More Than It Hurts You

The Story

Josh Goldin’s happy, successful life takes an unexpected turn for the worse when his 8-month old baby is rushed into the emergency room. As baby Zack is being treated for life-threatening symptoms, Josh is faced with meeting the head doctor, Dr. Darlene Stokes. His wife, Dori, once a phlebotomist, interjects her concerns and accusations of mishandling of Zack’s condition by the hospital. All of the medical language is more than Josh can understand. But, what he does understand is that his wife believes that the hospital wants to put Zack through more invasive procedures to get to the bottom of what caused this baby to code. Dori convinces Josh to decline further testing and they leave with Zack. Dr. Darlene Stokes, sends show more the police right after them to return the child to the hospital.

Dr. Darlene Stokes, an African American woman, has a difficult and detailed past. Despite being raised without a father, she succeeds in her academic and social lives. She eventually marries Leo, a white Jewish man, whom she met in college. Together, they have a son, James. Their short-lived marriage is followed by Leo’s untimely death. A single mother with a son, she just can’t put her finger on what happened that night with Baby Zack and his mother Dori. And, she won’t let it go.

Some time later, another event occurs wth Baby Zack that leads him back to the emergency room. This time, Dr. Darlene Stokes takes no hesitation in contacting Child Protective Services (CPS) because she believed that Dori suffers from Munchausen syndrome, a syndrome in which the afflicted person intentionally injures their child(ren) to bring attention to themself. Shortly thereafter, CPS removes the child from the home after an investigation that led to evidence that implicating Dori’s wrong-doing.

There is not only the battle of protecting Zack, but there is also a racial battle in the undertow of the legal process. Perhaps if the Goldin’s truly knew the truth about Darlene Stoke’s life, there would be a bridge to greater understanding. The ending of this story will both surprise and infuriate you.

The Review

This father of twins (boys), writes a story from a father’s point of view. Josh wants to love his wife, believe her, and believe in her. He chooses to support her and provide a united front, a strong couple, in the face of adversity. And, I enjoyed reading the story from that perspective…. the perspective of a man, husband, and father who is the good guy in the story. Because the mother in this one is questionable, at best!

The writing was exemplatory…. very well written story. There were really two stories intertwined within the novel. There is the story of the Goldin family… Josh, Dori and Zack. In addition, there is the story of Dr. Darlene Stokes, her son James, her father “Intellegent Mohammed,” and her mother. What Strauss provides are the histories of both families that face each other on opposite sides of a courtroom. This enables the reader to really understand what is at stake for both parties, as well as Baby Zack.

The subject matter is heavy. As a mother of twins, it is difficult for me to imagine any mother harming their child(ren). This really made it difficult for me to find any amount of sympathy for The Goldins. I kept wishing that Josh would put 2 and 2 together, leave his wife, and go get his child to raise on his own. But, at the same time I understood his need to believe in his marriage. I also felt sad for Darlene. She had such a successful life in so many ways, yet a sadness that was the truth of her life in her lack of connections to family and friends.

This is a book that takes a lot of your heart and much of your mind to get through. But, I found it to be a solid book, well written, and with a story that is quite memorable.

The Rating

On Sher’s “Out of Ten Scale,” I am giving More Than It Hurts You a rating of 8 out of 10. As mentioned above, I found the book to be very well written. I think that the rating really reflects moreso how the book made me feel afterward… just kind of sad and concerned about these mothers in our world who would actually harm their babies. It’s a difficult pill for me to swallow! show less

A different book about Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy would be, perhaps, an outside-looking-in story, where people outside the family try to figure out why any parent, and specifically the parent in question would inflict harm on their own child. In contrast, Strauss puts the why up-front; it’s clear to the reader, and even clearer to mother who bleeds her child twice to induce anemia, why she does it.

So the rest of the book is more of a “how” or a “what” than a “why”. How do the doctors and Child Protective Services go about proving a case of Munchausen’s? How does the father, who in unaware of his wife’s activities, deal with the situation. What is the motivation of the accusing doctor? And in the end, of course, show more is the question of what will happen to the baby. At least it should be, but in the end even the answers to those questions are disappointing, as the whole matter is dropped over a trumped-up plot device.

Still, this could have been a good book, since it is engagingly written. Unfortunately, not a single character in this book is sympathetic (except the baby, of course). The mother obviously, is beyond unsympathetic, being so smug about her actions as to be entirely unlikeable. Even the father, a good father by most standards, is just bland to the point that I couldn’t really bring myself to care about him. Although we are shown bits of the doctor’s personal life (her interactions with her own young son, her efforts to relate to a father she’s only just met), none of these are enough to put any flesh on the character that might allow the reader to care about her, and are clearly just set pieces that try (and fail) to create some tension. show less

Josh Goldin's name is very fitting; like the "golden boy" that he is. He is handsome, athletic, smart, funny, successful, and is married to the beautiful Dori and has a baby son named Zach. Although Zach appears to be very healthy, he has had some major medical issues. Enter Dr. Darlene Stokes, who has her own story and has not had the charmed life that Josh has been blessed with. Dr. Stokes suspects Munchhausen's Syndrome by Proxy and contacts Child Protective Services. The bureaucratic wheels begin to turn, and everyone involved in the situation is left scarred by it somehow. Excellent writing, great story.

