About this item
Highlights
- One Tuesday afternoon Allen Rucker, Hollywood comedy writer and family man, wakes from a nap to find himself paralyzed from the waist down.
- Author(s): Allen Rucker
- 256 Pages
- Biography + Autobiography, Personal Memoirs
Description
About the Book
Rucker--baby boomer, husband, father of two, self-described "aging hack"--had a life that was certainly good enough. Then, at the age of 50 he was struck out of nowhere by a rare condition called transverse myelitis, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. This remarkable book speaks to the fragility of life and resilience of an ordinary human being.Book Synopsis
One Tuesday afternoon Allen Rucker, Hollywood comedy writer and family man, wakes from a nap to find himself paralyzed from the waist down. Shocking? Yes. Unfair? Absolutely. Reality? Inescapably. Rucker is shaken up and angry, but soon realizes he's stuck in a wheelchair forever. He begins to reevaluate everything in his life, from the simplest bodily functions to the mysteries of the universe. Luckily, he's invited us along on the bumpy, poignant, and often hilarious road to recovery that leads him to completely redefine his life.
The Best Seat in the House is Rucker's unpretentious, unapologetic, refreshingly comic, and powerfully heartfelt paean to life and its fragility, and to the resilience and adaptability of a single, normal, very funny human being.
Review Quotes
"hardly sentimental...[a] savvy contribution...ahead of the curve." -- New York Times
"... [Rucker] examines his situation with humor and honesty." -- PN: Paraplegia News
"Much funnier and more uplifting than it might initially seem." -- Defamer.com
"Both funny and moving...an unpretentious an unapologetic account of learning to live with paralysis." -- Welland Tribune (Ontario)
"Allen Rucker describes his new life with honesty, accessibility, and impudence...very funny." -- National Public Radio
"This valuable book is full of surprises....Frankly written, the human struggle is most touching." -- Sante Fe New Mexican
"Very moving, not scary. [Rucker] is a talented man." -- David Chase, writer of "The Sopranos"
"Rucker's established penchant for jaded humor, along with his willingness to indulge the reader's curiosity, makes The Best Seat in the House...one of the most engaging disability memoirs to date....should be required reading for the disabled and able-bodied alike." -- New Mobility