Falling

Anchor (June 14, 2016)
Memoir

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Falling

(first essay below)

It

It starts like this. I am picking up my daughter from day camp on the shores of Lake Michigan and taking her to Wrigley Field. Zoë likes the Cubs so I thought I would surprise her with a game. It’s a pretty day, and as we bike along the brownstone streets of Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, my daughter on the bike-seat behind me with her curly hair blowing in the wind, we are the vision of summer.

We enter the crowd and I buy two tickets behind home plate. Zoë is almost five, small for her age, so she sits on my lap so she can see better. As the game starts, I throw my left arm around her body, my hand cupping her side, and there, under her ribs, I feel a bump.

I don’t make much of it, though at night I mention it to Elise. It feels like an extra rib, though there isn’t one on her right side. Neither of us is concerned, nevertheless in the morning I make an appointment with our pediatrician, just to be safe. The next day I take Zoë to the pediatrician, who feels Zoë’s side and says the bump is probably a cyst, and will go away, though the following day it feels bigger.

Read full essay at LitHub

★ “A profoundly moving memoir.”
— Kirkus, starred review

“A tough, tender book.” 
— Boston Globe

★ “This slim memoir packs a mighty punch.”
— Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Elisha Cooper’s Falling is a beautiful book that knows so much about love and uncertainty.”
— Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams

“Cooper’s prose evokes the sharpness — and the melancholy — of his watercolor paintings for his children’s books.”
— The New York Times

“As plainspoken as his beautiful picture books, Elisha Cooper’s Falling sketches out, in moving detail, a father’s ultimate ordeal.”
— Julia Glass, author of Three Junes

“This is a book I will never forget. I recommend it to everyone.”
— Abigail Thomas, author of A Three Dog Life