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Half a Life: A Memoir
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Half a Life: A Memoir
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Half a Life: A Memoir
Audiobook3 hours

Half a Life: A Memoir

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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About this audiobook

In this powerful, unforgettable memoir, acclaimed novelist Darin Strauss examines the far-reaching consequences of the tragic moment that has shadowed his whole life. In his last month of high school, he was behind the wheel of his dad's Oldsmobile, driving with friends, heading off to play mini-golf. Then: a classmate swerved in front of his car. The collision resulted in her death. With piercing insight and stark prose, Darin Strauss leads us on a deeply personal, immediate, and emotional journey-graduating high school, going away to college, starting his writing career, falling in love with his future wife, becoming a father. Along the way, he takes a hard look at loss and guilt, maturity and accountability, hope and, at last, acceptance. The result is a staggering, uplifting tour de force.

Look for special features inside, including an interview with Colum McCann.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 13, 2011
ISBN9780307988607
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Half a Life: A Memoir

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Reviews for Half a Life

Rating: 3.6226054413793105 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

261 ratings76 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I was 100+ pages in before I realized this wasn't a novel. A remarkable, measured response to a life after trauma. A strong case for the idea that simple self-honesty is hard won and needs no embellishment. Worth it for the bad psychotherapy.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    So often we think of the families who lose individuals in tragic accidents, but have you ever thought about how accidentally killing somebody would also completely change your life? This is the type of book that makes you really stop and think about your life choices; how many near misses and bad choices have you made that could have left you with this same survivor's guilt (for lack of a better term)? It makes you realize how close you've been to life-altering circumstances. As the saying goes, "there but by the grace of God go I."
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Novelist Darin Strauss tells his own traumatic story of accidently killing a classmate with his car when her bike swerved into his path. While I thought the writing good and the way the accident affected the rest of his life sad, the book was not very compelling. It's very much about Darins feelings and his trying to deal with the guilt, but really there's not much information about his life and what it was like--the reader just mostly gets in his head. It feels like the author is using the book to work through the trauma of the accident, and while I hope it was cathartic for him--it just didn't make for a very interesting read--though it might appeal to those who like to analyze thoughts and emotions and aren't really looking for a story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A memoir of incomparable honesty and authenticity, HALF A LIFE examines the aftermath of the writer's life after he accidentally kills a sixteen-year-old girl. He experiences shock and growing self-awareness as the event sinks in and he finds himself lost as to how he should feel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book was heartbreaking, but a compelling read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I am drawn to books about how people deal with death of young people due to a personal experience. I found his book moving. He is a lyrical writer and I'm intrigued by him - may need to look into some of his other books.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I flew through this book and really wavered on whether to give it three or four stars. The first half--which is to say, the first 90-odd pages--is compelling reading. The second half meanders and becomes repetitive and a bit dull, although the writing is elegant and beautiful throughout. I agree with some other reviewers that the author is overly anxious that we see him as a good person; he is clearly a good person and the accident was clearly not his fault. Just as clearly, he still harbors more guilt over it than he seems willing to admit. I also thought he was a bit hard on himself throughout--he was eighteen, of course he was worried about what other people would think of him; this doesn't make him a bad person or even particularly self-centered.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    meh. Well-written, and was off to a good start. But by the end I was just tired of hearing him whine. When he was writing about being a teen, the utter self-centeredness and self-reflection made sense, it felt like a part of being 18-25: Everyone is looking at me, how does everything affect ME? But after that...Dude, snap out of it. Get help. Shut up.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A memoir of incomparable honesty and authenticity, HALF A LIFE examines the aftermath of the writer's life after he accidentally kills a sixteen-year-old girl. He experiences shock and growing self-awareness as the event sinks in and he finds himself lost as to how he should feel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Interesting story. Although well written and enjoyable, it wasn't as bold as I would have expected or liked. But this is worth reading.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    a very easy read, at first I thought it was a novel, it's not, it is the story of the author trying to come to terms with a death from an accident he was involved in. surviors guilt. after reading the book I thought how large it is for all the soliders that in war had to kill. what a huge truma to live with
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I happen to get this book as an advance copy. I was not aware of the writer but since reading this I have seen that he has won some awards. I enjoyed the book. It was short and it really helped shed light on how one deals with a chance event that can change your life. I was bit put off by the shortness of the book and how it was published. Although it was very significant event for the author, his writing never made me feel his pain. An easy read but nothing earth shattering. However, I will give his fiction a shot based on his writing style in this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a memoir about the author's struggle coming to terms with killing a fellow student. I felt that the book was written for himself, rather than an audience. Not only a coming to terms but almost an atonement for what he'd done. It was an accident, but it still affected him deeply. I'm rating this book rather high because it is well-written, but I don't know that readers will find the tone of the book enjoyable. In fact, the book is not supposed to be enjoyable.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A man's account of an accident he has as a teenager that killed a teenaged girl. How the accident impacted and changed his life in his own words.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Life as a teenager is full of seminal moments. From getting a driver’s license to graduating, the high school years are filled with experiences that prepare us for adulthood as well as shade our adolescent memories. These moments can be the happiest of your life, but for Darrin Strauss one event darkly overshadowed everything else. In his memoir, Half a Life, Strauss describes how a car accident just weeks before high school graduation unalterably changed the end of his high school years and impacted much of his adult life.Just after he turned eighteen, half his life ago, Strauss struck a fellow classmate with his car and killed her. Even though the incident was ruled an accident and he was deemed not at fault, his life is forever changed. Half a Life details how Strauss dealt, and still deals, with the accident every day. Assured he was guiltless, he feels only extreme guilt. The accident colors his every interaction, from job interviews where he wonders if he’s doing a good enough job living for two people, to dating, where he often prefers to break up with potential girlfriends rather than tell them about the accident.Half a Life is an emotionally painful read. The sympathy first comes for Celine, the girl who lost her life, and her family, but it extends to Strauss, who also lost what he thought his life was going to be that day. At turns the writing veers heavily into a seemingly selfish streak (the very nature of memoirs is often “Why me?”) that can weary the reader. But this self-centered questioning is common of tragedy survivors. Once the tragedy is over, we check ourselves to see what injuries, physical and emotional, we’ve sustained, and in Strauss’s case, the emotional ramifications end up extending further into the future than his eighteen-year-old self could ever imagine. But Strauss is so honest and forthcoming in his writing that readers feel they are going through the same ordeal. This is all-encompassing for the reader, but also feels a little too voyeuristic at points, turning the reader into a fly on the wall at a therapy session. But the unease pays off in the end. Just as the readers feel Strauss’s discomfort, they also share in the triumph when he learns to accept what has happened and move on with his life on his terms. He knows he will never forget the accident, but now he’s learning how to live with it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A short but moving recollection of how one automobile mistake can change a life. I think that all new drivers should have to read this, if only to see what can happen in a split second.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Cars and the things that happen in them tend to play starring roles in adolescence. Learning to drive (or choosing not to), sex in the back seat, cruising town with a crowd of kids - these are all features of being an American teenager. Less talked about yet just as prominent are the other things that happen in cars - the accidents - fatal or not - these too are clear in many memories. Teenaged drivers account for about ten percent of the US population, but for twelve percent of all accidents. Each year over 5,000 teens will die in fatal car accidents - another 400,000 will be seriously injured. This is the flip side of the American fascination with the automobile and the "freedom" it represents.Darin Strauss writes honestly of the car accident that changed his life in Half a Life. While driving with friends, he hit a classmate on a bicycle and in an instant marked by the sound and sight of her bicycle and head shattering the front of his windshield, everything changed.Anyone who has a history with the unpleasant side of teenaged driving knows that these are events that change us and our relationship to the world forever. In Darin's case it is all about learning to live in the aftermath of something unlooked for and so very permanent. Strauss is at his best in the early parts of the book as he describes what happened - both in the moment of impact and in the moments after. He manages to be unflinching and honest in ways that make this an uncomfortable, but illuminating read. Less successful are the later parts of the book as he describes the effect on his adult life - who to tell, whether to tell. It is very difficult to describe these feelings without some hint of self-indulgence and Strauss' unwillingness to spare the reader even this detail is both a strength and a weakness.I would not have written this book and I'm not sure I enjoyed reading it, but I learned from it and from the careful craft of it and it's worth a long, hard, uncomfortable look.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I first heard of Darin Strauss on This American Life. I was totally transfixed by the story he was telling--this story--and could not leave my car until the tale was finished (I was late to work, but it was well worth it). I was extremely excited to see that Mr. Strauss wrote a book on the same subject. While I did not feel that there was quite the same high degree of poignancy in the book as in his narrative on This American Life, the book is incredibly moving and well-written. As the book neared its finish, I found the story becoming less about HER; as she started to drift away, I found myself drifting with her. I did not want to move on with the story of the rest of his life, with relatively happy endings and hope, and I did not want the story--her story, his story--to end. There is something about this book that is almost otherworldly, except that the author gives us insight into the very deepest, sharpest, warmest pains of the human heart.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I received this book as an Early Reviewer, and although short, it's very moving, honest, and profound. Strauss looks back on his life and the aftermath of an accident half a life ago that resulted in the death of a classmate. Haunting at times, this is a great read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Darin Strauss was a high school senior just about to graduate when he hit and killed a fellow student with his car. The aftermath of that accident and how he lived with it are recounted in his evocative memoir Half a Life.As the mother of two young men, this book was really a punch to the gut. Strauss was cleared of all legal responsibility for the accident in which a young girl turned her bicycle into the path of his car, but the moral responsibility lingered on for many years to come.One of the hardest chapters to read was the one where Strauss and his father attended the funeral for Celine, the girl who was killed. His mother did not attend, and Strauss was not sure why. It was a brave thing for him to do.He spoke to Celine's parents, and they seemed kind to him. Celine's mother did say something that would linger with him for almost twenty years. She made him promise that "whatever you do in your life, you have to do it twice as well. Because you are living it for two people".The accident changed his life in so many ways. He became "squishily obliging", hoping that by being overtly kind to everyone he met that when they found out what he had done, they would think that he was so "decent and kind", and that it was terrible that something so awful happened to such a nice guy.Celine's parents sued Strauss, an event that dragged on for five long years. Strauss didn't really know Celine very well, so he tried to learn everything he could about her, including why she turned into his car.He took her mother's plea to heart, and tried to live his life for two people. Every experience he had, he thought of Celine while it was happening. It was emotionally draining, and he developed a severe stomach ailment.There are so many moving stories in the book: attending his high school reunion, telling his wife on their fifth date what happened, returning the scene of the accident so many years later. Strauss writes so beautifully and honestly about the pain this incident caused and how it affected every single thing that happened to him afterword, it is impossible not to be moved.This book reminded me of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking; it's about how death so deeply affects the lives of those left behind, whether you loved them or hardly knew them.rating 4 of 5 stars
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book drew my attention much like the accident that is its centerpiece. Reading it forced me into the often unpleasant role of gawking bystander. It's a mixed bag of goods. While I do indeed feel for Darin Strauss I wish he'd spent a little more time fleshing out Celine, the young woman he accidentally killed when he was 18. The book is at times refreshing to read and at others a self-absorbed wallow. Part of me wanted to comfort him and part wanted to slap him out of his eternal funk. I guess that's the point! He couldn't break out of his self-imposed malaise of martyrdom either. I'm glad I requested and read this, as I lost a family member to a teen driver when I was young, and never once thought about how that driver must have felt. I can't say I'll be recommending it to a whole lot of people, though.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Darin Strauss’s Half a Life, the story of his life after he accidentally kills a young girl was a bit hard for me to get into…with a very slow opening of tiny ‘chunks’ of chapters. In retrospect I can almost see this as a device (consciously applied or not) to bring the reader into the unreal time shift that takes place after an accident. Time changes – not just in those few seconds during which an accident happens; Time shifts for some duration afterward. I am glad I stuck with it; there is much to be gained from the sharing his experiences of years of “traveling with a ghost.” Strauss overcomes his aversion to “creating an entertainment out of misfortune, distilling honey from vinegar”, and shares a touching memoir that can also stand as an example of hope for those who are traveling with their own ghosts. Rather than distilling honey he has created balm for troubled souls.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Half a Life is a superbly written memoir about a tragic incident in Strauss's life and the repercussions of it. The accident in which he took a classmate's life takes on meanings and consequences out of his control. It may have taken writing this memoir to fit the pieces of this event together in a way that Strauss can accept and understand. We are fortunate that he has shared this writing with us.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved this book! It was a well written quick read, written in an open and honest style. The author, describes a life changing event that has shaped his life and how he views himself. When ones life and decisions affect others lives so deeply how does one survive? Do you grieve? Or just move on? This book was not written to agrandize the author like much of todays media, it instead attempts to describe what the author was thinking and feeling in the months and years after this sad life changing event.Loved it!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    "Celine Zilke, the girl on the bike, was sixteen and always will be sixteen."Darin Strauss killed a girl with his car when he was eighteen years old. It was an accidental death. This tragedy would haunt Strauss for the rest of his life. We trudge through Strauss's life as he wrestles with how to cope with this accident. When the accident occurred Strauss was a carefree teenager looking forward to graduation and college. Initially, Strauss seems not to be emotionally equipped for such a tragic event and it comes across as very awkward to the reader. When Strauss attends Celine's funeral there is a total disconnect. The relationship between Strauss and the Zilke family was hazy initially but took a turn for the worse as the years progressed. I attributed Strauss's initial selfish emotions to his age but as he got older he really did not get any better. When Darin began forming adult relationships and the accident was revealed he received a lot of mixed responses. One young lady advised that he came across as if it was all about him. This is the response I agree with. Even though the accident was the center of this memoir it seems like the author "danced" all around it. The best way I can describe this work is that it is a "word salad." We never really met Celine. I would have liked for the author, in the later years, to have conversed with Celine's parents and shed some personal insight into her life. I understand that this work is a memoir but the main event involved another person that we never really got to know.Source:ARC via LibraryThing Early Reviewers
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book sat on my floor for a month before I picked it up. I was avoiding it, concerned it might be a bit depressing. When I finally picked it up, I read it in a day. One walks away hoping Celine's or Darin's events never happen to their own children.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Somewhat overwrought navel-gazing that was best left as a personal exercise. Use of odd, jarring turns of phrase, ie "...his hair was neat as a haiku." and "The mind is like a fish: stillness makes it afraid."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book was well written and felt very honest to me. The agony the author went through trying to perfectly grieve Celine's death while not allowing himself (or his family) any sympathy was hard to read. I thought his prose was really nice and clean through the first 3/4 of the book - I felt though that the very end of the book didn't feel as sharp - and seemed to retread information over and over. I thought three or four times I had ended the book - only to see it continue on! Anyway, a quick read - not light but I thought very thoughtful and gave me a story that I had never heard before.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The book packed a powerful punch being so short. A lot of people spend time thinking about the actual victim in a tragedy like this, along with the family. This book turned it around and focused on the survivor turned victim of the tragedy. It's quite powerful really to think and see the other side of the coin. The one incident utterly and completely changed the life of Darin Strauss. From that day on a day didn't pass when Celine, a person her hardly knew before that day. He hid this fact from the world very well, but it was eating at him every single day. It's funny to think how many people are walking around out there with something similar eating at them that they think no one else would be able to understand. The sad thing is, that just isn't true. People are living with tragedies just like this, or illness that changed their lives, even though now it seems that there is nothing wrong with them. I am sure this book will help many people cope and hopefully encourage them to find someone else out there to talk to about it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Strauss uses unusual simile to explain what he went through, after hitting a teenage classmate with his car. Her death caused him untold amounts of guilt, and he also had to endure a lawsuit brought by her parents which was eventually dropped. His sparing style makes one feel just shy of sympathy for him. He really wants readers to empathize instead.