The Life You Longed For: A Novel

by Maribeth Fischer

When every mother's worst nightmare becomes Grace's reality, she must examine her entire life -- from the wrong choices to the right mistakes. Grace's son Jack is a miracle. At three years old, he's fighting a mysterious, deadly disease that his doctors predicted would kill him as a baby. Even though it was determined to be mitochondrial disease, the little-known illness remains a mystery to medicine. Grace has sat by his bedside every minute he has been in the hospital, questioned every diagnosis, every medicine -- even poring over medical journals and books at home late into the night. To the world, Grace's fierce dedication is the sole reason for her son's survival. But someone suspects that perhaps Jack's disease is not what it seems.

When an allegation of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is leveled against Grace, she begins to live in constant suspicion of everyone -- from the doctors and nurses surrounding her son in the hospital to her own husband. Who could possibly think that she has been purposely making her son ill to gain attention for herself?

Although her husband believes their life is exactly as it seems to the outside world, Grace knows differently. She is harboring a secret -- the adulterous affair she's having with her first love. But perhaps her biggest betrayal of all is her shameful uncertainty about whether she's chosen the right path, the right husband, the right life.

In this compelling and heartbreaking novel, critically acclaimed author Maribeth Fischer addresses how the choices we made yesterday can affect everything that lies before us.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Family Drama, Adult Fiction, Drama

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 6, 2007

Reviews

[Kaye-lynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really hated this book. It's portrait of the hospital and justice systems in regards to children is so far off base. These are the types of books that people read and then believe this tripe.It makes me very upset. I know it's on the fiction shelf but as someone in my book club said "I always think that the author has done the reserch". Real reserch presents a fair version of reality, not this half baked skewed version. Also the main character is so unlikable and unbelievable. You can tell that the author has never been a parent herself.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming from the angle of having had a child that passed away from a mitochondrial disease which is still being diagnosed, this book was very touching. Being checked for Munchausen is very commmon for families with these disease/disorders because so little is known about them. This is also the case with families that have children with other rare disorders and those that are undiagnosed. You will do everything possible for your child and all of us doctor shop to find doctors that know the most about the disease affecting our child. We want the best care possible for our children so they can have the best quality of life while they are here. Many docs do take offense to this as they feel we are saying they are inept, but we are really saying that we want to put together the best possible team for our child. Our team, thankfully, was receptive to this, but I know many others not as blessed.

[Kristen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the very few books I've started that I just have no interest at all in finishing. It was a "reader's choice" nominee from the library, but I was just so bothered by the basic premise (that she married the "wrong" guy, didn't get the life she wanted and so feels justified in having an affair with her "true love") that I couldn't even concentrate on what the story is supposed to be about - her terminally ill son and her being accused of "munchhausen's by proxy" (or whatever it it is where the mother is supposedly making the kid sick on purpose). Anyway, there was nothing offensive (explicitly) or anything, I just hated the story. Maybe it gets better and ends well, but I'm not willing to read any more of it to find out.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

From birds to moons, hockey, an obscure illness, the Salem Witch trials and Munchausen's Syndrome, the author did her homework thoroughly. A mom with 3 children and supportive husband, is the caretaker for the youngest, a three year old with a rare illness, mitochondrial myopathy. Did she long for the life she didn't have with her first love or the life she's now living? I enjoyed this book immensely and felt the words more intensely than I should.

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Why make a point once when you can make it 40 different times in increasingly melodramatic ways?

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Life You Longed For by Maribeth Fischer is a major disappointment for me. I loved The Language of Good-bye - her earlier novel. I expected much more from The Life You Longed For.

The synopsis promises a compelling story of a mother trying to handle three children, her youngest (3-year old Jack) with a terminal disease, while not loosing herself as an individual. She keeps house, carts the kids to school and events, keeps Jack's doctor appointments and manages her marriage to Stephen. Grace tells herself she is doing her best coping with life. In reality she is barely hanging on. She is wrapped up in all she thinks she doesn't have instead of seeing all she does have in her life (my editorial comment).

Grace has looked up her first love - Noah - from her days as a 17-year old and Noah a college man (as if she doesn't have enough going on in her life, she adds this stress). Noah is now an ornithologist and lives close by. They begin an affair. In the middle of this, Grace is accused of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in her care of Jack. Grace spends the story ringing her hands and having insipid conversations with family and friends over the accusation. That sounds mean, and I apologize for it. I think Fischer should have tried harder to create more believable conversations and thoughts for Grace.

