Girl in Glass: Dispatches from the Edge of Life

Winner of 2016 Books for a Better Life Award A Washington Post Book Club Selection A Public Books Favorite Book of 2015 When her daughter was born nearly four months premature Deanna Fei confronted a shattering question: Had she delivered a child or lost one? Over months in the hospital as she held the hand of a tiny baby fighting for her life inside a glass box she came to grips with parenthood at its most elemental. Then a year after she brought her daughter home the CEO of her husbands company publicly blamed the medical bills of the beautiful now-thriving little girl for a cut in employee benefits and attached a price tag to her life setting off a national firestorm. Girl in Glass is the riveting story of one childs harrowing journey and a mothers impassioned defense of human worth against corporate disregard. With luminous prose and an unflinching eye Fei explores what it means to save a life: from the front lines of a neonatal intensive care unit to the perils of the American health-care system; from decades of medical innovation to the question of how we care for our most vulnerable; and finally to the potent force of a childs will to live. Above all Girl in Glass is a testament to how love takes hold when a new life defies all expectations.