Stranger in My Own Skin

by Cody Mower

After being medically retired out of the Marine Corps, Cody found himself separated from his wife and son, and struggling to deal with a brain injury that had fractured his personality and robbed him of all the things he thought he was. No longer able to stand the face in the mirror, he quickly fell down a rabbit hole of alcoholism, and self-loathing unable to forgive himself for the life he destroyed. Even though he moved to a new city and tried to start over by going to school and doing the ‘right’ things, he still felt like an empty shell, a ghost living in skin that didn’t belong to him. It all came crashing down one summer afternoon when a still suffering from a massive hangover, he truly saw himself in the mirror for the first time, gaunt, broken, and pathetic. Staring at his reflection he knew something had to change. One way or another.

200 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2023

About the author

Cody is a Pushcart-nominated Maine-based writer. After being discharged from the Marine Corps in 2016 with a Post-Traumatic Brain Injury, he came home to sort his shattered life out. In 2019, Cody graduated cum laude and magna cum laude from the University of Southern Maine with his B.A. in English and History. He holds both his MFA from Stonecoast in Creative Writing and a Master of Library and Information Science from Syracuse University. He runs both reading and writing groups for veterans through the Maine Humanities Council and has edited veteran anthologies with the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance.
His memoir, Stranger in My Own Skin, came out in 2023, which is a look at life after service, trying to find a pathway to self-forgiveness and acceptance through finding community and brotherhood.
His piece "Ghosts" won an Honorable Mention in the premier veteran anthology Proud to Be Vol.9
Other non-fiction work has been published in Moxy Magazine, The Dread Machine, Entropy Magazine, and numerous other outlets. He has written a small travel blog called Eventually Everything about life on a traveling bookmobile.

Reviews

[Marisca Pichette · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful memoir about rediscovering yourself, walking through shadow before finally arriving in a world of color.