{"product_id":"9781597094368-beyond-repair-living-in-a-fractured-state","title":"Beyond Repair","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLiving in a Fractured State\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter recovering from a head-on collision and its attendant trauma, the author struggles to reconnect to a world in the throes of a form of cultural PTSD.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 2011, my family was in a major car accident. We were hit head-on by a man in the throes of a heart attack. It took three years to recover from our injuries, and a couple more to deal with the aftereffects of trauma. When I finally returned to the world — as father and husband, friend and brother, writer and citizen — it became clear that our society was in its own traumatized state — reeling from the string of police shootings of unarmed African Americans, stunned by yet one more mass shooting. The people around me were displaying all the signs of PTSD — jumpiness, irritability, numbness — and, concordantly, my interactions out in daily life were becoming more dysfunctional, at times downright hostile. Us against them. Red vs. blue. Black vs. white. Rich vs. poor. That we were living in a progressive town inside a conservative county in the Mountain South only made things more volatile. I decided that if we were all living in a fractured society no longer recognizable, then it was up to me to re-engage in it. I would enter into encounters with people as conscious as possible of the potential divides and misunderstandings between us. I started with my neighborhood and town, then moved out into the counties around us, then traveled further out into the country. My goal: to connect.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55421487350134,"sku":"9781597094368","price":14.97,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_29541435.jpg?v=1742889617","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9781597094368-beyond-repair-living-in-a-fractured-state","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}