Dear Marcus

March 19, 2012
A moment of senseless violence transforms a young man in this inspiring memoir of disability. In 1982, McGill was 13 years old and living in a Manhattan housing project when he was randomly shot in the back by an assailant who was never found (he dubs the unknown gunman “Marcus”). The wound left him a near quadriplegic, and the once athletic boy faced an agonizing struggle to recover some bodily function, and adjust to losing most. McGill takes an unsparing though humorously insightful look at the frustrations and humiliations imposed by his handicap and at the permanent rifts his family suffered from the strain. In time, McGill learns to appreciate his care-givers, finishes college, embarks on a rewarding career, and experiences a tender sexual encounter with a former camp counselor. “Happiness is a thing I can control if I put my mind to it,” he realizes. McGill moves from bitter contempt for his attacker to a deeper analysis of the ghetto culture of violence, fatherlessness, and misguided machismo that victimized him—and eventually to understanding and forgiveness. Agent, Lydia Willis. Photos.

March 1, 2012
An inspirational memoir by a writer who refuses to be defined by his paralysis, as he comes to terms with the unknown man who shot him. As an intelligent, talented, athletic and slightly rebellious 13-year-old from what was then the ghetto of Manhattan's Lower East Side, McGill experienced a tragedy in 1982 that would lead to epiphany. Walking home with a friend on New Year's Day, he fell victim to a senseless, apparently motiveless gunshot from an unseen sniper. His initial recovery required six months in the hospital, where he learned to adjust to his new life as a quadriplegic, discovering the ways that he could take care of himself and the limits to what he could do. The incident would transform his life, in surprisingly positive ways as well as predictably negative ones, as he explains in this memoir addressed to the man who shot him, a man he will never know but to whom he forever feels linked. "Until I speak to you, I can never fully close this door," he writes. "And I need that resolution. I think I've earned it." He gives his shooter a name, a race and a plausibility that led him to this unfocused violence. But while he's addressing the "Marcus" he has invented, he is also exorcising justifiable anger and offering his own life as an example of the rewards one can reap by accepting loss and learning the value of love. "I didn't write this book for you, Marcus," he writes. "My reasons for writing this are bigger than you or me, my friend. I wrote this book to release demons into the warm night air." Such a literary flourish is an exception to the matter-of-fact approach that characterizes the narrative, where most of the lessons learned are plainspoken, but also hard won.

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November 1, 2011

In the 1980s, McGill was a well-liked 13-year-old living in the projects on Manhattan's Lower East Side and indulging his talent for sports and dance. Then he was shot in the back and left paralyzed from the waist down; his assailant has never been apprehended. After the shooting, McGill took the high road, getting a B.A. in English and an MFA in education, traveling the world, acting, teaching, and campaigning for the disabled. His memoir, flooded with both pain and forgiveness, is written as a letter to the man who shot him, whom he has dubbed Marcus. McGill published this book himself, then sent a copy to Lorrie Moore, whose assessment in the New York Review of Books has sent it on to bigger things. One of those works that makes you feel really, really humble.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.