GUTS by Robert Nylen (book trailer)

[close] This is a memoir: a package of boasts, false modesty, flawed memories, dropped names, outright errors, and embarrassing disclosures that I think are pretty neatbut may appall you, if youre squeamish or have an orderly turn of mind.
Robert Nylen

The thing is, Robert Nylen should have died several times in 1968. He was a goner in 2006, and 2007 as well, and yet he survived through a combination of dumb luck and sheer perseverance. Of course, as you read these words, hes already bit the dust. But lets not dwell on that.

A self-confessed reckless jerk, Nylen spent the last four years of his life grappling with Big Diseases (cancer, diabetes), an astonishing twelve broken bones, and ten surgeries. His lifetime total is twenty-four fractures, most of which resulted from a flagrant refusal to act his ageor anyones age, for that matter. And yet Guts is not a mere chronicle of injuries but a sharp and wry meditation on American Manhood.

Growing up in suburbia in the 50s and 60s, with a father who