In less adept hands, this story might have been overworked and overwrought. The Frenches understood that straightforward was the only way to tell it.
Throughout the ordeal, their career-born mastery of registering every detail rarely dimmed, so descriptions are ripe and full. And their narratives of the daily ups and downs are leavened with the minutiae they couldn’t keep themselves from ferreting out as crisis after crisis erupted: facts and statistics on preemies, and questions of morality and societal priorities when it comes to taking heroic steps to try to save woefully underdeveloped babies.
Two parents, flawed in many ways, very different from each other, have written of a singular experience that is presented with such grace it is an almost universal story of love and determination and strength.