I was looking at a birth certificate from the 1930s, and at the bottom, above the signature of the physician–mind you, this was a terrible copy of the certificate–were the words, “Born alive.”
And I thought, there’s a book title there. And a cover, a close-up of the birth certificate and the words. Heck, that’s the title, a faded typewritten imprimatur of live birth. What’s it about? No idea. But it’s intriguing.