"Genius.Each of the text's 424 fragmentary entries exemplifies the wild, illogical path the mind takes on the way to getting a grip, or to losing one.Mainardi has crafted a masterly work in the best memoir tradition, placing emphasis less on what happened than on what he (and therefore we) can perceive because it happened ." -- The New York Times Book Review "Odd and enchanting.Paternal rage, fear, guilt, and joy suffuse every page.Any parent of a child with or without a disability will appreciate [ The Fall 's] eloquence." -- The Boston Globe "A new way to think about imperfection, expectation, exaltation, and love." --NPR, Weekend Edition Saturday "Mainardi creates a particular journey into the universe of his mind, directed by his son.
" -- Publishers Weekly "A heartbreaking, brain-expanding hymn of love by a father for his son." -- Oprah.com "Masterfully written.A singularly compelling memoir." -- Kirkus (Starred review) "Mainardi.picks the world up and erects it as a monument of meaning to his own son." -- Financial Times "[I]ndelible.This poetic and unsentimental memoir shines with a father's love and a child's indomitable spirit.
" -- BBC.com "Heartbreaking, astonishing and wise, Mainardi's telling of Tito's story is not to be missed." -- Book Reporter "[O]riginal, defying common precepts of what the reader believes he is reading." -- CounterPunch Weekend Edition "[A] beautiful book." -- Tweed's Book Blog " The Fall is a mercurial and enriching walk through 'off-script' fatherhood, cerebral palsy, art history, and this commonplace mystery, love. The Fall is wise and kind and moving." --David Mitchell, best-selling author of Cloud Atlas "A wise and unsentimental description of what it is like to be parent to a child with cerebral palsy--an episodic portrait of a very intimate paternal journey." --Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon "Fathering a disabled child, like the plaza outside the Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo to which Diogo Mainardi consistently returns, is uneven terrain.
In The Fall , Mainardi traverses that terrain in 424 lucid, deeply arresting steps." --Ron Suskind, Pultizer Prize-winning journalist and author of Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism. " The Fall , Diogo Mainardi's remarkable celebration of his son Tito, who was born with cerebral palsy because of a doctor's negligence, is intensely moving, rational, literate, and an absolute joy to read from start to finish." --John Berendt, New York Times best-selling author of Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil and The City of Falling Angels " The Fall is a moving portrait of a relationship with a child and a place. It is a rare book; by turns heartbreaking, angry, and lyrical." --Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes "[ The Fall ] will intrigue, delight and surprise you." -- BLOOM Blog "The Fall connects the disparate, and what results is an artful collage of acceptance, growth and appreciation." -- Sacramento News & Reviews "[E]nthralling.
a stirring reminder of how much a fallacy 'inferiority' is." -- The Jersey Journal .