When one is suddenly faced with a dramatic, health-related event, there is nothing else to do but swim against the waves of dispair. If you are a writer, you turn your experience into a memoir trying to make sense into the destiny chaos.
Following an accident due to the low pressure in 2022, Kureishi, a writer and screenplayer, ended up in a wheelchair, mostly unable to use his hands and largely relying on medical assistance in the daily life. From Rome - where the accident took place - to London where he currently lives, he had to learn to live again, but in a life he never wanted or dreamed of. Shattered is the story of how he processed the event and how he re-enachted his wife after this episode.
Faced with the life cruelty, one can either give up or think about how to end it as fast as possible, or keep on living while de-coding the experience through words. From his hospital bed, with the help of his sons, he is sharing his struggle, getting used with a disabled life, sharing his own story.
The writing is descriptive and realistic, without giving fake hopes, just displaying the life as it is now, lacking any physical independence, nevertheless maintaining his freedom of mind.
Anyone having forced to adapt to a new physical reality, even only a short time, may resonate with his thoughts. It helps by rationalizing the context and explaining everything in full honesty.
I personally loved the writing, and especially the very human side of it, the thoughts about his situation´s impact on other people lives, particularly his children and his life partner. The human empathy and the understanding of his situation embrace the story into a hollow of kindness. But it is also the full acknowledgement of a cruel reality.
We, as readers, we are grateful for his unaltered gift.
Rating: 4.5 stars
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