Coward

A single crash changes everything. The writer wakes to learn he will never walk again, and he is left reliant on a wheelchair, with no income and no job. He is also forced to move back into the family home, under the same roof as a father he has barely spoken to for a decade. Shoplifting, dependence on painkillers and the condescension of strangers who assume he cannot think for himself push him toward ruin.

While he tries to rebuild, he revisits the years that came before. He recalls a family tragedy that tore his household apart, the reasons he left, and the harm he has done to himself and to the people around him. Slowly he begins to suspect that what has been broken need not stay that way.

The book is a meditation on hurt and forgiveness, on how disabled people are treated by everyday society, and on the personal narratives we construct about our own lives and the conclusions we hope to reach.