Rob Delaney, A HEART THAT WORKS
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now
[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms. Don't have time to read books
[0:10]It is a daily podcast
[0:12]365 days a year and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career
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[0:22]I am now an author myself
[0:24]Although I wasn't when I started this podcast and you can get my new memoir book ends
[0:29]A memoir of love, loss and literature wherever books are sold starting July 1st and my children's book prints is charming
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[0:58]Rob Delaney is the author of the memoir a heart that works which is now a New York Times bestseller
[1:04]Rob is a comedian actor writer and the author of a previous memoir
[1:09]Rob Delaney mother wife sister human or your Falcon yardstick turban cabbage
[1:15]He's widely known as the BAFTA winning co-creator and co-star of the critically acclaimed Amazon prime comedy
[1:21]Catastrophe welcome Rob. Thank you so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books to discuss your absolutely beautiful
[1:27]memoir a heart that works
[1:30]Thank you so much for having me Zibi your story is so unbelievably moving beautiful
[1:35]Angry raw open loving it had like all the things that you look for in a story
[1:41]And I'm sorry you had to live it but as a book it was the most moving transformative experience
[1:47]So well done on that front
[1:50]Can you tell listeners a little about your story and and why you decided to write it in?
[1:56]Yeah, sure, so
[1:59]My wife and I had two boys a little less than two years apart in age
[2:04]And we were enjoying that so much that we decided to have a third kid also turned out to also be a boy
[2:11]He was born a little more than two years after the first one. So we had a bunch of little boys around the place
[2:17]And a little before Henry our third turned one he got quite sick and
[2:25]We didn't know what it was it took a while to figure out and it turned out to be a brain tumor
[2:31]right next to his brain stem and
[2:34]They took the tumor out
[2:36]which created some pretty significant disabilities for him and
[2:43]Then he had chemo was in the hospital for 14 months then he came home and
[2:50]then the cancer returned and
[2:53]The top point they couldn't do anything and he died a little bit before he turned three
[3:00]So the book is about the before during and after of that
[3:04]What that was like what it felt like and and that's it, you know in in writing the book people have said things like they felt things like
[3:14]hope or
[3:16]Faith and
[3:18]That's not why I wrote the book. I it's up to the reader how they feel
[3:22]There's no prescriptions in it. There's no
[3:25]This is how you survive this. I just wanted to show people what it was like and
[3:30]That's what I tried to do
[3:32]Well, you absolutely showed people what it was like. I'm so sorry for your loss. Thank you. It's horrific the whole thing
[3:40]I really felt the way you wrote it. We all like could live
[3:44]It's true anyone who has not experienced this will feel so viscerally
[3:48]What you felt in the way that you wrote it in fact
[3:51]I've referenced several times because as I mentioned
[3:53]I read this when the galley first came to me
[3:55]I read reference it several times your passage about why you decided to write it and and why you even asked yourself in the writing
[4:02]Why you wrote it so I was wondering can I just read this what can I read this paragraph?
