Synopses & Reviews
Chapter One
During my pregnancy with Jack, my first child, I worked in my stepfather's Boston law office and spent most of the day fantasizing about my baby and about its birth. I read someplace that one should keep a journal during pregnancy, and while I've always been too lazy for journal keeping, I thought I might chronicle the labor and birth, and perhaps even send in the result to one of the maternity publications that I had recently begun to read. These magazines printed real, firstperson accounts of childbirth, and I was especially fascinated by the home-birthing stories.
"Who are these women? I wondered as I read one enthralling birth story after another. They scrubbed their kitchen floors and home-schooled their older children while they labored, then, when it was time to push, they pulled a plastic tub out of a closet, squatted over it, and blithely expelled a baby into the hands of an astoundingly capable husband. The children would help stitch up Mom, and the placenta would be stored in a lunch box in the freezer, presumably to be displayed annually on the child's birthday.
Jack's due date was July 3, 1990, but his birth story began almost four months earlier on March 23, when my husband, Denis Leary, and I arrived in London for what was supposed to be a long weekend. Denis was scheduled to appear the following night on "Live from Paramount City, a BBC television show that featured unknown American and British comedy acts each week. We were young and broke, and producers were not yet in the habit of flying us anywhere, but the night before we had entered the first-class lounge at the Virgin terminal as if we flew first-class all the time, and during the flight I drank eight glasses of water, just as I'd been instructed to do in "What to Expect When You're Expecting. Our first child was due in another fourteen weeks, and I spent the entire flight basking in the knowledge that this squirming, curving, rapturous movement inside me was from our "baby. (Even in my thoughts, the word was italicized.)
For some reason I'd always had an uneasy suspicion that I would not be able to conceive a child, and when I did, I viewed it as nothing short of a miracle. Certainly I wasaware that it didn't require a lot of intellect or talent to procreate and that most people could do it. But I've always known that I desperately wanted to be a mother, and I suspected that I might be punished for some premarital sexual high jinks by having my tubes sealed shut or my womb rendered useless by some invisible disease. It's a Catholic thing. The year before, after having lived together since college, Denis and I had decided to get married, and I wanted to immediately try to have a baby. Fortunately, Denis isn't one of those bothersome types who worry about actually being able to clothe and feed the child once it's born, and he was only too happy to participate in the babyproducing scheme. We stopped using the birth control that I had always feared was pathetically uncalled for, and miraculously, after one night of trying, I became pregnant. Now my neurotic mental flight patterns were rerouted, and I was overwhelmed with fear about the well-being of my unborn baby.
A near miss occurred during my first trimester, when I began "spotting," a term I had never heard before but one that's relatively self-explanatory. In a panic I leftwork and started driving to Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I'd been assigned by my HMO to have my prenatal care. I drove through Charlestown and on toward Cambridge on what was then known as the Prison Point Bridge. I was trying to prevent the heaving sobs in my gut from working their way to the surface.
"I knew it, I thought, and as I sat in traffic, I was almost completely engulfed in self-pity when I noticed a man in a pickup ...
Review
“Fresh, heartfelt and hilarious...What a broad, what a mom--what a writer. I loved this book.” Michael J. Fox
Review
“Witty, engaging ...a poignant story with sprinklings of good old American neuroticism.” Elle
Review
“Funny, irreverent, witty and wise…compulsively readable.” Dani Shapiro
Review
“Sharp and funny and snide and soulful… Id hate her guts except that I want to be her best friend.” Cynthia Kaplan, author of Why I'm Like This
Review
“Uplifting, heart-cheering, and-in the most warm and human way-very, very funny….” Christina Bartolomeo, author of Cupid and Diana
Review
“Belongs next to David Sedariss Me Talk Pretty One Day and even Mark Twains Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court.” Ben Sherwood, author of The Man Who Ate The 747
Synopsis
The wife of actor/comedian Denis Leary gives us a hilarious and moving account of the unexpected premature birth of their son during what was supposed to be a weekend trip to London.
Synopsis
Ann Leary's hilarious, poignant, surprising, and heartfelt memoir,
An Innocent, a Broad, is a phenomenon -- a fascinating, hugely entertaining chronicle of two simultaneous, unexpected births: of a baby and a major show-business career.
When Ann and her husband, then unknown actor-comedian Denis Leary, flew to London in the early nineties, neither anticipated the adventure that was in store for them. Ann, in her second trimester of pregnancy, looked forward to a carefree mini-vacation in England before the onset of motherhood. Denis saw his upcoming appearance on a BBC comedy program as the opportunity he needed to rocket his career forward. Although they had packed for only two nights, it would be five long months before they would be able to return to the United States.
Ann's premature labor began the morning after the couple arrived in London and she suddenly found herself an unwitting yet grateful hostage of Britain's National Health Service -- a stranger in a strange land, abruptly plunged into a world of breast pumps and midwives, blood oxygen levels, mad cow disease, and poll-tax riots. Desperately worried about the health of their tiny, prematurely born son, Jack, Ann struggled to adapt to motherhood and make sense of a very different culture while, simultaneously, Denis found himself an overnight sensation on London's comedy scene.
At once an intimate family memoir, a lively travelogue, a touching love story, an inside look at the entertainment industry, and a side-splitting comedy of errors, Ann Leary's An Innocent, a Broad is an utterly engaging and unforgettable look at the bizarre twists and hairpin turns one can encounter on the road of life -- whether that road winds through a familiar neighborhood or a frustratingly foreign land.
About the Author
Ann Lembeck Leary has written for television and film. She is married to actor Denis Leary. They have two children, including a now healthy and hearty teenaged Jack, and live on a farm in Connecticut.