The Coward is a compelling and darkly humorous exploration of what it
means to come to terms with a broken body, rebuild a broken relationship
and find love when it seems like there is no hope.
'When I woke up in the hospital, they told me my girlfriend had been
killed. She wasn't my girlfriend, but I didn't correct them. The first
weeks were a confusion of morphine and fluorescent strip lighting. A
scrubs-clad stranger told me I wouldn't walk again. She said something
about a wheelchair and I said I preferred crutches, still not
understanding.'
This is not the tale of redemption and hope one would expect. In this
bold act of auto-fiction, Jarred McGinnis is a man whose life has been
hedonistic, downright self-destructive, filled with reckless decisions
and driven by anger at the world. Until a car accident one night. When
he wakes up, it's to discover he will never walk again.
Discharged from the hospital ahead of time, he is forced to return home
to a father he has not seen in ten years. Jarred struggles to reconcile
memories of abuse and pain with the man helping him now, even as he
struggles to adjust to life in a wheelchair. Resentful and feeling
guilty, Jarred lashes out through a familiar pattern of self-destructive
behaviour. The relationship between father and son is tense and filled
with misunderstandings - but also, surprisingly, with jokes. As time
passes the pair cautiously find a way forward and Jarred begins to see a
future for himself.
