Surviving Survival The Art & Science of Resilience

The shark attacked while she was snorkeling, tearing through Micki Glenn's breast and shredding her right arm. Her husband, a surgeon, saved her life on the spot, but when she was safely home she couldn't just go on with her life. She had entered an even more profound survival journey: the aftermath. The survival experience changes everything because it invalidates all your previous adaptations, and the old rules don't apply. In some cases survivors suffer more in the aftermath than they did during the actual crisis. In all cases, they have to work hard to reinvent themselves. Drawing on gripping cases across a wide range of life-threatening experiences, Laurence Gonzales fashions a compelling argument about fear, courage, and the adaptability of the human spirit. Micki Glenn was later moved to say: "I don't regret that this happened to me. [It] has been . . . probably the single most positive experience I've ever had."

"Illness. Divorce. Job Loss. The Death of a loved one. You don't get this far in life without experiencing some adversity. But while you can't avoid painful events, you can learn to control your response to them. Here, [Gonzales] revals how recovery can be a transforming experience that not only moves us forward but also enriches our lives in ways we never could have imagined." More Magazine

"Excellent . . . an education for those wishing to be of use in a stressful, often frightening world." Kirkus Reviews

You have survived the crisis--trauma, disease, accident, or war--now how do you get your life back?

Laurence Gonzales is the author of Surviving Survival and the bestseller Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why. He has won two National Magazine Awards and is a fellow of the Santa Fe Institute. His essays are collected in the book House of Pain. He lives in Evanston, Illinois.