Never Say I Can't- Philip Catshill
This is a wonderful true to life book, written by the
sufferer of a major cerebrovascular accident experienced at the very young age
of thirty. Having just received his sergeant’s strips as a British Policeman,
Catshill is cut down to a physical half, with a severely damaged long and short-term
memory and at first a total lack of coherent speech. He had to learn how to
regain control of his motor functions, especially those on the entire right
side of his body, and his mind. The man even had to ‘retrain’ his injured brain
to see through what had become a suddenly ‘disconnected’ right eye. His
courage, honesty, and determination shine through in proverbial buckets.
Catshill has survived not only this story’s devastating
stroke, but two more less severe episodes since. That is that they were
considerably less severe than the first, but by no means inconsequential. In
his rebuilt life he has become a first class autobiographer and in another
genre fiction writer. This is the sort of story that should fortify the
determination of any one of us having fallen into some form of severe health
crisis. Except sadly, our own minds are likely to be so shattered or simply
pre-occupied that we will fail to benefit from any memories from this amazing
story about the will to recover.
This is an immensely humorous book, though of course often
of a very black nature, but one that raises genuine belly laughs at that, and
so it should for live is unbearable if we try to treat every unfortunate
situation with only the gravity it naturally generates. It goes without saying
that it also inevitably moistens one’s eyes. I felt at liberty to laugh at
Catshill’s struggles, laughing with him, but taking the seriousness, the mental
depression, the physical distress on-board.
In many ways this will always be a unique book, as it is
rare for anyone to recover from such major trauma, and to also have the
intellectual ability to subsequently write so well about the event. When the
trauma is of the nature of a stroke, a literal cerebral infarction, then this
book must be seen as all the more remarkable. This isn’t a some imagined third
person narrative or ghost-written augmentation of the victim’s capacity, this
is true, direct, gritty autobiography.
Some living individuals don’t come out of this narrative at
all well, as brutal honesty extends beyond the author himself. I trust that
their identities are well hidden. Arguably, biography can only be real when the
wide field is truly accurate. There is no implied criticism on my part, only
reason that would always prevent me getting to close to publicly disclosed
personal truth. Memoir is an often-painful genre. As we read in this story, we
notice how a simple sentence, spoken or written, can be totally devastating or
by tone or tiny change be the greatest of empowering gifts. Recovery is always
easier with the kindness of others and can hang in the balance either way on
very few targeted words. The words in this book are chosen and ordered to
strong affect.
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