More Than It Hurts You

By: Darin Strauss

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Read Darin Strauss's posts on the Penguin Blog

Josh Goldin's happy yet unexamined existence is shattered one morning when his wife, Dori, rushes their eight-month- old son to the emergency room in severe distress. Dr. Darlene Stokes, an African-American physician and single mother, suspects Munchausen by proxy, a rarely diagnosed and controversial phenomenon where a mother intentionally harms her baby. As each of them is forced to confront a reality that has become a nightmare, Darlene, Dori, and Josh are pushed to their breaking points.

Darin Strauss's extraordinary novel is set in a world turned upside down-where doctors try to save babies from their parents, police use the law to tear families apart, and the people you think you know best end up surprising you the most.©2008 Darin Strauss; (P)2008 Penguin

Critic reviews

"[A] brilliant, sharp, suspenseful novel."
-Elizabeth Gilbert

"Wrenching and flawlessly involving."
-New York Daily News

"Chilling, insightful and bold."
-Chicago Tribune

"Riveting."
-Publishers Weekly

Humorous characters

I really enjoyed the sense of humor in this book. Good writing and overall intertwining of the characters as their lives intersect.

An upper-middle class mother on Long Island is diagnosed by a black female physician with Munchausen's by proxy. Enter the workaholic father, the female physician's ex-con dad, an animated lawyer, and a host of other accomplices, and you have a recipe for a comedy of circumstance. The underlying seriousness, of some of the issues, brings a sense of reality in which you genuinely feel sorry for the characters while laughing at them at the same time.