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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionsHalf a Lifeby Darin Strauss
AwardsStaff Pick
Darin Strauss dissects the one event that forever demarcates his life: as a teenager, he kills a schoolmate after hitting her with his car. To his credit, Strauss never once plays the pity card; instead he seems to question his every emotion and thought for signs of weakness. As he grows into adulthood, he shares his story with others and sits unflinchingly while they either excoriate or coddle him. No, this memoir is not for the faint of heart — demanding introspection and exhaustive emotional digging are the hallmarks of his life. Half a Life not only describes Strauss's life but also his schoolmate's life, and he mines this reality for all its subtle and explicit meaning. Kudos to Strauss for his strength in not only living this particular nightmare but for sharing it, as well. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:"Half my life ago, I killed a girl."
So begins Darin Strauss' Half a Life, the true story of how one outing in his father's Oldsmobile resulted in the death of a classmate and the beginning of a different, darker life for the author. We follow Strauss as he explores his startling past — collision, funeral, the queasy drama of a high-stakes court case — and what starts as a personal tale of a tragic event opens into the story of how to live with a very hard fact: we can try our human best in the crucial moment, and it might not be good enough. Half a Life is a nakedly honest, ultimately hopeful examination of guilt, responsibility, and living with the past. Review:"Strauss's spare memoir begins with a confession: 'Half my life ago, I killed a girl.' Strauss (The Real McCoy) readily acknowledges the problems of writing about this event, the result of a moment's distraction-trying to avoid aestheticizing reality, questioning his own self-involvement, admitting to playing a role of contrition, even remarking that '...tragedy turns a life into an endless publicity tour, a string of appearances where you actually think in words like "tragedy"'-yet a discomfiting tone pervades, and some of the author's concerns, such as those related to public perception, may alienate readers. As Strauss breezes through key events that span over a decade, he reminds us that life seldom involves the drama of deep atonement, epiphanies, unadulterated grief, or nightmarish flashbacks. A much more complicated mixture of selfish relief, sadness, and survivor's guilt informs the aftermath of unthinkable events, and what proves most frightening is the gradual awareness that one has begun to forget; forgetting contains not just the drive to move ahead, but also the fear of erasure. Strauss delivers an unexpected take on remorse with the maturity that only comes from earnest reflection.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved." Publishers Weekly (Copyright PWyxz LLC) Review:"At the center of this elegant, painful, stunningly honest memoir thrums a question fundamental to what it means to be human: What do we do with what we’ve been given?...What is truly exceptional here is watching a writer of fine fiction probe, directly, carefully and with great humility, the source from which his fiction springs." Dani Shapiro, The New York Times Book Review
Review:"I recently went on a trip with a couple of friends, one of whom brought along Half a Life. The book's slender enough that the three of us devoured it in three days — and beautifully written enough that we spent the rest of the trip discussing it....You may have heard Strauss tell this tale on NPR's This American Life. Here's the written version, by a terrific storyteller who doesn't waste a word. (Grade: A)" Entertainment Weekly
Review:"With honesty and sensitivity, Strauss looks not only at how that fateful incident decades ago ended Celine's young life, but also at how it greatly affected his. Out of undoubtedly complicated circumstances, he crafts a simple yet remarkable story about pain and guilt, maturity and responsibility, hope and understanding." The San Francisco Chronicle
Review:"Strauss already has a few well-received novels under his belt, and his turn to nonfiction of a highly personal nature, a slow-release mediation on grief, is no less symphonic." Booklist
Review:"[A] remarkable, beyond-brave memoir....With astounding frequency, Strauss pinpoints truths that most of us would find indescribable, and ultimately arrives at an insight as profound as it is impossible to accept..." O, the Oprah Magazine
Review:"[A]n unusually honest, thoughtful and unsettling memoir, which readers and critics are destined to call 'brave' — for it is brave. But the book is more than simply brave, it is a searingly self-disciplined work of literature, and of self-examination....
Synopsis:Strauss shares the true story of how one high school outing in his father's Oldsmobile resulted in the tragic death of a young girl, and the beginning of a different, darker life for the author. He delves deep into the meaning and consequences of that fateful, or possibly fateless, day.
About the AuthorDarin Strauss is the international bestselling author of the New York Times Notable books Chang and Eng and The Real McCoy, and the national bestseller More Than It Hurts You. His work has been translated into fourteen languages and published in seventeen countries.
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