eyes, and the babies flickered and faded as they disintegrated into the room’s darkness."
The story that follows that dream is gripping. It unfolds in ways that are vividly cinematic. Margo, the story’s protagonist, is desperate to conceive a child. Disappointed, she rents a cheap hotel room and heads to the shopping center, where she finds herself beside a woman pushing a baby carriage.
What follows is shocking. The hitherto upstanding, courteous, conventional, law-abiding Margo begins to spiral downward through a legal and psychotic tunnel that defies reason—but not logic. Desperately unhappy, she takes desperate measures to restore hope—and mental balance.
Rather than spoil the book’s delicious suspense, I will include no more details. Suffice it to say that Margo and her husband are restored to each other and to civilization as they knew it. She learns to live with new expectations. All is not well, exactly, but life becomes bearable. The sun may even shine again.
It’s rare that I give a book five stars. The five-star category belongs to such writers as Ian McEwan, Philip Roth, Anne Tyler, Tillie Olsen, Oliver Sacks. I give few books four stars, but this one is in that category.
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The psychological journey of Margo Kerber, in Monica Starkman’s The End of Miracles is the nightmare of anyone who has endured the torturous path of infertility. Starkman says it best herself: “This is the story of a woman who unravels psychologically after harrowing infertility and miscarriage, the drastic choices she makes, and the doctors and close ones who try to save her.” Yes, and…. It is a deliberate clinical presentation married to a spare but poignant prose style that takes full advantage of Dr. Starkman’s expertise as a psychiatrist, and her obvious chops as a literary person. Whether reading as an objective observer, or one intimately familiar with the territory, The End of Miracles will fascinate.
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The End of Miracles This dramatic, psychological thriller by Monica Starkman left me deeply confused - NOT about the book but about myself! I always thought I knew right from wrong. As I read this beautifully written novel I was simply enjoying the graphic details, the ups and down of a mid-level administrator, and the heart-tugging storyline. When the dramatic saga unfolded I thought I knew what the outcome would be. When it was frighteningly different from what was anticipated, I struggled to understand where 'I' had gone wrong in my thinking! Should Margo have been more severely punished for her act? Should she have been more deeply pitied? Am I so judgmental? What on earth happened to this intelligent, healthy, happily married young woman? Why did her husband stay with her? The sudden deterioration in her mental health shocked me. Or was it so sudden? But not on the second read....in spite of modern medicine, failure to conceive became a slow, lonely, emotionally painful process. Her body had failed her. And then her mind.
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