GIMP
The Story Behind the Star of Murderball
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4.8 • 11 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
College soccer star Mark Zupan had been out drinking one night and had passed out in the back of his best friend's pickup truck when his friend got in the driver's seat, decided to take the truck for a spin, and accidentally crashed it. Thrown into a canal and stuck in frigid water for fourteen hours, Mark was finally rescued and learned soon after that he'd broken his neck. He'd most likely be a quadriplegic and spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, doctors told him. At first Mark's only goal was to walk again. When that proved impossible, he fell into the depths of anger and despair, retreating from the world and the people closest to him. But love, friendship, and a new sport, quad rugby (a.k.a. "murderball"), helped Mark create a new existence that's truly exceptional.
Gimp, the no-holds-barred memoir of a Paralympic athlete and the star of the Academy Award–nominated documentary Murderball, is an inspiring, defiant, and revealing celebration of spirit and will that confounds readers' prejudices by offering proof that a guy in a chair can still do amazing things: have sex with his girlfriend, party with his friends . . . even crowd-surf at Pearl Jam shows.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"I hate being called handicapped," says Zupan, whose competitiveness at quadriplegic rugby brought him national attention as one of the stars of the Oscar-nominated documentary Murderball. A passionate athlete before breaking his neck in an automobile accident when he was 18 years old, Zupan, now 31, is determined to play just as hard as ever from a wheelchair. But with his team's performance in the 2002 Paralympics already covered in the documentary, the sport that made him famous is relegated to a comparatively small portion of this memoir. Instead, Zupan focuses on the slow recovery process after his accident. Refusing to gloss his story, he speaks frankly and humorously about subjects like "quad sex." While watching the best friend who caused the accident tear himself apart with guilt, he describes how his own bottled-up frustrations impeded his recovery, leading him to stalk his ex-girlfriend and, years later, to be convicted on a drunk driving charge. As in the film, Zupan makes an unforgettable impression with his raw, brash energy.
