When Jerry McGill was growing up in the housing projects on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1980s, his future seemed bright: Though times were tough for a family led by a single mother, McGill was a charming, precocious teenager, already excelling as an athlete and a dancer. But everything changed one night when he was thirteen. Walking home from a New Year’s party with a friend, McGill was shot in the back by an unknown assailant, who was never caught. Soon after, he learned that he would be wheelchair-bound for life.

Written as a letter to the man who shot him, whom he decides to call Marcus, Dear Marcus is a reflection on McGill’s childhood, the event that changed his life in an instant, the challenges of living with a disability, and the importance of optimism, forgiveness, and making the most of our gifts. In this direct and intimate attempt to explain to his attacker the repercussions of his deeds—how one man’s random decision radically altered the course of another’s life—McGill takes us to the streets of New York City in the 1980s, to the hospital where he spent six months recovering, and on his journey to make the most of his new life. He recounts the joys he has experienced traveling the globe and mentoring disabled children, the love and support he has received over the years, and the strengths he has been able to find within himself that he may never have discovered had his life turned out differently.

By turns brutally honest and funny, both full of rage and full of heart, Dear Marcus is an inspiring book about the moments in life that shape us—the ones that catch us by surprise, that blindside us, but that present us with opportunities for growth, reflection, compassion, and forgiveness. At some point—to greater or lesser degrees—we will all be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The challenge, though, as Dear Marcus shows us, is not to wallow in despair or blame other people, but to rise up and find strengths within ourselves that we didn’t know we had.

“These letters take readers on an unforgettable and intriguing journey as Jerome came to terms with his paralysis and his life. Themes of violence, hope, despair, forgiveness, anger, and living with a disability are explored both lightly and deeply, humorously and profoundly, and always honestly through stories about his relationships with family, friends, nurses, and others that crossed his path. . . . The complexity of issues is presented with stunning and distilled simplicity. . . . From the packaging, to the insights, to the defiance and challenge of all assumptions, to the writing, this is a book that sophisticated teens will love.” –School Library Journal

“As I started reading Dear Marcus, I found I couldn’t put it down.  This is a compelling marriage of remembrance and forgiveness, absolution and compassion, cynicism and understanding.”
–Wes Moore, author of The Other Wes Moore

“It's hard to remember how out of control our cities were back in the 1970s and 80s.  If you want a firsthand account, there's no better place to turn than Dear Marcus.  But Dear Marcus is more than that: It's an incredibly intense story of triumph over tragedy that can inspire people dealing with any sort of challenge in their lives.  It's rare to find a book that speaks to you on the most personal level while illustrating much bigger themes and is so compelling to read to boot.”
–Dalton Conley, dean of social sciences at New York University and author of Honky

"Written with passion, honesty, humor, and a stubborn, rebellious optimism, Dear Marcus is like nothing I've ever read. When a bullet in the back told Jerry McGill not to go on, Jerry went on–smiling."
–Shalom Auslander, author of Hope: A Tragedy

“There is sorrow and fury, but this is not the Book of Job. McGill clearly possessed the charm, attractiveness, and spirit to avail himself of the help and care that came his way--both within therapeutic settings and outside--and he managed to have girlfriends, graduate from Fordham University, write screenplays, make films, and subsequently become a teacher and advocate for the rights of the disabled. Nonetheless, although he can list the difficulties he has had with bathrooms, housing, and employment he also lists, to astonish his invisible assailant, the ‘marvelous globetrotting pleasures’ he has experienced: from sipping coffee in a Costa Rican rain forest to performing at a vintage theater in England with a troupe of disabled performers…Inspiring”
–Lorrie Moore (in her review of the self-published edition in The New York Review of Books)

 
Jerry McGill is a writer and artist. He received a BA in English literature from Fordham University in the Bronx and his MFA in education from Pacific University in Oregon. He lives in Portland, Oregon.