"A colorful, harrowing, engrossing account of mothering in extremis by one of the world's last bohemians and true free spirits. Nehring has a lot to teach the rest of us about finding adventure and joy during times of...crisis."
-Katie Roiphe author of In Praise of Messy Lives and editor of Janet Malcolm: The Last Interview and Other Conversations
"Yes, there are hard-won lessons to be wrung from Cristina Nehring's ongoing odyssey as the single mother of a Down syndrome child and spun into lyric wisdom. But The Child Who Never Spoke: 231/2 Lessons in Fragility is more than a guidebook to the uses and unexpected gifts of adversity. It is a love story, an adventure tale, an impetuous travelog, and a suspenseful medical saga (you can almost hear the hospital beeps in the background, the shuffle of footsteps down the halls) borne along by Nehring's buoyant breadth of spirit and the unbreakable bond with her daughter Eurydice. And the writing! So elegant and intimate. It's like hearing from a cherished friend after way too long." -James Wolcott, author of the memoir Lucking Out and the essay collection Critical Mass"One of the most graceful, tender and wise books I have ever read."
-Christina Hoff Sommers, Senior Fellow Emeritus, American Enterprise Institute; author of The War on Boys