A Heart That Works

The Sunday Times bestselling, moving true story of love and loss - as heard on R4's Desert Island Discs

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to Wish List failed.

Please try again later

Remove from Wish List failed.

Please try again later

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

Try Standard free

Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.

Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.

Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

A Heart That Works

By: Rob Delaney

Narrated by: Rob Delaney

Try Standard free

Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $21.99

About this listen

WINNER OF THE BRITISH RADIO ACADAMY ARIAS AWARD FOR BEST AUDIOBOOK

The comedian and star of Catastrophe's devastatingly moving memoir about his young son's death.

In this devastating, beautiful and deeply moving memoir of the loss of his son, Rob Delaney explores what life really means, and why it matters.

When you're a parent and your child gets hurt or sick, you not only try to help them get better but you also labour under the general belief that you can help them get better. That's not always the case though. Sometimes the nurses and the doctors can't fix what's wrong. Sometimes children die.

Rob's beautiful, bright, deeply alive son Henry died. This is the story of what happens when you lose a child, and everything you discover about life in the process. Why does he feel compelled to talk about it, to write about it, to disseminate information designed to make people feel something like what he felt? What his wife feels? What his other sons feel? Done properly or well, it will hurt them. Why does he want to hurt people?

Because, despite the death of his son, Rob still loves people. For that reason, he wants them to understand.

(P)2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited©2022 Rob Delaney

Rob DelaneyRob DelaneyHodder & Stoughton

Entertainment & Celebrities

Grief & Loss

Indigenous Creators

Mental Health Awareness

Personal Development

Relationships

Celebrity

Funny

Heartfelt

Inspiring

Witty

Thought-Provoking

Entertainment & Celebrities Grief & Loss Indigenous Creators Mental Health Awareness Personal Development Relationships Celebrity Funny Heartfelt Inspiring Witty Thought-Provoking

Critic Reviews

This book is so rich with grief and love and pain and humor and an incandescent, purifying, flame-throwing wrath. Though Delaney can't bring Henry back, he can - and does - show enough of him to the world to make a reader see him a little bit, know him a little bit, and fully love him. What an unbelievable gift (Lauren Groff)

What a read. Its beauty and pain and humour and anger will help many people. This is a beautiful monument (Richard Osman)

The weaving of the joy and pain, the love and loss, the absurdity of grief, is done so beautifully. It feels like a message in a bottle, a despatch, a communication from the depths of suffering and despair that ultimately brings a message of great hope (Cathy Rentzenbrink)

It is a gift, it's an immense piece of work. It's brilliant. It's needed, like a deep, physical draught of something strong and cold (Russell T. Davies)

I could have read about Henry for a thousand pages. It is impossible not to share in Delaney's tenderness, his attention, his anger, his night-black humor, and impossible not to see his son through his eyes: loved, learning, smiling ecstatically. I will turn to this book again and again, to feel deeply and to learn about this world from Henry (Patricia Lockwood)

Warm and vivid and heartbreaking, humane and somehow even funny, Rob Delaney has written a very special tribute to a very special boy, and a beautiful treatise on what really matters in life (Monica Heisey)

I got to know Henry through Rob's words. His sweet soft head. His amazing smile . . . I cried a lot but also felt hopeful because life goes on and Rob talks you through how that happens. I am in awe. It's a love letter to fatherhood and the most beautiful tribute to a child who is so deeply adored. This book will sit with me for a very long time (Dawn O'Porter)

Delaney is a phenomenal storyteller . . . A Heart That Works is in the same league as The Year of Magical Thinking in its stark, clarified articulation of grief

I love this book, and it is a tough ride, filled with grace and beauty and unimaginable pain. I cried a number of times, laughed a lot, grieved with the Delaneys, and underlined so many moments of courage, exposure, humanity and the deepest meaning. All I can say is Wow (Anne Lamott, author of BIRD BY BIRD)

This book is unlike anything I've ever read. Brutally honest, powerful, like a beautiful howl. A love letter to Delaney's precious boy. To his wife. His family. To parenthood. It is a book that will help so many grieving parents. I loved everything about it (Laura Zigman, author of SEPARATION ANXIETY)

Emotionally raw, yet masterfully told. At the heart of this intimate story of coming to terms with the death is a stubborn embrace of life itself (Mat Johnson, author of PYM)

I don't think I've ever read anything before that captures the enormity and power of parental love, how radical it is, how transformative and total (Eleanor Catton)

Most relevant

This book is probably the best book I’ve ever read. I cried and laughed so hard and felt so so many emotional s. I’m so grateful for the few hours I got to spend with it.