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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
| Original language | |
| English | |
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| Weblink | |
| www.jasonschmidtbooks.com | |
A LIST OF THINGS THAT DIDN'T KILL ME
A stunning and harrowing non-fiction read, detailing the author’s life on the margins with an abusive father.
“There are a lot of books written about what it’s like to be poor; what it’s like to be desperate. But very few of those books talk about the omnipresence of fear in the lives of the poor, or the marginalized. Fear makes you desperate for friends, at the same time it makes people reluctant to interact with you. It makes you desperate for money, and makes employers nervous about hiring you.
It makes a patently bad idea seem not only worthy of consideration, but sometimes like a necessity, or an inevitability. Ironically, the same mechanisms that allow many poor and marginalized people to survive their own fear— mechanisms like denial, suppression, and anger—make it almost impossible for the few of us who rise out of all that to discuss how terrifying it was to live in that world.
My hope, with this memoir, is to make the experience of being poor, of being an outsider, more accessible people who don’t live in that world. I also hope to provide poor kids and social misfits—people like me —with a new set of tools for analyzing their own situations, and thinking about their reactions to things, that may allow them to change their patterns and achieve better outcomes. Every kid’s situation is different, and every kid needs a different mix of tools to achieve positive change in his or her life. By adding my voice, and my experiences, to the dialogue, I hope to be able to offer the right tools to the right kid at the right time, and maybe change a life or two for the better.”
Jason Schmidt was born in Oregon in 1972. After years of living on the streets, hiding the abuse of his drug addicted, AIDS-afflicted father, he met Frank Ross through the Northwest AIDS Foundation who helped him get into college. He eventually received a law degree and is now married with two children. A LIST OF THINGS THAT DIDN’T KILL ME is his first book.
It makes a patently bad idea seem not only worthy of consideration, but sometimes like a necessity, or an inevitability. Ironically, the same mechanisms that allow many poor and marginalized people to survive their own fear— mechanisms like denial, suppression, and anger—make it almost impossible for the few of us who rise out of all that to discuss how terrifying it was to live in that world.
My hope, with this memoir, is to make the experience of being poor, of being an outsider, more accessible people who don’t live in that world. I also hope to provide poor kids and social misfits—people like me —with a new set of tools for analyzing their own situations, and thinking about their reactions to things, that may allow them to change their patterns and achieve better outcomes. Every kid’s situation is different, and every kid needs a different mix of tools to achieve positive change in his or her life. By adding my voice, and my experiences, to the dialogue, I hope to be able to offer the right tools to the right kid at the right time, and maybe change a life or two for the better.”
Jason Schmidt was born in Oregon in 1972. After years of living on the streets, hiding the abuse of his drug addicted, AIDS-afflicted father, he met Frank Ross through the Northwest AIDS Foundation who helped him get into college. He eventually received a law degree and is now married with two children. A LIST OF THINGS THAT DIDN’T KILL ME is his first book.
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Book
Published 2015-01-01 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
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Book
Published 2015-01-01 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux |