Dear Marcus: A Letter to the Man Who Shot Me

The scar from where the bullet entered my back is still there.

Jerry McGill was thirteen years old, walking home through the projects of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, when he was shot in the back by a stranger. Jerry survived, wheelchair-bound for life; his assailant was never caught. Thirty years later, Jerry wants to say something to the man who shot him.

I have decided to give you a name.

I am going to call you Marcus.

With profound grace, brutal honesty, and devastating humor, Jerry McGill takes us on a dramatic and inspiring journey—from the streets of 1980s New York, where poverty and violence were part of growing up, to the challenges of living with a disability and learning to help and inspire others, to the long, difficult road to acceptance, forgiveness, and, ultimately, triumph.

I didn’t write this book for you, Marcus. I wrote this for those who endure.

Those who manage. Those who are determined to move on.

From the Hardcover edition.