Anna

“Inspiration, a word that has lost its usefulness, regains it in this book.”—Frederick Busch, author of Don’t Tell Anyone and A Memory of War Born with a number of birth defects known as VATER Syndrome, Anna Loizeaux’s chances for survival were uncertain. Each day was a gift and each moment was precious. Much of her brief life was spent in hospital nurseries and operating rooms, where medical technology and human intervention mustered all their resources to give her the chance for life that nature had not. In the end, they couldn’t. Anna lived only a few precious, wonderful months, and when she died she shattered the lives of her parents. Where is the design to the death of a child? What is left to hold on to? William Loizeaux began to write a journal. Begun out of the agony of grief and the determination to forget nothing, Anna: A Daughter's Life becomes an affirmation: there is no life without a marker. In the terrible beauty and uncompromising honesty of her father's prose, Anna has her marker. This stunningly beautiful record of a father’s grief begun out of isolation and helpless rage, becomes an act of celebration. In it, he finds, and offers to us, the courage and spirit that asked so much from so brief a life. Here is an unforgettable portrait of an unforgettable child that reaches out to us all.