Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic - Softcover

"Expecting Adam is Martha Beck's meticulously written, uplifting, and compassionate account of being gifted with a retarded son who opens her heart to the deep intuitions that love can bring." --Judith Orloff, M.D., author of Second Sight
"Set half in Harvard and half in heaven, Expecting Adam is a tough-minded yet tender-hearted book of spiritual discovery--a rueful, riveting, piercingly funny, thoroughly modern and deeply old-fashioned memoir. In short, a book to be reckoned with."--Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way
"I can't believe I almost didn't read this book. The thing is, I thought it was about a lady who had a baby with Down Syndrome. This is like saying ANNA KARENINA is a book about a lady who commits suicide. In fact, this book is about matters so important and yet so totally way-out that I would accept no one but a comic genius with seven years at Harvard under her belt telling me about them. That's Martha Beck: funny, companionable, razor-sharp, down-to-earth, and onto the Big Secrets of Life Itself. Anyone considering having a child should have to read this book. It has changed some of my thinking about pregnancy and about children with disabilities, and I don't think it's too much to say it could change my life."
--Marion Winik, author of First Comes Love and The Lunchbox Chronicles
"Expecting Adamis not one of those grit-your-teeth, lemons-into-lemonade sagas that leave the reader feeling more besieged and guilty than the writer. It is a long hymn, from a practical woman caught flatfooted by amazing grace. Martha Beck is a celebrant skeptics can trust."
--Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Most Wantedand The Deep End of the Ocean
"I laughed. I cried. I couldn't put it down. I didn't want it to end. I wish I knew Adam and his family--and of course I do. A brave, uplifting, life-transforming book." --Sophy Burnham, author of A Book of Angels
"With uncommon sense and dependable wit, Martha Beck unravels every assumption about the meaning of life, choice, love--and the wisdom of pursuing happiness through any of the usual routes. If Expecting Adam raises suspicions among more rational readers that Martha Beck is slightly crazy, it raised my hopes that I'd catch it from her." --Mary Kay Blakely, author of American Mom"

"Immensely appealing...hooked me on the first page and propelled me right through visions and out-of-body experiences I would normally scoff at."--Detroit Free Press
"I challenge any reader not to be moved by it."--New York Newsday

"Expecting Adam is Martha Beck's meticulously written, uplifting, and compassionate account of being gifted with a retarded son who opens her heart to the deep intuitions that love can bring." --Judith Orloff, M.D., author of Second Sight
"Set half in Harvard and half in heaven, Expecting Adam is a tough-minded yet tender-hearted book of spiritual discovery--a rueful, riveting, piercingly funny, thoroughly modern and deeply old-fashioned memoir. In short, a book to be reckoned with." --Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way
"I can't believe I almost didn't read this book. The thing is, I thought it was about a lady who had a baby with Down Syndrome. This is like saying ANNA KARENINA is a book about a lady who commits suicide. In fact, this book is about matters so important and yet so totally way-out that I would accept no one but a comic genius with seven years at Harvard under her belt telling me about them. That's Martha Beck: funny, companionable, razor-sharp, down-to-earth, and onto the Big Secrets of Life Itself. Anyone considering having a child should have to read this book. It has changed some of my thinking about pregnancy and about children with disabilities, and I don't think it's too much to say it could change my life."
--Marion Winik, author of First Comes Love and The Lunchbox Chronicles
"Expecting Adam is not one of those grit-your-teeth, lemons-into-lemonade sagas that leave the reader feeling more besieged and guilty than the writer. It is a long hymn, from a practical woman caught flatfooted by amazing grace. Martha Beck is a celebrant skeptics can trust."
--Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Most Wanted and The Deep End of the Ocean
"I laughed. I cried. I couldn't put it down. I didn't want it to end. I wish I knew Adam and his family--and of course I do. A brave, uplifting, life-transforming book." --Sophy Burnham, author of A Book of Angels
"With uncommon sense and dependable wit, Martha Beck unravels every assumption about the meaning of life, choice, love--and the wisdom of pursuing happiness through any of the usual routes. If Expecting Adam raises suspicions among more rational readers that Martha Beck is slightly crazy, it raised my hopes that I'd catch it from her." --Mary Kay Blakely, author of American Mom

At its heart, this is a memoir about learning to live through the fear of change and trusting that the forces around you will watch over you. It's an account of the life-transforming things that happened to Martha when she discovered during her second pregnancy that the baby--whom she and her husband John later named Adam in utero--had Down Syndrome. The miraculous events that followed this crushing discovery forced Martha and John to trash their carefully planned lives in Harvard's ivory tower and make fearless, unconventional choices instead. As Martha told me, "That was when I lost my life, but fortunately, it was the wrong life."

I've gotten amazing quotes for this book from Anne Lamott, Marion Winik, and Jacquelyn Mitchard--none of whom knew me or Martha--among others. But just as important, I've gotten more raves for EXPECTING ADAM from my coworkers than for any other book I've edited since I started in the business in l98l; our marketing director told me that "reading this book made me a better person." I've gotten so many calls from our sales reps about it that I picture them basically trying to love this book onto the shelves. I've got to believe that all this is because EXPECTING ADAM is such a genuinely fulfilling reader's book. I've also come to admire and adore Martha--okay, flat-out love her--because she's so terrifically funny, warm, and inspiring. I really think she's helping me get a life too.

I hope you'll be as moved and surprised by EXPECTING ADAM as I've been. Let me know what you think of it.

Yours,

Elizabeth Rapoport, Executive Editor, Times Books