Half a Life - Couverture rigide

WINNER OF THE 2011 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHY

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 car resulted in the death of a classmate and the beginning of a different, darker life for the author. The reader follows Strauss as he blurs through his startling past - collision, funeral, the queasy drama of a high-stakes court case. Half a Life is a nakedly honest and painful, yet ultimately hopeful, examination of guilt, responsibility and living with past actions written in Strauss' beautiful, stark and sharp prose.

'Precise, elegantly written, fresh, wise, and very sad. Rich and meaningful, the care and thought that have gone into every line of Half a Life are indicative not only of a very talented writer, but of a proper human being.' - Nick Hornby

'A story of hope and what it means to be human.' - Carrie Fisher

'This might be the bravest book you will ever read.' - Kelly Corrigan

'Half a Life is the best anything I've read - novel, memoir, story - in a very long time. Read it, be swallowed, come out changed.' - David Lipsky

'Elegant, painful, stunningly honest. 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.' - New York Times

'Lyrical and haunting. A remarkable story about pain and guilt, maturity and responsibility, hope and understanding.' - San Francisco Chronicle

"A story of hope and what it means to be human." - Carrie Fisher "This might be the bravest book you will ever read." - Kelly Corrigan "Half a Life is the best anything I've read - novel, memoir, story - in a very long time. Read it, be swallowed, come out changed." - David Lipsky

“Elegant, painful, stunningly honest . . . huge [and] heartbreaking.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Darin Strauss has spent a good part of his adult life reliving, regretting and reflecting on a single, split-second incident. Half a Life is a starkly honest account of that fateful moment and his life thereafter . . . penetrating, thought-provoking.”—The Washington Post

“A book that inspires admiration, sentence by sentence . . . This is a memoir in its finest form, a fully imagined and bittersweet book that transcends a single misstep.”—Chicago Tribune

“Painfully raw and beautifully written.”—Los Angeles Times

“A remarkable, beyond-brave memoir.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
 
“Lyrical and haunting.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE PLAIN DEALER