Between Two Eternities

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Rosemary Kay's unclassifiable book--equal parts novel, biography, and autobiography--is an imaginative first-person memoir of a premature baby's experiences in the neonatal intensive care unit of an English hospital. Saul, the author's son, was born after only 23 weeks' gestation, weighing just one pound, four ounces. Instead of being bundled into his loving mother's arms after delivery, he was consigned to a plastic incubator, with a ventilation tube running down his throat, heart monitors taped to his chest, and liquid nourishment dripping through an umbilical line. His chief experience of touch came every four hours, when blood had to be drawn, or when his tube was suctioned clean. Considering the events of his short life, Saul conceives of a new vocabulary to try to differentiate parts of the world that blur together for "This Living," for example, as distinct from life in the womb, or the place where he plays and talks with Grandaddy, long dead. Nurses are given names like "Clean Flowers" or "Nasty." The renaming helps establish that everything is new for the baby, although his use of language is otherwise advanced. After a medical emergency, when it was feared he might die, Saul describes his sense of being accompanied on his journey--and not only by "them," his parents. We are rushing with the wind and playing in everyone's rememberings. But, Grandaddy, I say to him, if we can go wherever we want, I know where I want to go. I want to be with them. So Grandaddy guides me. Down, down. Closer and closer. Till we are floating in the smell of terror, leading us to the place where they have gone. Anyone with children--perhaps anyone at all--will find this wrenching, although it is also an adventure story and a tale of courage. In the afterword, Kay explains that while her grief and regret remain, she still feels lucky to have known her "Saul taught me about death; he gave me an understanding that is intangible, inexplicable, a spiritual awareness." --Regina Marler