Paul Rousseau is a disabled writer with work in Roxane Gay’s The Audacity, Catapult, and elsewhere. You can find more of his work online at Paul-Rousseau.com.
<p>“Unique and haunting…. A mesmerizing and unforgettable meditation on a</p><p>stranger-than-fiction tragedy.” —Publishers Weekly</p><p>One month before his college graduation, Paul Rousseau is accidentally shot</p><p>in the head by his roommate and best friend.</p><p>At some point in the course of Paul and Mark’s friendship, Mark acquired—legally and</p><p>with required permits—five firearms. Those weapons lived with them in their college</p><p>apartment. It was a non-issue for the two best friends. They were inseparable. They</p><p>were twenty-two-year-old boys at the height of their college experience, unaware that</p><p>everything was about to change forever.</p><p>The bullet ripped through two walls before it struck Paul’s skull. Mark had accidentally</p><p>pulled the trigger while in the other room and—frightened for his own future—delayed</p><p>getting treatment for Paul, who miraculously remained conscious the entire time. In</p><p>vivid detail, Friendly Fire brings us into the world of both the shooting itself and its</p><p>surgical counterpoint—the dark spaces of survival in the face of a traumatic brain</p><p>injury and into the paranoid, isolating, dehumanizing maw of personal injury cases.</p><p>Friendly Fire is the story of a friendship—both its formation and its destruction.</p><p>Through phenomenal writing and gripping detail, Paul reveals a compelling and</p><p>inspirational story that speaks to much of contemporary American life.</p>
