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Essay on The Autobiography of Travis Roy
In October 1995, ready to play his first game as a member of the Boston University hockey team, Travis Roy looked forward to the biggest day of his life. It was big but for all the wrong reasons. Eleven seconds into the game, he cracked his fourth vertebra and was paralyzed from the neck down. With coauthor Swift, Roy tells the inspirational story of his life after the accident. He still cannot walk but has regained some mobility in his right arm and has come to realize that his life is worth living. As he describes the stages of his rehabilitation, the agonizing slowness of the process emerges vividly. So does his sense of humor; he recalls, for example, the time he and his fellow patients at Atlanta's Shepherd Center giddily stole some potato chips, only to realize that none of them possessed the dexterity to eat their booty.
This is an informative, clear-eyed examination of what it takes to fight back from personal tragedy. Within the 11 seconds that inspired this memoir, Travis Roy realized his dream, and then smashed into his nightmare. On an October night in 1995, Roy, a talented young hockey player, skated onto the ice for his varsity debut with Boston University. Eleven fateful seconds later, he was paralyzed from the neck down. Aided by the sure touch of Sports Illustrated hockey writer E.M. Swift, Roy's moving account of his accident and his rehabilitation--confined to a wheelchair, he has gotten some use of his right arm back--avoids the maudlin. Instead, Eleven Seconds is filled with grit, hope, humor, and a thoughtful young man's introspection on the meaning of sports and the adjustments that follow when the ability to play them is taken away.
There are many stories of "inspiring" people with spinal cord injuries, but never one as honest and emotionally open as this one....
