An Innocent, a Broad
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Just 26 weeks into her first pregnancy, Ann Leary's water broke--as she was strolling along London's Oxford Street. An Innocent, A Broad is not so much a drama of her baby's survival as much as it is a chuckle-fest at the expense of both Ann's predicament and of the Brits in general, whose overwrought sense of propriety is mocked non-stop. As the wife of comedian Denis Leary, who was working for the BBC at the time, Anne is forbidden to return to the US and placed on total bed rest; she's pumped full of medication to prevent premature labour. In some of the book's funniest passages, she makes great efforts to prevent her many hospital roommates from discovering she's American, lest they suspect she's freeloading off the National Health Service. (Don't let the bad pun of the book's title put you off; Ann's sense of humour is often as biting and gritty as her husband's).
Despite the doctors' best efforts, baby Jack is born two weeks later, while Denis is back in the US working at comedy clubs (and trying to keep the couple from being evicted from their apartment). Jack is in relatively good shape, but Ann's mental state is at risk as sleep deprivation, anxiety and loneliness get the best of her. Among her postpartum goofs is befriending another woman whose baby is also in intensive care; she mistakes her for a slim, serene Earth Mother instead of the heroin addict she really is. Beware if you think this might seem a perfect gift for a pregnant woman; the belly laughs are constant and likely to cause any expectant woman's water to break. --Erica Jorgensen, Amazon.com
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First Sentence
DURING MY PREGNANCY with Jack, my first child, I worked in my stepfather's Boston law office and spent most of the day fantasizing about my baby and about its birth. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
DURING MY PREGNANCY with Jack, my first child, I worked in my stepfather's Boston law office and spent most of the day fantasizing about my baby and about its birth. Read the first page
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Amazon.com:
35 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Interesting and true
16 Oct 2005
Format:Hardcover
Ann Leary's autobiographical account of her sons birth abroad, amidst the rise of her husbands comedy career, is well-written, interesting, and very truthful. Unlike some autobiographical stories, Ann doesn't attempt to present herself as some sort of hero, and she doesn't portray anything that happened to her in a way that is self-serving. She tells it like it is. And it is a very interesting story. From her son's surprise appearance, to her unexpected life abroad, Anne's story is intriguing, sometimes sad, funny, and sometimes happy. I would expect that anyone who's ever had a premie, or anyone who's lived abroad, would especially enjoy her story, but to the rest of us, it's still a good read.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
A definite must read!
17 Aug 2004
Format:Hardcover
I was just lamenting that it had been awhile since I read a truly good book, when I picked up An Innocent, A Broad by Ann Leary. What a fabulous book! I couldn't put the book down once I started. Ann Leary is a terrific, no-nonsense writer. She is humorous and sarcastic, able to poke fun at herself at a very serious time of her life. I laughed out loud several times while I was reading it. I recommend it for anyone - but especially for parents, who will reflect on their own experiences with a newborn, especially a preemie.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
An Absolute Delight --- From Start to Finish
19 April 2004
Format:Hardcover
A self-described "master fretter," the pregnant Ann Leary worried over her first-born but could never have predicted what was in their future: the delivery, three months early, of two-pound, six-ounce Jack in a distant land. A quick jaunt to England, where Ann's husband, comedian Denis Leary, has a gig, is suddenly interrupted when Ann's membranes rupture. Ann, who once believed she was the type of person who would take charge in a disaster --- leading people from a plane crash, for example --- found that she was "in fact, the shrieking, running-into-the-burning-wreckage type."
After much hysteria and a cab ride, Ann and Denis find themselves in London's University College Hospital. She is put to bed in the hope that the delivery will be delayed as long as possible. Ann, who moved frequently as a child, sometimes feels like an awkward newcomer. In a roomful of British mums, she truly is out of her element. When asked if she is ready for tea, for example, she refuses while admitting she's hungry. She's concerned about caffeine and hasn't yet caught on to the fact that "tea" is actually a meal.
Ann makes friends eventually with the hospital staff and the other mothers, who help sustain her and Denis during the long ordeal after Jack is born. When Denis must return to New York to work, Ann stays nearby spending most of her time in the Special Care Baby Unit. She describes her admiration of the nursing staff: "If, for example, you haltingly inform a nurse that you have just passed what appeared to be a large part of your brain into the toilet, via the birth canal, the nurse will not gag but instead will admonish you for flushing it away before showing it to her." Yet, she admits feeling jealous and redundant in the face of their efficiency with her baby.
Ann, who went to England for a weekend and stayed for five-and-a-half months, felt frequently unprepared. Luckily, for her and her readers, one thing she didn't forget to bring was her sense of humor. As she tells her story, flashbacks to previous situations in her life point to the fact that, while she gives tragedy its due, she can often find life's inherent entertainment value.
From the first page, I felt that I had settled into the wry musing of a self-deprecatingly hilarious friend. Despite my frequent bouts of laughing, I also found myself moved, occasionally to tears. A sympathetic physical pang squeezes my heart when Ann speaks of staring into Jack's isolette and willing him to "Breathe, digest, grow." Sometimes laughter and tears come simultaneously, as in the epilogue, in which 13-year-old Jack, now tall and healthy, sees a photo of himself in an incubator with his mom at his side and is aghast --- at her haircut!
AN INNOCENT, A BROAD is witty, smart, terrifying, funny, heart-rending and heartwarming --- an absolute delight, from start to finish.
--- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon
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