Read as part of CBR13Bingo: Representation. Drew Magary writes about suffering a traumatic brain injury and adjusting to the ill effects of it that left him non-able bodied.
There are very few books I’d recommend to people across my family/friends spectrum. This is one. Perhaps it is one of one.
Drew Magary is one of my favorite writers but it sure as hell didn’t start out that way. At Kissing Suzy Kolber, I found him to be a loud-mouthed bully, the kind of guy who thinks that having the right politics allows him to be a bigoted jerk to everyone else (Magary admitted as much years later). I’m not giving myself retroactive woke-points or anything like that; I just found him more brash than funny.
But he evolved as a writer and his piece on his son almost dying in the NICU hit me in the heart, especially since my wife had just miscarried that year. It taught me that he was really a deep thinker underneath all that and as he began to use his particular voice in ways that I found more humorous than annoying, I did a complete 180 on his work. Now he’s a must-read for me. He definitely helped to get me through the Trump era.
Like many fans, I grieved at his mysterious injury suffered over the holiday season in 2018, not learning the full details until months later and being horrified, glad he was still alive but sorry he endured that. Here, at last, he’s ready to lay it out in its full anti-glory.
And he does it in only the way he can, with raw humor, touching moments and brutal honesty. Magary can’t be anyone but himself and while I enjoy it, it sure sounds like it was a nightmare for his family to endure as they waited on his recovery. He carries them all with him as he makes misstep after misstep in trying to rebuild his life.
This book made me laugh. It made me tear up. It made me consider God’s interactions with the world (in a weird way, it dovetailed so nicely with a scene from the finale of Midnight Mass, which I finished the night before this). It’s excellent. Read it. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.