She May Be Lying Down but She May Be Very Happy

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What people are saying:

  • “Jody Gelb has written a book so rare and elegant and beautiful that I don’t even know how to categorize it: Essay? Poetry? Memoir? I think I might just call it a ‘monument.’ What a stunning work of art, of truth, and of love.”

    – Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

  • “I recently read this very beautiful book, and ever since, the title has been playing and replaying in my head. It is a micro-memoir about the short life of the author’s daughter, and I thought that it might be a difficult book to read, a tale of the terrible things that can go wrong when a baby is born. Maybe it is, but it is far more. What you remember after reading it is the love and those words that her father said to her distraught mother when their daughter was only 11 months old—‘She may be lying down, but she may be very happy.’ It sounds like she was. Thank you for this book.”


    – Rebecca Lawrence, MPhil, MSc, FRCPsych, author of An Improbable Psychiatrist

  • "Thank you for being so candid about your emotions and imperfections. As you wrote, and as I have learned working with other families with profoundly disabled children, there is a lot of joy and "normalcy" that is not apparent to a casual observer. I'm going to put this on the bookshelf in the pediatric resident work room and encourage them all to read it."

    — Dr Eliza Holland, Pediatric Hospitalist at UVA Children’s Hospital + Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics

  • “You’re a gorgeous writer, and I say that as someone who spent 45 years in book publishing. Your memoir is a gift to anyone who has experienced the complicated or uncomplicated love of a child. The story of your daughter and what she meant to your family becomes universal in your hands. And yet remains uniquely your truth. This is such a powerful book. Thank you for your honesty."

    – Leigh Butler, Senior Vice President (retired), Penguin Publishing Group

  • "Having a special-needs child is not something any parent asks for. Yet when it happens, you learn to embrace the situation, no matter how much it overturns all your plans and expectations, no matter what bizarre, unpredictable, gruesome circumstances you find yourself in. Jody Gelb's 'micro- memoir She May Be Lying Down but She May Be Very Happy reports from the front lines of that battle. She packs a lifetime into 144 pages, divvied up into 43 short chapters. The lifetime is that of her first-born daughter, Lueza, whose traumatic birth damaged her brain and left her permanently with the mobility of a three-month-old infant. Given the relentless cascade of emergencies and physical challenges (some sample chapter titles: Screaming Into Towels, There Were No Tulips, The Fifth Neurologist, You Will Try, Wicked Mommy), it's astonishing to learn that Lueza lived to be sixteen. Composed in prose as economical as fine poetry yet direct as dirt, her stories are harrowing, hilarious, and heartbreaking, sometimes in the same breath.”

    — Don Shewey, Cultural Critic, Therapist, and Writer

  • "A poignant and a refreshingly restrained memoir… As she thoughtfully and understatedly explores the challenges of parenting a disabled child, Gelb also clearly reveals the profoundly transformative power of love.”

    — Kirkus Reviews

  • "This astonishing memoir lives in the sacred space where life and death meet. From its first startling sentence to its last, Gelb's extraordinary story grips us and never lets go… When I reached the final page, I took a breath and began again."

    — Martin Moran, author of The Tricky Part and All the Rage

  • "There is a space between private and public where we humans waver. She May Be Lying Down but She May Be Very Happy by Jody Gelb explores that liminal space by and through both her body as a mother, lover, performer, and the roles she has inhabited in her life... A tender triumph."

    — Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Thrust

  • "Within the first paragraph of discovering Jody Gelb's writing, I knew I was stepping into a world of language and emotion, unlike anything I'd ever encountered. Gelb's words don't just live on the page but seem to float above it, as if suspended from a great height by threads of silk. Maybe that's why this memoir, for all its gravity and dark places, retains so much light… You will never read another book like this."

    — Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion

  • "In her devastating, hilarious, pitch-perfect memoir about motherhood and mortality, Gelb proves that no family history is too tragic for laughter, no loss--even the death of a child--too painful for celebration. Filled with uncommon wisdom and hard-won insights, this book is a beacon for life's toughest moments, a welcome reminder that you're not alone."

    — Mark Matousek, author of Lessons from an American Stoic: How Emerson Can Change Your Life

  • "She May Be Lying Down but She May Be Very Happy was written by my beloved friend Jody Gelb, who, along with her daughter Lueza, were Sophie’s and my first friends in the disability world. We walked the streets of New York City together in the mid-nineties and reveled in our moves to the West Coast at the same time. We remain intensely connected, and while you might think that makes my opinion of the book biased, I can assure you that it’s a magnificent memoir and that I’d think that no matter who wrote it.”

    — Elizabeth Aquino

  • “The book is exquisite. I consumed it in two large gulps in the evenings of two consecutive workdays last week. I stayed up too late because I couldn’t put it down. It’s heartrending, and, as Meghan says, it’s full of light. The prose is fierce but also delicate: you evoke feelings with such power and precision and then whisk the reader away before there’s any drowning in them. We’re kept afloat until we learn, with you, how to traverse fear and sorrow and also to let joy in wherever we find it. What a labor, and what a result. It’s a beautiful monument to Lueza and a moving portrait of her remarkable mother.”

    – Laura Seitel

  • “Billed as a micro-memoir, this book may be brief, but it packs a lot into every chapter. Broadway actress Gelb has mastered the balance between matter-of-fact terse prose and tenderness when describing the most vulnerable moments of her life and that of her daughter. Her use of brevity and language is astonishing for a first-time author. Her narrative and storytelling do not include prescriptions or clichés. A short but emotional read.”

    – Library Journal

  • "She May Be Lying Down but She May Be Very Happy should be required reading for every pediatrician. It’s rare physicians get such an intimate, unflinching view into the life of a parent/caregiver with a special needs child, revealing both the daily joys and drudgeries. Refreshingly honest, with so much raw emotion in so few words that it’s poetic."

    — Carole E. Gervais, M.D.