[4:06]He wrote this
[4:07]Really awful just disturbing not awful and disturbing awful for you and disturbing paragraph about
[4:13]What happens once your child has has died and then you said you said why do I feel compelled to talk about it
[4:20]To write about it to disseminate information designed to make people feel something like what I feel what my wife feels
[4:26]What my other sense feel done properly it will hurt them
[4:29]Why do I want to hurt people and I do did my son's death turn me into a monster that's certainly possible
[4:35]It doesn't sanctify you things get broken
[4:38]Maybe it's because I write and perform for a living that I can't help but try to share communicate the biggest
[4:43]Most seismic event that has happened to me the truth is despite the death of my son
[4:47]I still love people and I genuinely believe whether it's true or not that if people felt a fraction of what my family felt and still feels
[4:55]They would know what this life and this world are really about
[5:00]So beautiful
[5:02]Well, you thank you. I mean, and yeah, that's a pretty good thesis for the book. I think and I just
[5:09]didn't want to
[5:13]I figured the kindest thing that I could do
[5:17]Rooted in love would be to tell people how horrible it was
[5:22]And what it did to us. I really felt it seemed false to me when people
[5:27]Or if not false not helpful if somebody tells you
[5:32]Years after a tragedy
[5:34]You know things like you know, but the son still came up and you know, we worked through it and
[5:40]I didn't like things that told you that I'd rather
[5:44]be shown it. I'd rather notice it myself in seeing
[5:49]The bereaved parent or sibling or somebody who lost their spouse when they're
[5:55]in the early blush of
[5:58]Romance and love and with young kids or something. You know the really awful ones
[6:03]I'd rather have that person tell me about what they went through honestly
[6:08]Observe them you know through the
[6:11]telescope of
[6:13]Of a well-written book if possible and see like
[6:17]Yeah, maybe they are okay, you know and like wonder are they you know
[6:22]Have that have it be a more intimate
[6:25]You know let the reader decide if I'm all right or not
[6:28]I like what there's no value in me telling you that you know, I mean
[6:33]It's better for you to maybe see it or not, you know, but then
[6:37]I've done my job of showing you something you never wanted to see
[6:43]But hopefully helping people understand it better, you know
[6:46]Well otherwise, I mean you can't people can't possibly feel what they don't know
[6:51]And then and then they do you a disservice by asking overly simplistic questions that aren't you to you too?
[6:58]Yeah, how are you? How are you feeling?
[7:00]Yeah, I think that's a fine question
[7:01]How are you if you're prepared for the answer and the person can take a deep breath and really tell you
[7:06]So that's fine. How are you it's not a stupid question in my opinion
[7:10]But you know my wife and I would be
[7:13]Frustrated to the point of desperation when we could tell that people were like
[7:18]Aren't they over it by now or like it would be convenient for me if they were over it, you know
[7:25]If I didn't have to think about that and so
[7:29]Yeah, the you know part of the book really comes from that
[7:32]Being going through stuff like that, you know
[7:35]And you didn't just
[7:37]Have to cope with the having two other boys and a sick child for a while
[7:41]And that you also lost your brother-in-law to suicide, which was a perfect part of the book. Also. Can you talk about that?
[7:49]So while Henry was in the hospital getting chemo my young
[7:54]beautiful
[7:56]The vacious brother-in-law died by suicide. He was
[8:01]Failed by depression and it was really really awful
[8:07]So months before Henry died my my brother-in-law died and
[8:13]You know, he had a two-year-old daughter with my sister
[8:16]Who's my only sibling, you know, so my sister and I were united in this horrible
[8:23]kind of tandem
[8:25]Brief, you know, and not, you know, it wasn't like one of our elderly parents had died
[8:33]I don't you know, we'd like our parents to live forever, but that's not going to happen. You know, we're a grandparent for a
[8:38]co-worker that we had lunch with a couple times a week. It was big devastating deaths
[8:46]So I spoke to my sister on the phone this morning when she was on her way to work and we had a nice talk
[8:51]We always do so we're very we're able to help each other
[8:55]in a really beautiful way
[8:58]It's crazy that that happens to both of us at essentially the same time
[9:03]but we love each other very much and have been able to help each other a lot
[9:08]So there's certainly beauty in our relationship and pain
[9:14]That's great. You have it's great. You have each other, but oh big time. Perhaps not in this way
[9:20]You know, I feel like at times you were hard on yourself in the book for
[9:25]Yeah, you were just appointing others
[9:27]Message about you're being a bad husband. Can I read another paragraph? Is that okay?
[9:31]Please yeah, I love to hear about that
[9:34]Let me tell you how bad
[9:36]I mean, you just remind you
[9:38]He said I really really don't like seeing this written down
[9:41]I was a bad husband and a very very good cog in the TV machine to explain
[9:46]I can only offer that I recognize this was my shot at age 37 to solidly break into the biz
[9:51]And I falsely assume that to do so I should or could hit pause on my family responsibilities
[9:56]I'd like to invite any and all readers to slap themselves
[10:00]That was at this point on my behalf,
[10:01]to underline with a physical sensation
[10:03]that one cannot hit pause on family responsibilities.