I really don't like any of the characters. Grace's parents are the most believable but all the other characters are flat and filler. Grace is mostly portrayed as intelligent but her actions make her melodramatic and irritating. Her sappy, insincere treatment of her children and husband just grated on my nerves. Fischer re-used "silly" so often it appeared every several pages; the interludes from the past slapped into a present scene are choppy and the constant annoying uses of Grace's nicknames for the children made me wonder if an editor read the manuscript.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm one of "those people" who has a favorite novel, like I have a favorite movie, actor, actress, musician, etc. Maribeth Fischer's first book The Language of Goodbye is my favorite of all time.

So this second novel I read with some trepidation and finished with disappointment. Too many facts, statistics, definitions, and research (which makes sense given that the mother does a lot of research to advocate for her sick child.) But I just wanted the beautiful story.

[Alisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Though I liked the style of the author of this book, I didn't agree with her decision to have an affair during the course of the story. Made me wonder what I would do in a situation with a child in this same situation. Thought provoking, but again, didn't like the affair aspect.

[Lesley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just did not get this story and why the affair was brought into it.

[Valentina Brotto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una mamma che sa di non avere tutto il tempo a disposizione perché il suo bambino ha una malattia rara, e non vivrà ancora a lungo.
La segnalazione per una sospetta sindrome di Munchausen per procura, che la farà cadere in un baratro dove tutta la fiducia nei suoi punti di riferimento verrà messa in dubbio.
Una romanzo struggente, che mette in luce cuore e ragione nei diversi punti di vista di chi lo vive, e approfondisce un tema dove il giudizio errato porta ancora più dolore in una situazione già tragica per sua natura.

[Mary Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

An emotional book from start to finish. I laughed, cried and got angry throughout the book. Angry at Grace for the thoughtless decisions she made, angry at the system. I laughed at the things Jack said and did that 3year olds do. I cried because of the pain the family was in.

[Adriana · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a good story but you can't keep that level of tension and horror throughout a whole book. It was unsustainable for me to stay there as a reader.

[Elke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking read

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

grace's life with family, a gravely ill child, an old love,and an accusation of Munchausen by proxy is full of struggle.

[Elisa Vangelisti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Non so quasi cosa dire, e mi sembra impossibile. Ho acquistato questo romanzo per 2 euro al mercatino della biblioteca della mia città. Ero titubante, ma la sinossi mi intrigava. L’ho letto con pesantezza… sì, è proprio la parola adatta. Niente di questo romanzo è leggero, neanche una parola, eppure l’ho amato dall’inizio alla fine. Del resto, cosa c’è di più terribile della morte di un figlio? I figli simboleggiano la nostra eternità e – come poche altre cose – danno un senso all’esistenza. Nonostante non sia lunghissimo, ci ho messo tre giorni per finirlo: un tempo che per me è piuttosto lungo, ma è talmente pieno di concetti profondi e assoluti da dover essere centellinato. Occorre che un fatto, un capitolo sia ben consolidato prima di poter affrontare il successivo. C’è stato un passaggio leggendo il quale ho quasi pianto. Ho ringraziato Maribeth per ogni singola parola e per essere riuscita a scatenare in me così tanto dolore. Chi mi conosce sa che in genere appena annuso la sofferenza abbandono la lettura, ma con “La vita che volevo” non è andata così. Trovo superfluo descrivere in breve la trama e di solito non lo faccio, perché basta cercare il romanzo in rete per capire di che si tratta, ma per spiegare quanto questo libro mi sia entrato sotto pelle dirò solo che è una storia vera. Che l’autrice ha tre figli, come me. Che ha il terrore di perderli, come me. E che la sua storia si intreccia alla mia non tanto perché sia identica, quanto per le sensazioni che mi trasmette come persona. Amo questo libro.
Nota sulla copertina: quella italiana (io ho l’edizione di Mondolibri, ma quella di Piemme è uguale) è inquietante e tristissima: pare si concentri sul bambino e la sua sofferenza. Preferisco di gran lunga quella originale, perché se non altro raffigura l’abbraccio della madre a suo figlio. Il titolo originale credo sia più esaustivo, anche se non sono convinta di averlo tradotto correttamente.

