"Half my life ago, I killed a girl."

So begins Darin Strauss' Half a Life, the true story of how one high school outing in his father's Oldsmobile resulted in the tragic death of a young girl, and the beginning of a different, darker life for the author. In the days, weeks, months, years since this accident, Strauss has struggled to come to terms with what "accident" even means; was it physically possible to avoid his classmate Celine's swerving bike? Was she suicidal? The police had assured him there was nothing he could have done to avoid hitting her, and charges were dropped -- but then why were Celine's parents suing him? Now 36 years old and a father, Darin Strauss has lived half his life with the pain and grief of having killed someone.

After speaking publicly about the event for the first time on This American Life-- which garnered a powerful and overwhelming response -- Strauss delves even deeper into the meaning and consequences of that fateful, or possibly fateless day.

At the center of this elegant, painful, stunningly honest memoir thrums a question fundamental to what it means to be human: What do we do with what we’ve been given? … What is truly exceptional here is watching a writer of fine fiction probe, directly, carefully and with great humility, the source from which his fiction springs."-Dani Shapiro, New York Times Book Review

"A remarkable, beyond-brave memoir that offers an intensely personal look at the most agonizing events in the author's post-accident life… With astounding frequency, Strauss pinpoints truths that most of us would find indescribable."-Stephan Lee, O, The Oprah Magazine

"With honesty and sensitivity, Strauss looks not only at how that fateful incident decades ago ended Celine's young life, but also at how it greatly affected his. Out of undoubtedly complicated circumstances, he crafts a simple yet remarkable story about pain and guilt, maturity and responsibility, hope and understanding."-Christina Eng, San Francisco Chronicle