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A Fractured Memoir
by Paul Rousseau
One month before his college graduation, Paul Rousseau is accidentally shot in the head by his roommate and best friend.
At some point in the course of Paul and Mark's friendship, Mark acquired—legally and with required permits—five firearms. Those weapons lived with them in their college apartment. It was a non-issue for the two best friends. They were inseparable. They were twenty-two-year-old boys at the height of their college experience, unaware that everything was about to change forever.
The bullet ripped through two walls before it struck Paul's skull. Mark had accidentally pulled the trigger while in the other room and—frightened for his own future—delayed getting treatment for Paul, who miraculously remained conscious the entire time. In vivid detail, Friendly Fire brings us into the world of both the shooting itself and its surgical counterpoint—the dark spaces of survival in the face of a traumatic brain injury and into the paranoid, isolating, dehumanizing maw of personal injury cases.
Friendly Fire is the story of a friendship—both its formation and its destruction. Through phenomenal writing and gripping detail, Paul reveals a compelling and inspirational story that speaks to much of contemporary American life.
"Unique and haunting…. A mesmerizing and unforgettable meditation on a stranger-than-fiction tragedy." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A powerful, gut-wrenching tale of pain, suffering, and recovery." —Kirkus Reviews
''The words are simple,' writes Rousseau, 'I got shot in the head by my best friend at school.' But this story is anything but simple: a shattered life, broken friendship, long recovery and loss of self. Rousseau writes this vivid, startling memoir the only way he can: fractured. And in that structure there is so much beauty, so much bravery, and so much stubborn elegance—this is a gorgeous book that cuts to the bones of American life and a terrible injury." —Amber Sparks, author of And I Do Not Forgive You
"One of the most riveting memoirs I've read in years, Friendly Fire unfolds with urgency and so much heart, and the magic lies in how effortlessly Paul Rousseau tells this wrenching story. This is a big-time debut from a big-time talent." —James Tate Hill, author of Blind Man's Bluff
"This book is powerful, surprising, moving--and impossible to put down." —Austin Ross, author of Gloria Patri
This information about Friendly Fire was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Paul Rousseau is a disabled writer with work in Roxane Gay's The Audacity, Catapult, and elsewhere. You can find more of his work online at Paul-Rousseau.com.
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