Rilettura.
Dolorosissimo e onesto, è un libro pesante che richiede il momento giusto per essere letto. È una stranezza della mia libreria, solitamente piena di storie a lieto fine e leggere, che lasciano il sorriso. Maribeth invece mi lascia sempre con un velo di pesante malinconia addosso. Forse perché fa pensare e rimestare fra le proprie delusioni e convinzioni destabilizza molto. È scritto molto bene, è chiaro e tratteggia molto bene i caratteri dei personaggi. Saggio e consapevole, pieno d’amore e di compassione, lo consiglio a tutti quelli che hanno figli. Forse anche a chi non ne ha.

rilettura (da 5 a 1 stella)
ricordo bene perchè questo romanzo mi aveva colpito e resto della stessa opinione. è un romanzo che merita di essere letto. purtroppo al momento ho voglia di cose leggere, quindi lo lascio andare. è troppo straziante per i miei gusti, non ce la faccio più ad affrontarlo.

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

Am I a bad person for disliking a woman who’s trying to save her dying child’s life? Probably, but that’s the long and the short of it. This book is an instant Mom Book classic, what with the subject matter (protecting dying children) and the tearful should-I-shouldn’t-I regarding an extramarital affair conversations that just kept happening over and over again. The overall premise of this book was very intriguing, as I really didn’t know anything about Munchausen’s (besides what you might glean from shows like Criminal Minds), and I was in need of a classic Jodi Picoult-type read.

Alas, alack, this book didn’t deliver all that much for me.
At first, I thought it might be a kind of Midwives situation; instead of being told from the first person, it’s told in third person, which, just an aside, is so much better for these emotionally-charged mom books. It somehow makes it more authentic than just reading 300 pages of someone saying how stressed or scared or sad they were. But I digress. Anyway, I thought it was going to be a thought-provoking exploration of the dark side of motherhood and medicine etc etc but it really wasn’t. Besides finding Grace super annoying, I found the dying CHILD annoying, too, which I KNOW makes me a bad person. I just found all of Jack’s dialogue and mannerisms really unbelievable, and not in a like, “wow, he’s too good to be true he’s so adorable!” way, but more like “get out of here ranga” way.

And why, oh WHY are there so many spelling mistakes in this book? Have we never heard of editors, proofreaders, and everything in those veins? And it was broken up into a lot of weird chunks, with a lot of weird breaks and discontinuity and I don’t know guys, it’s just not that great. When I started writing this I thought maaaaybe it could be a 3? But #jokes this is a 2. I made the mistake of recommending this book to my mom and now she’s going to be annoyed because it’s really not that good. But what can you do.

[Gwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

One thing I loved about this novel, strange as this may be to say, is the actual information gained from reading. Fischer obviously put much thought and research into this work; she says in an interview in the back of the book that this is the result of five years of reading on the various subjects, and it shows. I learned things I did not know before about birds, Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and the Salem Witch Trials. Of course it's all about the story, but as well as a good story, I was glad to come away having learned something.

Some of the things the main character, Grace, does are difficult to understand as a reader. So I think Fischer has a skillful voice, in that she makes Grace sympathetic and accessible. The pacing and plotting of this book is strong, and secondary characters are interesting and well-constructed. I especially loved Grace's friend, the historian Kempley. I liked Kempley's perspective on the world -- she injects some especially thought-provoking ideas about history and Munchausen syndrome by proxy. I'm not sure I agree with her, but I liked being prompted to think about some of the issues.

So that speaks to the technical aspects of the novel, but what had me getting all misty-eyed in my airline seat? This book plays on two of my biggest fears about ever having children: the fear of having a sick child and having to watch them suffer, and possibly even die, and the fear of ever facing a bogus CPS complaint. There were times reading this book when I closed it for a second and thought, "My god, I'm terrified of having children." This novel makes what Grace and her family suffers seems very real. It wasn't the most enjoyable book I ever read, for just that reason, but it was certainly touching.

[Marjanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally I rate books based on whether I would read them again and/or liked it enough to want to own it. However, I did not really 'like' this book, but it did make an impact on me. It made me re-evaluate how I judge others and situations. This novel is about a mother who has a child with a rare disease who is accused of Munchausen’s. Naturally it is a very sad story. I liked and disliked how they compared the mother’s grief with the events of 9/11. I generally dislike how often that event is utilized, though in this case I can see how this national event can help us all to relate better to this character. Anyhow I don't want to give away too much about the story. I do think that most people who read it would get something out of it.

