The idea to write to you was not an easy one.
The scar from where the bullet entered my back is still there.
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Jerry McGill was thirteen years old, walking home through the projects of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, when he was shot in the back by a stranger. Jerry survived, wheelchair-bound for life; his assailant was never caught. Thirty years later, Jerry wants to say something to the man who shot him.
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I have decided to give you a name.
I am going to call you Marcus.
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With profound grace, brutal honesty, and devastating humor, Jerry McGill takes us on a dramatic and inspiring journey—from the streets of 1980s New York, where poverty and violence were part of growing up, to the challenges of living with a disability and learning to help and inspire others, to the long, difficult road to acceptance, forgiveness, and, ultimately, triumph.
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I didn’t write this book for you, Marcus. I wrote this for those who endure.
Those who manage. Those who are determined to move on.