Half a Life

"Half my life ago, I killed a girl." So begins Darin Strauss' Half a Life, the true story of how one high school outing in his father's Oldsmobile resulted in the tragic death of a young girl, and the beginning of a different, darker life for the author. In the days, weeks, months, years since this accident, Strauss has struggled to come to terms with what "accident" even means; was it physically possible to avoid his classmate Celine's swerving bike? Was she suicidal? The police had assured him there was nothing he could have done to avoid hitting her, and charges were dropped - but then why were Celine's parents suing him? Now 36 years old and a father, Darin Strauss has lived half his life with the pain and grief of having killed someone. After speaking publicly about the event for the first time on This American Life - which garnered a powerful and overwhelming response - Strauss delves even deeper into the meaning and consequences of that fateful, or possibly fateless day.

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

"Precise, elegantly written, fresh, wise, and very sad." - Nick Hornby