Drowning Quietly

“By the time the doctors were ready to do the first round of assisted fertilization, my wife had been to hormonal hell and back. All that remained was to ‘introduce’ the father’s seed to the eggs.

"This they did, literally. They introduced a bunch of my sperm cells to one of my wife’s eggs. All those swimmers had to do was swim across the petri dish over to the egg and fertilize it. All that egg required was for one (just one!) of the two million sperm cells to swim over, whisper, ‘Well, hello there, honey’ into the egg’s ear, and—boom!—one pregnant woman.

"They couldn’t even manage that. Instead, they swam around aimlessly, like goldfish in a pond, until they ran out of steam and died.”

Infertility treatments—along with witches and angels, Catholic school, a life-changing swimming pool incident, Italian hillbillies, and much more—are all part of Pellegrino Riccardi’s at times heartbreaking and at times hilarious recounting of his life.

Playful and provocative, this memoir not only entertains but inspires profound conversation about what “masculinity” means today. Riccardi’s writing is witty and lyrical, even when discussing uncomfortable topics. His raw, touching, and admirably revealing account of his strengths and failings as a man, a husband, and a father will open a dialogue many men have been unwilling to explore about vulnerability, strength, gender roles, expressing emotions, and how and why men think and act the way they do. If you’ve ever wanted to eavesdrop on the unspoken thoughts of a man, this book will not disappoint!