ALEX: The Life of a Child

by Frank Deford ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1983

In 1972, Deford's five-month-old daughter Alexandra was diagnosed as having cystic fibrosis, an always-terminal, degenerative lung disease; expected to live only two years, she died in 1980, just over age eight. And here journalist/novelist Deford relives the year-by-year anguish for himself, wife Carol, and son Chris--while emphasizing, perhaps to a mawkish degree, Alex's near-saintly courage, sprightliness, charm, and humor. (""Maybe I--we all--survived because however impossible, however appalling it was that our child was dying, I could sometimes still see the whimsy that forever cloaks the pain and the hopelessness of life."") He recalls the twice-a-day physical therapy--very painful for Alex--which the parents had to administer, knowing that it was at best postponing death. He remembers all the happiest family excursions, the funniest father/daughter moments, increasingly shadowed by Alex's growing awareness of her condition. (""Oh, Daddy, wouldn't this have been great?"" she said after one wonderful time.) He details the special marital/family tensions created by Alex's situation, her mostly joyful but occasionally traumatic relationships with schoolmates (especially when her illness began to affect her appearance), his own emotional/spiritual wrestlings. While saluting some doctors and nurses, he bitterly records the insensitive residents and practices at some hospitals--where Alex had to spend more and more time as her illness caused collapsed lungs and increasing pain, coughing, weakness, and hemorrhaging. And, with the end clearly imminent, there's a long deathbed sequence at home--Alex now knowing, and, to some degree, accepting her fate. . . and believing in Heaven. (""Why me, Mother?"" she asked. Carol answered: ""I think maybe. . . because God knew that you would be the best at showing other people how to live and how to be brave."") Far more slickly written than Terry Pringle's This is the Child (p. 292), with an ironic, occasionally saccharine playing on the heartstrings that will put some readers off; but plain and affecting for the most part, concentrating on the emotional--rather than the medical--ordeal.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1983

ISBN: 1558535527

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION