GIMP: When Life Deals You a Crappy Hand, You Can Fold -or You Can Play

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About GIMP: When Life Deals You A Crappy Hand, You Can

Product Description Mark Zupan was a college soccer star, out drinking one night with friends. Tired from the game and from a few too many beers, he decided to take a nap in the back of his best friend's pickup truck. Still asleep when the vehicle started and drove away, he was suddenly jolted awake as the truck crashed. Mark was thrown into a canal and was stuck in frigid water, barely clinging to a tree branch, for fourteen hours. When he was finally rescued, Mark discovered the terrible truth—he'd broken his neck and would most likely be a quadriplegic, facing life in a wheelchair, with only limited use of his four limbs. At first Mark's only goal was to walk again, and when that proved impossible, he fell into the depths of despair and retreated from the world and from the people closest to him, increasingly bitter and furious with himself. But through love, friendship, and an introduction to a new sport, Mark realized that he could live a more-than-full life in a chair and has gone on to create an existence that's truly exceptional. Now a Paralympic athlete (playing quad rubgy, aka "murderball") who's starred in a movie, Mark explains in his memoir that, in a way, getting hurt was the best thing that could ever have happened to him—and that despite people's prejudices, a guy in a chair still gets to have sex with his girlfriend, party with his friends, and even crowd-surf at Pearl Jam shows. Inspiring, defiant, and revealing, GIMP will appeal not only to fans of Murderball but also to anyone ready to be motivated by a touching, captivating, and heartfelt story about triumphing over adversity. From Publishers Weekly "I hate being called handicapped," says Zupan, whose competitiveness at quadriplegic rugby brought him national attention as one of the stars of the Oscar-nominated documentary Murderball. A passionate athlete before breaking his neck in an automobile accident when he was 18 years old, Zupan, now 31, is determined to play just as hard as ever from a wheelchair. But with his team's performance in the 2002 Paralympics already covered in the documentary, the sport that made him famous is relegated to a comparatively small portion of this memoir. Instead, Zupan focuses on the slow recovery process after his accident. Refusing to gloss his story, he speaks frankly and humorously about subjects like "quad sex." While watching the best friend who caused the accident tear himself apart with guilt, he describes how his own bottled-up frustrations impeded his recovery, leading him to stalk his ex-girlfriend and, years later, to be convicted on a drunk driving charge. As in the film, Zupan makes an unforgettable impression with his raw, brash energy. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist In 1993, after a night of hard drinking, 18-year-old Zupan curled up for a nap in the bed of his buddy's truck. A freak turn of events later, he was hurled out of the truck and into a canal, where he clung to life--and a tree--for 14 hours. Suddenly a quadriplegic (although with some movement in his arms and legs), the author faced a long and difficult recovery. This memoir chronicles that recovery and Zupan's rise to fame as a superstar in the sport of quadriplegic rugby, also known as Murderball (and also the title of the award-winning documentary that featured Zupan). Like quadriplegic artist John Callahan's Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (1990), the book is alternately funny, biting, snarky, self-indulgent, and moving. Despite the hardships Zupan has endured, he firmly believes he's a lucky guy, and that optimistic attitude is what makes his memoir so enjoyable: it really is a story about success and tackling life on one's own terms. David Pitt Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved About the Author Mark Zupan is a Paralympic medal winner and the star of the MTV/ThinkFilm documentary Murderball. He lives in Austin. Tim S