Elva Crist
Here in Wisconsin, the cycle of seasons has an intensity that is unique. The rhythm of life is tied to the changing of the leaves and the coming of the frost, and yet, even here, there are places where time seems to stand still.
David McGlynn’s new novel, Everything We Could Do, is rooted in one such place: a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in a rural hospital in Wisconsin. Operating in seeming isolation from the outside world, the NICU in McGlynn’s debut novel is the center of life for two women: Brooke, a new mother with a baby in the NICU, and Dash, a nurse with a medically complex teenage son, who was formerly a resident of the unit.
The novel is inspired by McGlynn’s own experiences in the NICU, as a parent and as a volunteer. His wife, a healthcare worker, also inspires it. Everything We Could Do is a holistic exploration of the NICU from an experienced author who understands the perspectives of both the family members of patients and the healthcare workers.
“I have long understood ‘Everything We Could Do’ as an act of witness — a deliberate effort to pay attention to a world that often goes unnoticed or deliberately ignored, precisely because it can be hard to look at.”
“I have long understood Everything We Could Do as an act of witness — a deliberate effort to pay attention to a world that often goes unnoticed or deliberately ignored, precisely because it can be hard to look at,” McGlynn shared in a recent interview. “But literature is FULL of stories that are hard to look at (just think of how many novels take place during or in the midst of wars), so the NICU seems a more than appropriate topic.”
On Thursday November 13th, McGlynn will be joined in conversation by poet, writer and UWEC lecturer, Amy Fleury, to discuss life in and after the NICU. Fleury has written extensively on this subject and is currently working on a memoir and a collection of poetry based on the life of her son, who spent his life in the NICU. Fleury has a profound knowledge of what she terms “medically complex motherhood,” and of the NICU as a place within a place, isolated from what is deemed “the world.”
“I was a long-term NICU parent,” Fleury said, “and I am a mother of a child who has passed, who had complex medical needs, so I have a lot of lived experience of what’s explored in the book.”
It is a paradox that while medically traumatic experiences like those that can occur in the NICU are not often the subjects of open conversation, they are also simplified by those who have not personally experienced them, McGlynn noted. Fleury, whose son lived his whole life in the hospital, hopes that those who attend the conversation will come away with a more nuanced understanding of the nature of the NICU and those who inhabit it.
“I think a lot of times people who are on the outside of these situations think of them as sad, and it can be sad, or traumatic, and it can be traumatic, but there’s still joy, and there’s still love and there’s still connection and community within these places,” Fleury said.
“One of the things that is important for me is that my son’s life took place in the hospital,” Fleury said, “and so I don’t regret all of the time we spent there, because that was his existence, his life, he had a lot of joy.”
Fleury sees this message embodied in the character of Dash, the nurse whose son has medical complications. She observed that in defining children by their medical complications, we do them a disservice by oversimplifying them, much as the NICU experience itself is.
McGlynn also spoke of this character, who, along with Brooke, the mother, serves as a “tentpole” of the novel. Dash is a representation of many people in the author’s life who work in NICUs in Wisconsin.
“My wife has worked in hospitals throughout her career as a medical social worker, and my mother-in-law was a nurse for 35 years. So I have hung out with nurses for a long time. I love their gallows humor, their tenacity, and their steadiness during times of crisis. I knew I didn’t want Everything We Could Do to only focus on the experience of the parents in the NICU, but to instead provide a glimpse of the entire world of caring for pre-mature and imperiled infants,” McGlynn said. “The NICU nurses I met and became friends with were (and are) some of the kindest and strongest people I have ever encountered. Dash is representative, in many regards, of my deep admiration for them.”
Through their writing, both McGlynn and Fleury have emphasized the importance of sympathy and compassion, as exemplified by these nurses in many ways. Though the experiences in hospitals and similarly difficult places can be traumatic and complex, there is a simplicity at the heart of it when it comes to community.
““I mean really, at the core, it’s about compassion.””
“I mean really, at the core, it’s about compassion,” said Fleury. “It’s about extending grace to others and trying to understand. It’s difficult to completely put yourself in another person’s circumstance, but to attempt, make some attempt to go beyond preconceived notions and extend that compassion, not pity, but compassion.”
McGlynn and Fleury’s forthcoming program will highlight two artists using their craft in the most poignant way: to process the difficulties of life, and, in McGlynn’s words, to tell an untold story.
Join David McGlynn and Amy Fleury’s conversation on Everything We Could Do at 6 PM on November 13th at L.E. Phillips Memorial Library.