SHATTERED

After the fall.

In 2022, Kureishi, then 68, collapsed at his partner’s apartment in Italy, partially breaking his neck and suffering spinal nerve damage and resulting tetraplegia, a near-complete paralysis of his hands, arms, and legs. Dictating verbal diary entries to his partner, Isabella, from his hospital bed in Italy, then in West London, the celebrated British Pakistani playwright (My Beautiful Laundrette, The Buddha of Suburbia) details his struggle to heal and thrive despite immense pain, frustration, and a missing sense of time, as well as the toll this crushing ordeal would have on his relationship with Isabella: “We will have to find a new way of loving each other,” he admits. Enhancing these provocative entries are the author’s ruminations and pointed perspectives on his life, career, family, childhood, sex, Isabella (whom he proposes to while incapacitated), and his friendship with Salman Rushdie, “one of the bravest men I know.” He also considers the fascist nature of Italian government and how it affects the precarious lives of young queer and nonbinary individuals. Psychologically processing his life-altering condition is one thing, but Kureishi must also contend with his arduous, agonizing, and helpless physical condition and the ensuing rehabilitation suddenly thrust upon him. Yet despite feeling “battered and broken,” the ever-resilient author manages to inject levity and revelatory catharsis into his daunting “new reality.” He contemplates how becoming paralyzed affords him the opportunity to meet and empathize with new people, and he ponders the possibilities of somehow achieving some type of modified sexual pleasure again. The memoir is also cautionary for readers who mistakenly believe they are blessed with hardship immunity: “There isn’t a family on the planet that will evade catastrophe or disaster.” Kureishi harrowingly reminds us that it takes just one fall to upend an entire lifetime, forever.

Refashioning his life after an accident—with grace, dignity, and black humor.