[Lyndsie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book revolves around a family who is dealing with a very sick baby. Nobody really understands his sickness, so when his mother is accused of Munchausen's Syndrome, it threatens to tear their family apart. Of course, it doesn't help that she's having an affair on the side.
A lot of people don't like this book because of the affair aspect. Well, the author isn't saying it's a good thing. But neither is she saying it's a bad thing. It just is. I read this book in a single sitting. My mother read it after I did, and although it's been a few months, we both still think about it and talk about it often. It's one that sticks with you.

[CherylBCz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Was led to this book b/c it's about Manchausen's which I'm familiar with. Part of the story was interesting but I could only give it one star b/c the author's writing is erratic, horrible. It's set in Philly in 2001. Now, I lived there then, and there is no way people emailed their lovers as frequently as she writes, nor did children get their own cell phones, nor did the winters get cold enough to actually skate on the lakes. Also the statistics read like a medical journal or report/ also there is just too much information about the damn birds. And the editing wasn't very good either.

Very disappointing b/c the potential was there.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since Fischer's The Language of Goodbye is one of my all-time favorites, I expected to love this book. I've been waiting for her to write another for years! Though I see her beautiful style shining through, the storyline is upsetting and leaves gaps that cannot be dismissed. I'm disappointed. An inexperienced social worker's opinion that a mother should lose custody of her child simply because she "fits a profile" simply would not happen. The judge didn't even agree until she learned that the mother had been having an affair but again, why does having an affair equal that the mother is a child abuser? Fischer needs to work on this one some more.

[Laren · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mother with a medical background has a young son with a rare disease which she is subsequently accused of causing. This book is about her coping with the false accusations while simulateously coping with the fact that her son's disease might kill him, plus how all the resulting stress is negatively affecting her marriage. The book is very well written, but the main character's insights weren't enough to haunt my thoughts when I was done. Ultimately, by nature of the subject matter, it is one depressing book.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book I picked up from the "Reader's Choice" list at the library. It is about a woman who is living a life she wishes were different. At the same time her child becomes sick and through the course of the story she is accused of Munchausen's by Proxy. The resolution of the story is different than I expected. I felt a sadness and an ache for this mom whose life was so turned upside down by choices she had made and events that were beyond her control. It is a lesson on being judgemental....

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a mother of very young children, this was a hard book for me to read. As a wife with a philandering 1st husband, I also had a hard time with Grace's infidelity and how she rationalized it. That being said, any book that can get me totally and emotionally wrapped up in it gets high marks. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading Fischer's debut novel, The Language of Good-bye.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just finished this one. Why I keep getting the highly emotional ones lately no one can be sure. Maybe I need a catharsis. Anyway, while I wasn't to please with the infidelity, I did enjoy this book. I felt her grief at the loss of her child and found many strange comparisons with the strange stages of grief she goes through, such as being clumsy and forgetful… It felt real, and I love the Mom's devotion to her son. Another one that got the tears flowing!!!

[Marianne Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever dealt with a sick child? My daughter and son were both sick with a seizure disorder - this was only for a handful of years....they outgrew it. However the fear consumed me day and night.

I could not imagine what my life would be like if my child was diagnosed with a disease that would take my child's life.

This book could have been great. Take out all the bird stuff - and it could have been great.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Life You Longed For is about a mother who's youngest child has a rare disease and she is accused of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. This accusation threatens to rip her family apart. What I liked about this book was the fact that it focused on the seemingly small decisions that we make every day and how those decisions can sometimes have huge, long-term consequences.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very touching story about a mother whose child has a terminal illness. She is struggling to cope with being a wife and mother, and is accused of munchausen sydrome by proxy. She takes a look at her life and wonders what it would have been like had she made other choices. Sometimes sad, but shows the love and dedication of a mother. I can't put it down.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a downer, but made you think of a few issues from another perspective, which I like. It was also very sad, but such is life, and I found the events to be pretty realistic. Wasn't thrilled about the way the book wrapped up and there seemed to be a few unnecessary chapters that I skimmed through. Overall a good book that I think is worth reading.

[Tee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story stuck out in my mind for five years. I was in a book club back then and this was a recommended title. I couldn't remember the title when I got this app and went through a lot to find it on google. At the time I had no idea this condition existed and this story was very sad. It's something that sticks with you. I highly recommend this.