[10:07]It cannot be done without inflicting genuine damage.
[10:10]And genuine damage, I did inflict all while pretending
[10:13]to play a loving, attentive partner and dad
[10:16]on a TV show that would be advertising
[10:18]buses that would drive by and splash my wife
[10:20]who'd be pushing a double stroller while pregnant
[10:22]to go buy diapers and toilet paper for me
[10:24]and my children to use as part of our respective
[10:27]shitting processes, I luxurious and shame.
[10:30]Yeah, yeah, so I did a TV show for four seasons
[10:37]called catastrophe.
[10:38]And the first two seasons of that show,
[10:42]I was a major workaholic.
[10:44]And I feel like, you know, I'm imagining, it's not up to me,
[10:48]but I feel like the casual reader will be like,
[10:50]well, yeah, I get it.
[10:52]You know, you get your chance to get a TV show
[10:56]that you write and produce on the air.
[10:57]You got to work your ass off, you know, and I did.
[11:01]But I did it at a time when I had my wife
[11:04]had very kindly and generously agreed
[11:06]to move to another country where the sun sets around 2 p.m.
[11:11]took throughout the winter.
[11:13]And we didn't know anybody.
[11:15]She had three year old and one year old and was pregnant.
[11:18]And then I was like, I got work to do.
[11:22]And so it's, again, you know,
[11:27]I think one can examine my behavior during that time
[11:30]and understand that, but it did hurt her.
[11:34]And it did damage our relationship.
[11:38]And I talk about that in the book.
[11:40]And after we made the first two seasons of catastrophe
[11:43]and rapid succession with no break in between,
[11:47]my wife said that she would divorce me
[11:49]if I continued to work in the same manner.
[11:53]And I said, oh, okay.
[11:57]Well, I don't want that.
[11:59]I want to be married to you and remain married to you.
[12:04]So yeah, I will change how I operate.
[12:07]And so she kind of shocked me into learning
[12:12]how to work smarter rather than harder.
[12:15]And I, you kind of took my hands off a lot of other aspects
[12:20]of the show and just worried about the scripts
[12:22]with my writing partner Sharon Horton.
[12:24]And, you know, at that point, I didn't, I was like,
[12:27]you know what?
[12:28]I let the wardrobe department worry about the wardrobe.
[12:30]And, you know, location scouting.
[12:32]Yeah, I'll let the location scout do that.
[12:35]And so that was great.
[12:37]That was an amazing lesson for me
[12:39]because I realized like, oh, I don't even care about the other.
[12:41]So I just thought I had to do it all.
[12:44]And I didn't.
[12:45]And it's funny because I like the third and fourth season
[12:48]to the show best.
[12:49]You know, where I let everybody just do their job.
[12:53]So then, but not long, I mean, not long at all
[12:56]after making, beginning to implement those changes,
[12:59]Henry got sick.
[13:01]So I sort of had the double whammy of my wife,
[13:05]who my love desperately saying it's time for a change,
[13:08]you know, with an ultimatum.
[13:09]And then my son getting sick and then dying.
[13:14]It made me very much change the way that I look at my career
[13:18]and want my career to serve my life and my family
[13:22]and not vice versa.
[13:24]And, is that how you feel now?
[13:25]The way you, yeah, more so, less of the same.
[13:29]Big time.
[13:31]I did a TV show recently with Vince Vaughn.
[13:35]And he would play a game where he would try
[13:39]to imagine jobs that I would accept, you know,
[13:44]because we were talking about my criteria for jobs now,
[13:46]which is like, if you choose near my house, I'll do garbage.
[13:50]If it's far away, I probably won't do it.
[13:53]Unless it's really, they can really, you know,
[13:55]shoot me efficiently and it's a short thing.
