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The story of a mother's love for her son, set against a struggle with faith, big-time grief, and what it means to be human.
Psychologist Dinah Rosenberg Galligan, securely married to her college sweetheart, Sam, is hurled into a waking nightmare when their youngest child, Elijah, falls into a life-threatening coma.
Amid the technological marvels of a major medical center Dinah meets the mysterious Seth Lucien. A vain, sexy spirit with a surprising connection to Dinah's troubled past, and a master seducer's awareness of her secret fears and regrets, Seth haunts the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit where Elijah dreamlessly sleeps. Claiming to know the future, he tempts Dinah with a simple deal: her son's life for the use of her body. What parent wouldn't willingly accept the trade?
Fran Dorf, a spellbinding writer of psychological suspense, pilots this Faustian tale with total assurance. Laced with unexpected humor and passion, Saving Elijahis at its core the story of a mother's love for her son, set against a struggle with faith, big-time grief, and what it means to be human.
Prologue
When the woman phoned, I couldn't place her name until she said she was Maggie's mother. Then I knew.
They'd made quite a pair at the hospital, my son and her daughter. Eight-year-old Maggie was stricken and hairless and exhausted, her ashen face steroid-bloated beyond all reason. Five-year-old Elijah, with his thick glasses and crossed eyes, looked like a weird little Martian, his red-blond curls pasted to his skull with goop, an electrode and wire bonnet attaching him to a rolling EEG machine. He giggled when he saw himself in the mirror.
"Yes, I remember now."
I stood in my darkened bedroom, the phone hot against my ear. I could hear my children's laughter like the pealing of chimes through the house. Kate, fifteen, and Alex, fourteen, were amusing Elijah with a game of tag.
"Maggie's well again," the woman whispered.
Why was she calling me? She wasn't my friend; I'd only met her that once.
"Did you hear me, Mrs. Galligan?" she said. "Maggie's ...
Susan Isaacs, author of Shining Through
A moving tale of a mother haunted by the grave illness of her son and by a demon from her past. But it is more a rich and compelling story of faith, grief, guilt, ghosts, God, and ultimately, hope.
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With wry candor and tender humor, Ayelet Waldman has crafted a strikingly beautiful novel for our time, tackling the absurdities of modern life and reminding us why we love some people no matter what.
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Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for ...
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