Shondaland spoke with Delaney about Henry, the emotional toll of writing, and how love ultimately binds us all. 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? 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. When Henry finally dies, Delaney very specifically ropes off what he will and won't tell the reader:

You can also use the external lift near the Artists' Entrance on Southbank Centre Square to reach Mandela Walk, Level 2.To make things almost impossible, more death visits the Delaney family, and it makes the sadness almost insurmountable. But of course they have to deal with it.

A devastatingly candid account of a parent’s grief that will have readers laughing and crying in equal measure. RD: Everything makes me a better writer. As a human being, rather than “better,” I would say it has made me more useful. Like if a car runs somebody over, better having me there than your average, non-EMT in that if you’re going through something difficult, I might be of better use than I used to be anyway. A heartwrenching and funny memoir of Delaney's time losing his youngest son, Henry. It's a very layered book, effortlessly switching from the very personal to almost an outsider's view. Obviously not an easy read, but very moving.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”.

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).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? In this memoir of loss, acclaimed writer and comedian Rob Delaney grapples with the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose for those left behind. A memoir that charts Henry’s life – from his birth in London – where Delaney, his wife, and their two young sons moved to from LA to his illness – after weeks of vomiting he is diagnosed with a brain tumour – to his family’s desperate attempts to cure his illness. This is a rallying call against the polite timidity that we often show grief. It is a howl into the dark. But this is also a story of immense love. The affection and support Delaney shares with his wife and sons, as they live between hospitals and from MRI to MRI, is wonderful to read about.

RD: Well, that’s very kind of you to say. If there’s anything people can glean from merely reading the book, rather than experiencing it, is that the people we love and care for and take care of and value are all going to die. They’re just these temporarily coalesced little constellations of stardust that we have to be grateful for and love. We need to recognize the miracle of their existence and the ephemeral nature of everything that we love and hold dear. Alternative parking is available nearby at the APCOA Cornwall Road Car Park (490 metres), subject to charges. Blue Badge parking at APCOA Cornwall Road Rob Delaney’s beautiful, bright, gloriously alive son Henry died. He was one when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. An experience beyond comprehension, but an experience Rob must share. Why does he feel compelled to talk about it, to write about it, to make people feel something like what he feels when he knows it will hurt them? Because, despite Henry’s death, Rob still loves people. For that reason, he wants them to understand. There were often moments reading this book when I had to look away and cry. But Delaney is acutely aware that this will be the case. “Why do I feel compelled to talk about it… to disseminate information designed to make people feel something like I feel? Done properly, it will hurt them. Why do I want to hurt people?” A few weeks ago, my grief therapist texted me a link to a video with the message along the lines of, "I won't send you every grieving parent interview, but this one you have to see." It was this author on The One Show talking about the passing of his two-year-old son to brain cancer and how he'd written a memoir about it.SN: It seems like you have an incredibly supportive family all the way around. Were your wife and family on board with you writing this from the start, or was there ever a moment when your wife maybe said something like, “This is a wound I just don’t want you to open again”? Delaney talks about the madness of his grief, the fragile miracle of life, the mysteries of death, and the question of purpose when you’re the one left behind. Suffering an incredible tragedy, like the loss of Delaney’s 2-year-old son Henry to a brain tumor in 2018, is something no one should ever have to experience, much less have to write about. But to then have to relive this very tragedy again as I ask him questions about his book? Yeah, I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me either. In 2016, Rob Delaney’s one-year-old son Henry was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Amidst hospital life, surgeries, chemotherapy and a newfound community of carers, his family learnt the starkest truths about life. This is the story of what happens when you lose a child, and everything you discover about life in the process. Further reading