Shattered: A Memoir

"This is an astonishing book. It’s so moving. I think one cannot read this book without an emotional reaction. One Boxing Day, he has an accident and he wakes utterly changed. He cannot move his limbs, his torso. It’s terrifying. But it is hopeful and it’s also hilarious. He makes jokes, has a sense of humour throughout. It’s funny, and that was very appealing to me. But it’s also incredibly moving and candid. It’s the narrator’s search to find himself and his identity as a writer. He says he had become divorced from himself; that he was altered and unrecognisable to himself, and yet he still wanted to keep writing and telling stories, and so he found a way to do that. This book is a singular, incredible achievement. I wouldn’t say it is enjoyable, but it is important. And there’s an immersiveness—you go deep into his voice and his perspective. So this is a book about loss too: the loss of one’s body. Yet he still has writing, and I know that as long as I can still have writing, my words, there will be some comfort. If I could still have that part of me, then I still have something."