Book Review: Love You to Pieces

Love you to Pieces is a collection of short literary works with a common thread, raising a child with special needs.  The works – which include short stories, poetry and memoir – explore a gamut of emotions, from grief and anger to joy and wonder.  Some of the chapters are written with such gut-wrenching honesty and detail that I found myself turning to the list of acknowledgments to learn whether each piece I read was fiction or memoir. 

Suzanne Kamata, editor of the book, has arranged the collection roughly by age of the children.  We meet children born prematurely, children whose disabilities are diagnosed as toddlers, school-age children and young adults.  In “Living with Lilia” Kamata writes of her daughter, born deaf and with cerebral palsy; she struggles with the additional challenge of raising Lilia in a foreign culture where people with disabilities are much less integrated into society than in America where Kamata was raised.

With such a varied collection, not every piece will appeal to every reader.  I connected with much of the writing, and felt that the admission of emotions such as anger, worry and frustration paled against the overwhelming theme of love the authors hold for their subjects.  This is expressed in the title, taken from the memoir “Speaking of Love/Reading my Son” by Clare Dunsford.  Dunsford’s son, J.P., who has Fragile X syndrome, tells her daily “… each time with the urgency of a new discovery, … ‘I love you to pieces!’”.  The feeling is universally mutual, as shown again and again throughout the book.