Friendly Fire
A Fractured Memoir
-
-
5.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- $4.99
Publisher Description
“A powerful, gut-wrenching tale of pain, suffering, and recovery.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS
“Unique and haunting…. A mesmerizing and unforgettable meditation on a stranger-than-fiction tragedy.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY STARRED REVIEW
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, and balanced with refreshing moments of humor, 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rousseau recounts how he survived a gunshot wound to the head in this unique and haunting account. In 2017, the author was in his on-campus apartment a month before college graduation, cleaning up a mess left by his roommate and best friend, Mark, when he felt "something" come at him through the wall, leaving him "blindsided, tackled into a pool of cough syrup." That "something" was a bullet, accidentally fired by Mark from two rooms away. Afraid of the consequences, Mark didn't call for help immediately, delaying critical care for Rousseau, who suffered a traumatic brain injury and severe PTSD. With punchy, insightful prose, Rousseau details the fallout, including the rift the incident caused between him and Mark, the financial challenges he faced as he tried to pay his medical bills, and the toll it all took on his psyche ("As my body has gotten better, my mind has gotten worse," he tells his physical therapist). Certain details are infuriating, including Mark's insurance company employing hack doctors to squash Rousseau's personal injury claim; others are unsettling, including Rousseau's assertion that the ordeal turned him into "a rabid brute whose sole intention is to destroy." The result is a mesmerizing and unforgettable meditation on a stranger-than-fiction tragedy.
