Jim Linnell, an Auburn native, has written a memoir about the small misstep which led to a fall that partially severed his spinal cord. The book will come out in August.

In “Take It Lying Down, Finding My Feet After a Spinal Cord Injury,” Linnell writes honestly and courageously about his accident, the grueling recovery that followed and his determination to reclaim his life.

Six months shy of retirement and on a family vacation in Mexico, Linnell steps off the porch of a rented guest house and breaks his neck. He is medivacked to his hometown hospital in Albuquerque and from there to a spinal cord injury hospital in Denver, where he learns he may live the rest of his life as a quadriplegic. How does a person absorb such news?

“Take It Lying Down” portrays a man reclaiming his life from catastrophe. It is a book of exemplary courage.

Linnell, who graduated from Bates College in 1963, is a writer, teacher and director. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of New Mexico and former dean of the College of Fine Arts there. He is the author of “Walking on Fire: The Shaping Force of Emotion in Writing Drama.”

Advance praise includes:

“An amazing story of resilience and resurrection that is simultaneously moving, witty, and inspirational.” ― Ashok Rajamani, author of  “The Day My Brain Exploded.”

“This engrossing book shows how to bear up and live in-between the inescapability of what was and the uncertainty of what is to come.” ― Christina Crosby, author of “A Body, Undone.”

 

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