I found this book quite gripping despite the distressing subject matter. The characters, all unlikeable in their own way, are well drawn by the author.

Although the book centres around MSBP (Munchausens Syndrome By Proxy), the storyline also shows how communication, or lack of it, can affect lives so deeply. Not just between the married couple with a baby, but the doctor and her mother and errant father.....together with the dealings of the hospital and all concerned.

The segments that dealt with the "harming" of the baby were very upsetting....as you would expect.....but I still found myself appalled when the CPS became involved.

A difficult subject about a rare condition very well handled by the author and a recommended read.

Overall, Darin Strauss wrote an enjoyable read. I feel he has a potential to be a good writer, and, at times, sounded a little like Jonathan Franzen. However, he needs a bit more polishing, and a better editor, as there were a lot of typos, extra words, and a few instances of omission of events. (For example, about halfway through, the author makes a note of Dori buckling the baby, Zack, into a highchair, but after a few sentences of dialogue, they discuss how he is down the hall in a playpen, yet no narrative of him being moved at all., nor any lapse of time is indicated.)

Strauss also covers a lot of different topics, but fails to do any actual research into them, leaving a lot of facts to feel a bit... off. He could have done a lot show more with MSBP, but instead glazed over facts and used what space he could been educating his audience with lame facts and silly bits of "media". I feel he also brought up a lot of issues just to state his personal opinion on them (music, culture, race, sexuality), even though they had no relevance to the story line. While certain opinions like this may build up a character, in this case, it doesn't. In fact, over all, I feel he focused FAR too much on the race based parts of the book (not to mention used the term reverse racism, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. Racism is racism no matter if it's coming from someone black, white, whatever.) and turned it into another plot device, when it should have been left alone, or at least, made interesting and insightful. Why mention every chapter that Dr. Stokes is a black woman doctor? We get it. The words black and Jewish were used so often that it sounded like an echo. And both of these issues weren't built up in any new way, but instead relied heavily on cliches and stereotypes, along with the one instance of homosexuality that was brought up. It got tiresome very quickly, and at times, a bit maddening.

Another little nit picky instance - the author writes about how Darlene is boring her date with her rambling on and on about music and culture, etc, yet he takes up 5 pages on her rambling - which has nothing to do with the story line at all - and bores the reader. If, as an author, he knows the topic is rambling, and boring, why take up so much room and in turn bore his own audience? There are many ways to indicate rambling without actually rambling.

Over all, I feel that this book does have potential, and is an enjoyable read if you take away the small failures. It's a bit of a let down though, because the plot/storyline was really interesting, and so much could have been done with this story, but it fell short. Ultimately, this book is just alright- not bad, not good, but lacks any real character connection, any sympathy towards your characters (especially Dori, who is a horrible person, not only self absorbed and using a method of hurting her infant for attention in her marriage, but dragging a doctors name through the mud, wasting the states and the hospitals time, and all the while, feeling as though she is the victim, while trash talking the real victim - Dr. Stokes.) and uses far too many pop culture references, which seemed to trivialize the book and the issue, MSBP, at hand. Worth reading if you have it at hand, but nothing extraordinary, and not worth going out of your way to pick up. Thankfully, I only spent $6 on it, so in my opinion, it at least passed the time in a somewhat entertaining way.

SPOILER PAST THIS POINT.

I hardly ever write about the ends of books, but the ending was extremely anticlimactic. You wait the entire novel for Dori to get any sort of consequence, and right at the end, just when the truth finally comes out, the story stops. There is never any happy resolve. The doctor is ruined and an emotional mess, and Dori is still smug with the exception of the last page, but we never see her get what's coming to her, which is a big let down. The entire novel I wanted Josh to just leave that smug self absorbed woman, take his baby and raise him alone, and we are left wondering what happens. Are we to assume that's what happens? The entire novel is leading up to this point and then it finally comes and.... nothing. show less

A Jewish couple, Josh and Dori Goldin, are accused of child abuse by a black woman physician when the wife (Dori) brings the young baby to the ER with a mysterious illness, for which nothing can be diagnosed and the mother who has a
medical background, insists that she take the baby home despite the fact that he has "coded" and then recovered.

A dark subject, but handled very well by author Darin Strauss. There is satire, stereotypes, news media involvement, and finally legal action. The characters are well drawn but are not especially likeable. The physician who makes the accusation, Dr. Darlene Stokes, has never seen a case of Munchausen by Proxy before but is convinced that Dori is harming her baby, Zack.

In spite of a lack of empathy show more for most of the characters (except the baby), I enjoyed this novel for it's literary style as well as the fascinating glimpse of MBP which is quite a rare diagnosis. Recommended reading. show less

A very interesting topic for sure. I enjoyed most of the book, however there were several parts that were so wordy and unnecessary that I had to skim through it. I was also a bit confused by Dori's last statement. I expected a bit more with the ending. Dori is certainly a troubled soul and she makes herself quite unlikeable. Darlene is also a troubled soul, but I found myself rooting for her all along. The book definitely holds the attention as the story is quite gripping. I just couldn't get past the over-wordiness. UUUGGGHHH!!!