[13:58]So he was like, all right, okay, here's the job offer.
[14:01]You're going to play a pedophile.
[14:02]And I was like, I'm listening.
[14:04]He's like, whoa, you're not.
[14:05]I'm like, hey, if you choose near my house,
[14:07]I mean, I'll do a franchise
[14:09]about pedophiles, you know.
[14:12]But yeah, I, so time is more important to me now
[14:17]than career status or money,
[14:20]because I know that people's lives are finite.
[14:23]You know, my son lived for two years and nine months.
[14:26]So it's not lip service.
[14:27]We all understand that, you know,
[14:29]we could write it down on a piece of paper.
[14:31]I won't live forever and neither one of my kids,
[14:33]nor even in best case scenario.
[14:35]They won't be children forever, you know?
[14:37]They'll become adults, one hopes, one of mine didn't.
[14:41]And so now my understanding of the value of time
[14:44]has changed very dramatically.
[14:46]So now I like to do one thing well at a time.
[14:49]I don't have to do 10 things at once.
[14:52]And I'm happy or a due to that.
[14:55]Well, so is there any other way where you,
[15:00]I know you desperately want people to feel what you felt
[15:03]and hear it and experience it and try to internalize.
[15:06]And I think I read, I'm a huge reader of memoir,
[15:10]I read memoirs all the time.
[15:11]And I have gone through a lot of loss myself.
[15:14]What is it about trying to let people know
[15:18]this sort of compulsion to like shake people up
[15:20]and be like, wait, wait, wait.
[15:21]You're like going through life
[15:22]and you don't realize that these bad things can happen.
[15:25]Like I have to show you, like what is it?
[15:27]And do you think it works?
[15:29]Like do you think people can adequately get it
[15:31]until they've experienced something horrific?
[15:34]So the short answer is no, of course you can.
[15:36]And that's okay.
[15:38]They're not deficient.
[15:39]My book isn't like deficient
[15:42]that not being able to make people understand it
[15:45]bone deep and then carry it with them.
[15:48]So it's okay that my book won't change lives.
[15:52]It's okay that somebody can't jump into the skin of another,
[15:56]but we can sort of open our hearts
[16:00]to take a better look and remove some barriers
[16:04]of behaviors that don't serve us.
[16:07]And understand, for example,
[16:09]if I tell you something that I'm having a hard time with
[16:14]and you bad it away, then I'm a little wounded,
[16:19]I'm gonna be less open with others.
[16:20]If I tell you that and you're like,
[16:22]okay, God, that's gotta be difficult, you know?
[16:25]Wow, really, don't envy that.
[16:29]Christ, that's gotta be, you know?
[16:30]And you don't even have a solution, you know?
[16:33]But you just let it land, then great.
[16:36]I've said that, it kind of a problem shared
[16:40]as a problem have, you know?
[16:42]I'm like a proverb and that's not, you know?
[16:44]There's no new ideas in my book,
[16:46]but then I have a better day
[16:49]and you've done me a favor, so you feel good, you know?
[16:52]So just let people feel what they feel.
[16:54]You don't have to fix them, you can't.
[16:56]Maybe take a little humility there and realize, you know,
[17:00]like, well, what can I say to fix them?
[17:02]I'm sure if I thought of the right thing
[17:04]and my amazing toolkit,
[17:05]I'm sure I could fix them with some words, you know?
[17:08]That's crazy.
[17:11]Well, it's like when anyone's upset,
[17:14]it's just being standing by their side
[17:15]and giving them a box that they needed.
[17:17]Exactly.
[17:18]Do you feel like you've read books
[17:20]that have made you feel the steeply
[17:21]or when you were writing your book,
[17:23]did you look to other books and think like,
[17:25]okay, I wanna do it like this person or do you just say,
[17:28]like, I'm just gonna do it and let's see what happens.
[17:32]Yeah, I mean, I, name books in my book
[17:36]that were very helpful to me with grief Frankenstein
[17:39]is probably first and foremost.
