More Than It Hurts You (Hardcover)

by Darin Strauss (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The third novel from the author of Chang and Eng and The Real McCoy is an often satiric page-turner that tracks a Long Island family crisis. Josh Goldin is a happily married TV airtime salesman with an eight-month-old son. When baby Zack is treated twice for mysterious and life-threatening symptoms, the head of a pediatric ICU, Dr. Darlene Stokes, tells Child Protective Services that she thinks Josh's wife, Dori, suffers from Munchausen syndrome, whereby the afflicted injure their children deliberately to draw attention to themselves. The Goldins' ensuing battle to keep Zack provides grist for public debate about issues ranging from parents' rights to race (Dr. Stokes is black, the Goldins Jewish). Strauss takes delight in skewering a world in which everything (news coverage, legal representation, hospital beds) is for sale, sometimes digressively, always amusingly. The stereotypes are intentionally heavy-handed: Josh's perceptions almost always register through race and class-related fear and disgust. But the heart of the story—the unraveling of Josh's life and the steady erosion of his faith that ignorance can be a virtue and happiness a choice—is riveting. (June)
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From Bookmarks Magazine
Darin Strauss’s compelling new novel touches on many themesâ€"too many for some critics. It contemplates the nature of marriage and familial relationships, mental illness, privilege, class, and bigotry, while indicting American culture as a whole. Strauss dispatches his insights and evokes his characters with verve and skillâ€"critics frequently compared Josh to Updike’s Rabbit Angstromâ€"but the Washington Post detected a vein of chauvinism through Strauss’s female characters, particularly Dori, whose motives are never fully explored and whose actions remain inscrutable. Nevertheless, Strauss’s sensitive treatment of racism and anti-Semitism and his keenly discerning eye for the banalities of pop culture result in a suspenseful and moving novel that cleverly adds up to more than the sum of its many parts.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (June 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525950702
• ISBN-13: 978-0525950707
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #370,128 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Long, Winding Flop, August 2, 2008

By	Lyle Morgan (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews

Being an avid reader who has worked in child protection, I approached this book with great interest. It concerns a suspected case of Munchausen by proxy, with the diagnosis made on a Jewish family by a black female doctor. The stress on race/ethnicity is pervasive throughout the book, sometimes seeming gratuitous. (When two characters are shown to their restaurant table, the waitress is described as "sway-bottomed Asian." When the doctor, Darlene Stokes, hurries to an elevator, it is "past a tragedy-struck white family who talked in sniveling whispers," and who are never mentioned before or after.)

Divergences from the main plot are quite long and detailed to the point of irrelevance, such as in the recounting of Darlene's college days. The author seems incapable of telescoping his vision of her background to keep the story moving for the reader. This occurs also with the early life of Darlene's mother, the work experiences of the child's father (Josh Goldin), and the background of the family's sleazy lawyer. Oddly, the background on the alleged child abuser (the child's mother, Dori Goldin) seems rather sketchy in terms of explaining her behavior.

Though obviously much work was done on this book, errors/implausibilities seem rather frequent. Darlene's mother indicates that she only had sex once with Darlene's father, in 1966. Yet later the author proclaims that Darlene was born on March 1, 1968 (?). Darlene receives a 6-year scholarship for med school yet, going by the dates, first becomes a resident 13 years later, with her husband loafing at home the whole time on an allowance from his father. Darlene's father, who has a long criminal record, is released from prison just in time to become a factor in her credibility, and also to inexplicably thwart a robbery. Late in the book, Josh just happens to run into Darlene at a store, conveniently providing a forum for their conflict.

Having worked in child protection, I was particularly thrown by what happened at the court hearing (which is not yet the book's climax). The state agency (CPS) all but disappears in favor of the hospital and its lawyer, such that the Goldins' lawyer, who plants news stories attacking Darlene, wins the day mostly by threatening the hospital's reputation. The hospital backs down, never calling Darlene to testify, and strong evidence found by CPS is somehow never presented. In reality, this would never happen. The state agency bears primary responsibility for getting the case to court, where government lawyers are its primary advocates, sometimes with an additional attorney for the child. The reporting doctor testifies or his/her findings presented, as is all relevant evidence from caseworkers, police, etc. The process cannot simply be steamrolled by an aggressive lawyer, no matter how many tabloid stories he plants.

Weaknesses in the main story may be what invited the lengthy divergences, with unnecessary scenes, characters, and details. A scene at the foster home, for example, primarily depicts the foster mother, but her husband or boyfriend emerges from the shower just in time for a description of his glistening body parts. We also receive a detailed description of an insipid art project he is leaving to display. Even in the aftermath of the hearing, on pages 382-3, new characters are being detailed who have no part in the rest of the book.

This novel deals with an interesting and complicated subject, and the writing is fairly good, but I found it generally disappointing for the reasons given above.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Real Page Turner, June 29, 2008

By	Sarah Banks (Chicago) - See all my reviews

I haven't read his other books but I picked this up because of the great cover. Turns out it's a really riveting novel about a sick baby, a heartless doctor (well, she SEEMS heartless) and a husband and wife who don't know each other as well as they think. Definitely pick this up. It will break your heart a little but you'll be better for it. I'm off to buy his book about the original Siamese twins.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How much blindness does a happy life require?, July 15, 2008

By	Jackie Blem (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews

This is an absorbing psychological study of what people do to motivate themselves and others as well as what secrets and lies they tell themselves to do so. At one point a main character asks himself "How much blindness does a happy life require?" On the surface, this is a story about a family dealing with allegations of Munchausen by Proxy (where a parent makes a child ill or hurts it to get the attention for themselves). But that is only one layer of the deep and varied textures of this story. Fidelity, racism, abandonment, love, hate, and status all come into play throughout the book, with a constant strong current of redemption at any cost running under it all.