By the book’s end, we have our answer. “A Heart That Works” may be a tribute to a lost son and the family who survives him; it may be a hand outstretched to bereaved parents who feel alone on their planet of grief; but most of all, it is a hopeful plea to people everywhere to make choices, large and small, guided by love. What a world it would be if we did. The voice behind the hit show Catastrophe, actor, writer, and comedian Rob Delaney probably didn’t want to talk to me, and for good reason. He certainly didn’t want to be in a position to be able to write his latest book, A Heart That Works, either. But he felt compelled. Delaney’s heartache is visceral and violent – a “decaying disused train station while freight train after freight train overloaded with pain roars through”. He doesn’t hope for death but one day, when he is learning to scuba dive at the bottom of a pool in Soho, he thinks that if something went wrong, he’d at least get to be with Henry.

I’m no better and no worse than any other bereaved parents out there. But I have seen, felt, and lived through something that is rare. Delaney describes watching Henry die at home. He encourages people to spend time with the bodies of recently deceased loved ones, if circumstances allow. He recalls telling “the loud builders next door my son was lying dead on our bed and we had to keep the windows open, so please stop work for the day.” The loud builders stopped. “I will not tell you anything else about the moments before or after Henry’s death,” Delaney writes, opting instead to outline the intensity of those moments in negative, and taking an implicit stand against the idea that writing honestly or usefully about the worst things in the world has to mean listing every single detail of what happened. “I can talk about them, but I don’t want to try to confine them to ink. Maybe you have experienced something like them, or maybe someday you will.” A Heart That Works is Mr. Delaney’s intimate, unflinching, exploration of what happened – from the harrowing illness to the vivid, bodily impact of grief and the blind, furious rage that followed through to the forceful, unstoppable love that remains.Rob Delaney, comedian and writer, shares the painful journey of his third son, Henry, being diagnosed with a brain tumor at age one. Henry passes away a year and a half later after many surgeries and chemo treatment. This is the story of Henry’s short but so loved life, written beautifully by a father whose life was transformed first by cancer and then by grief.

But here’s the thing: Rob Delaney does talk to me, and he’s not only incredibly gracious, thankful, and eloquent (all while still being heartbroken in so many ways), but he’s also funny and hopeful for the future and full of love for his family. It is this mindset that makes A Heart That Works so searingly beautiful and so utterly tragic at the same time. A memoir that feels like a diary written by a man who must watch as he’s helpless to save his young child, the book is raw and honest, which is precisely what makes it one that will likely help those who find themselves in a similar position. A Heart That Works is a testament to a father’s love and finding hope when it feels impossible. It is an angry book. Delaney takes us from his move from the US to London to make Catastrophe – with his pregnant wife Leah and their two other sons – through the diagnosis and two years of illness all the way to Henry’s death. SCOTT NEUMYER: You’ve written a book about the most horrifying thing that can happen to a person, the death of their child, and now you’ve likely been talking about it in multiple interviews as well. How are you holding up?

His memoir offers solace to those who have faced devastation – and helps those who haven’t understood where the true meaning of life is found. Most of the audience had likely heard Delaney raving about the N.H.S. before. He and his family moved to England so that he could act in the British sitcom “Catastrophe,” which he starred in and co-wrote with Sharon Horgan. After the show took off, Delaney and his family stayed; in the years since, he’s become a British household name. In 2015, his wife gave birth to their third son, Henry. Shortly after Henry turned one, he was diagnosed with brain cancer. He spent much of his life in hospitals, and died before he turned three. Ever since, Delaney has been publicly candid about his grief, and about his appreciation for all that the N.H.S. did for his family. He made a campaign video for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party, sharing his family’s story to give emotional weight to arguments against health-spending cuts and health-care privatization. He’s made similar appeals to American audiences, urging people to vote for Bernie Sanders, to join the Democratic Socialists of America, and to fight for health care as a public good. This is a beautiful, beautiful book. I cried through a quarter of it. The five year anniversary of Conor’s passing from brain cancer is approaching and Rob Delaney puts into words SO well what that experience is like. This book is raw and heartbreaking and of course, since he’s a comedian, it’s just the right amount of funny. I want to say so much more about it but don’t feel I can do it justice. Blue Badge holders and those with access requirements can be dropped off on the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road off Belvedere Road (the road between the Royal Festival Hall and the Hayward Gallery).

But - I can hear you say - Rob Delaney is an award-winning writer! Yes, yes he is; however, I believe his awards are for scripts and comedy. If this is a true example of his attempts at branching beyond, I think he should turn around now. The book is full of expletives, which not only gets super tedious, it makes me think Delaney is either lazy or unskilled at conveying the many facets of complicated grief. It's a little disorganized as well. I will not tell you anything else about the moments before or after Henry’s death. I can talk about them, but I don’t want to try to confine them to ink. Maybe you have experienced something like them, or maybe someday you will." I loved this on The New Yorker: There’s Nothing Decorous About Rob Delaney’s Grief. Rob Delaney Author Bio About Us Advertise Online Why Did I Get This Ad? About Our Ads Community Guidelines Press Room Other Hearst SubscriptionsDelaney runs the gamut of human emotions - love, happiness, fear, sadness, anger, despair, acceptance - and he does it with dark humour and grace. The book is a moving and intelligent reflection on life and on death more generally, and the fate that awaits us all at one time or another. But that’s basically it for the N.H.S. “A discussion of national healthcare policy would be a book unto itself,” Delaney notes. Talking about Henry for a few moments in a political-campaign video is one thing; going on at any length about those politics in a book about Henry is, we can perhaps imagine, another. In a campaign video, Delaney has a mission: to mobilize his audience. In “A Heart That Works” he has a different one. If you come away with a newfound appreciation of health care as a public good, Delaney would probably like that. But it’s not the point. He’s trying to coax you up to the edge of grief’s abyss, and do what it takes—even tell you jokes—to get you to peer inside a little longer than you might have otherwise and, by doing so, maybe begin to learn something about how you want to live (which is related, but not reducible, to the question of how you want to vote). And yet it is, as one might imagine, vital and very, very funny. When his father-in-law hugs them, post Henry’s diagnosis, and wishes that he could be ill instead, Delaney doesn’t hesitate: “We do too, Richard.” The image of the Delaney family dressed as skeletons on Halloween in the Great Ormond Street paediatric oncology ward suggests a family united in an appreciation for the curative effects of the darkest kind of humour, just as Delaney now finds great peace, even delight, in art that horrifies or depresses others – the songs of Elliott Smith, the film Midsommar. And he is self-aware about just how unreasonable grief has made him. He’s furious when a man tries to comfort him with the fact that his grandfather had survived a brain tumour: “Grandfathers are supposed to get tumours and die! That’s their job!” Perhaps because Henry died on his father’s birthday, having only had two himself, Delaney now can’t believe adults are so needy as to still celebrate them. If he hears co-workers are surprising a colleague with cake at 4pm, he “will go take a shit at 3.57”. The Royal Festival Hall is open to all for access to the Level 2 foyers and toilets, Level 1 and Changing Places toilets, the National Poetry Library, Skylon, Riverside Terrace Cafe, Southbank Centre Shop and Members' Lounge at the following times: SN: You talk about this a bit in the book — almost wondering why it was so important for you to write, why you felt compelled to talk about it. But then you kind of answer your own question a chapter or two later when you say, “[Joan] Didion made me feel less alone.” Which I think is precisely what this book will do for so many people. My question is, ultimately, do you feel like this book was written for you , for others who are hurting with a similar type of pain, or something else altogether?