Customer Reviews

The Bullet Meant for Me: A Memoir

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Writer Jan Reid has written an absorbing and sometimes harrowing account of a life suddenly altered by the shot of a gun in a robbery attempt. Although the book begins with that incident on a deserted street in Mexico City and ends with a return trip to the scene of the crime years later, it concerns itself as much with the author's interest in boxing and his friendship with a young Mexican-American boxer, Jesus Chavez. Sometimes a meditation on the dynamics of proving one's manhood with high-risk behavior, especially as these are played out in Texas, with its more violent history, the book is as much about friendship and marriage.

Reid tells a story of growing up in north-central Texas and discovering boxing as a young man with no particular self-confidence or promise. Returning to the sport in later years, while working as a writer in Austin, he recovers a sense of purpose that agility in the ring had once given him, and he is able to share this feeling of accomplishment for an audience of readers who may have little sympathy for the sport. While you may never care to put on a pair of gloves yourself after reading the book, you can grant him the validity of his own point of view, that the sport harnesses physical power with a kind of grace and courage that in a well-fought match can inspire admiration.

How his ability to throw a punch at an adversary determines the outcome of his encounter with an armed robber is not completely resolved in the book. Although the punch didn't connect, he may well have been shot - and killed - anyway. And for half of the book, as he recovers some use of his legs with surgery and physical therapy, while enduring staggering pain and the uncertainty of the future of his marriage, Reid's achievement in the book is a coming to terms with that ambiguity. And it doesn't give too much away to reveal that he returns to the gym in Austin, on the support of a cane, to put on gloves again. I don't know Reid, and he may be a very different man in person, but he comes across as someone you would like to have as a friend - courageous, and the last to admit it, coming to terms with the world in his own way and determined to take on adversity even while it means never fully overcoming self-doubt.

This is an excellent memoir about growing up in Texas, manhood, the aftermath of violence, and the long journey of recovery. The Bullet Meant for Me is intelligent and insightful-highly recommended!