“. . . an engaging exploration of duty, guilt, and self-preservation. . . . A cleareyed consideration of difficult ethical and familial choices.”—KIRKUS REVIEWSRachel likes to think of herself as a nice Jewish girl, dedicated to doing what’s honorable, just as her parents raised her to do. But when her husband, David, survives a plane crash and is left with severe brain damage, she faces a … choice: will she dedicate her life to caring for a man she no longer loves, or walk away?Their marriage had been rocky at the time of the accident, and though she wants to do the right thing, Rachel doesn’t know how she is supposed to care for two kids in addition to a now irrational, incontinent, and seizure-prone grown man. And how will she manage to see her lover? But then again, what kind of selfish monster would refuse to care for her disabled husband, no matter how unhappy her marriage had been? Rachel wants to believe that she can dedicate her life to David’s needs, but knows in her heart it is impossible. Crash tackles a pervasive dilemma in our culture: the moral conflicts individuals face when caregiving for a disabled or cognitively impaired family member.
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Brave, honest reckoning with inner and outer circumstances.
What strikes me most about this book is Michelberg’s ability to be not only honest with herself but honest with her readers about what she was really feeling about David, their marriage, and the untenable situation she was suddenly, reluctantly in. Many of her feelings were those we like to pretend we don’t have, so it makes her telling of them that much more courageous. What she felt and what she did was so understandable, and to women who might be in this situation—or fear it—so validating. Thank you, Rachel Michelberg, for writing not only a page-turning, gripping book, but a brave one.
With searing honesty and eloquence, Rachel Michelberg shares a story that is vulnerable, brave, and impossible to put down. I highly recommend this book.
I would first like to commend Rachel Michelberg on her BRAVERY and CANDOR in penning this very REAL and RAW memoir. It is not easy to open your life to the public and she has in the humblest of ways, free from any false pretenses. The author’s journey is filled with heartbreak, tragedy, hope, perseverance, and triumph. The story opens as we learn of her husband David’s life-altering plane accident that would forever steal away the man she married, the father of her children, and the life as they once knew it. If that isn’t enough, the struggles, battles, and adversaries seem to continue to pile up, challenging the author at every excruciating step and right down to the very core of her being. From David’s own friends and family holding her to great censure as his wife to the jealous wife of an ex-lover who is tormenting Michelberg (and her children) with phone calls, trespassing, and vandalism. It would take a skilled fiction novelist to write our heroin out of this mess, and yet somehow Michelberg finds her way to the surface of the water’s edge for another swallow of air–And another chance at life.
A compelling memoir told with brutal honesty about a woman forced to make hard choices when her husband suffers severe brain damage after surviving a plane crash.
As the dedication implies, this truly is a book “For the caregivers,” for it tells a truth that is often not discussed: the inescapable pain, guilt, and shame that accompanies any decision short of becoming a saint willing to sacrifice her entire life. That this particular marriage was on the cusp of divorce before the crash complicates the situation even more.
So many caregivers will read this memoir with tears of relief that someone understands.
Excellently written, Crash immediately draws the reader into the innermost thoughts of the author as she is wrenched into this nightmare and tossed about in the chaos and uncertainty that follows. A powerful tension keeps you reading to find out just how it will end. I highly recommend this bold, brave memoir.
CRASH is a riveting memoir of a young woman whose marriage is on the rocks when her husband sustains a traumatic brain injury in an airplane accident. It’s aptly titled since as readers we cannot turn our eyes from the disaster that accident causes. A true pager-turner, I started it at lunch and rushed back to finish it after dinner. You simply cannot read it without asking yourself What if this happened to me? The writing is so frank, the dilemma so impossible, and the emotions so raw that you actually “live it” rather than “read it.”
On page after page, the author bares her soul. She forces us to look into our own hearts before we blithely expect others to sacrifice themselves. In the end, CRASH accomplishes what the best of memoirs do: it changes the reader forever.