[17:41]That's a very special book written by, you know,
[17:44]a once in a century genius, Mary Shelley
[17:48]and who understood grief better than that even I do.
[17:52]And that's, so that's a very...
[17:54]Joan did he end too?
[17:56]Joan did end, yeah.
[17:57]Nicholas Streeten wrote a graphic novel
[18:00]called Billing Me and You about the death
[18:03]of her two-year-old son in that book.
[18:05]It's gorgeous.
[18:06]That's a kind of, I would like duct tape that to myself
[18:10]if I couldn't say, I don't know.
[18:13]If I were wandering through the forest
[18:15]and was like, I'd really love to talk to somebody
[18:17]about, you know, my son and I couldn't,
[18:19]then I would just tape the book to myself
[18:21]and I'd feel better.
[18:22]The End of the Affair by Graham Green
[18:25]is a very special book about really the miracle of love
[18:30]and the depth of what we learn when we lose someone
[18:32]and the pain and the fury.
[18:34]It's such a deliciously angry book.
[18:38]But that helps more than somebody being like,
[18:42]I don't know, giving you some chamomile tea bullshit,
[18:46]you know, quote, or whatever.
[18:49]So yeah, those are some great examples of books
[18:52]that helped me a lot and I readily recommend.
[18:55]Amazing.
[18:56]Yeah, the year of magical thinking was amazing.
[18:59]I know you talked about that towards the end
[19:01]because you're so funny.
[19:02]You're like, I mean, you have a sense of humor
[19:05]about everything even when it's like horrific.
[19:07]So which is great.
[19:09]Tell me about how all the ways you're giving back now
[19:12]as a result and how you're donating the proceeds
[19:14]and the charities you support and all of that.
[19:17]Oh yeah, so any money I make from this book
[19:20]is I'm giving it to hospices for kids
[19:23]and I've already given a bunch as it comes in.
[19:26]I just give it to them because well, first of all,
[19:30]I wouldn't want to make any money from a book
[19:31]about my son who died.
[19:32]I wouldn't want to drive around in that like car.
[19:35]We spot with that money that would feel disgusting.
[19:39]And so giving them money to kids hospices
[19:42]because it's crazy how far a dollar can go
[19:46]and a hospice, you know.
[19:48]Like let's say literally a hundred dollars.
[19:52]I'm not saying don't give money to cancer research.
[19:55]Dude, do your money, do what you want with it.
[19:57]But it's not likely that it will.
[20:00]that $100 that cures cancer, whereas $100 given to a kid's hospice is going to pay for hours
[20:06]of like a music therapist to come to a hospital and make a kid who is dying, laugh, smile,
[20:14]and dance in their parents' arms, you know, so it's...
[20:20]So I want to help people who can't, who aren't going to survive.
[20:25]I want to help kids who are dying enjoy their final days, months, weeks because we benefited
[20:31]from kids' hospices and so far, in my 45 years of life, I just haven't seen...
[20:40]I guess I have a sort of cavalier attitude about money, you know, so many people misuse it,
[20:45]so catastrophically, and I mean, use it to enslave people and really do disgusting things with it.
[20:54]And so I just hadn't seen just money used in a way that was so instantly effective,
[21:00]so I thought if this book is going to make any money, I'm going to give it to people
[21:03]who can take it and run with it, and effectively, substantively change children's lives
[21:11]and their family's lives, and then those kids are going to die anyway, you know what I mean?
[21:16]So yeah, I want to help the people who medicine can't help.
[21:20]So beautiful.
[21:21]I'm making this.
[21:23]Okay, I just, I'm so sorry.
[21:25]I'm so sorry.
[21:26]This happened.
[21:27]I loved you so much and thank you.
[21:29]Thank you for sharing it with the world.
[21:31]My pleasure Zippy, thanks.
[21:33]Okay, take care.
[21:34]Thank you.
[21:37]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[21:40]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read books.
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[21:48]And sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[21:52]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[21:56]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.