While We Were Waiting

A vibrant novel that portrays the lives of an American woman fleeing the trauma of childhood abuse and an Iraqi refugee fleeing the trauma of war, each in the midst of childbirth, that Joyce Carol Oates praises as "breathtaking, heartrending, and finally uplifting" and Richard Ford exclaims "involved me so thoroughly that I began to anticipate how it would end."

Lorraine and Will, New Yorkers married for 15 years, are having their firstbaby, via IVF. They are 40, successful in their careers-finance and music-with pasts that have held each of them back from one another until the dayWhile We Were Waitingprodigy dealing with the ongoing aftermath of betrayal and abuse.

Sharing the waiting room with Will is Clement, an Iraqi archeologist newly arrived in America, having fled with his family from ISIS. He, too, struggles with trauma from a murderous terrorist attack, from the high-risk delivery that his wife is enduring, and from a long-ago guilt that makes him fear for his laboring wife and their unborn child. As the space shared by Will and Clement expands with every hour and revelation. Lorraine's labor compels her to let go of the grievous harm done to her in her youth, making While We Were Waiting a story about the imaginative power of acceptance and love.