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A Story of Devotion
by Mark Kram
In the mid-1970s, brothers Buddy and Jimmy Miley were close, both on the verge of impressive athletic careers. A promising high school quarterback, Buddy's potential was cut short by an injury that left him quadriplegic. Immobile and imprisoned in his body for decades, Buddy would watch life pass by from his wheelchair, living at home under his mother's and brother's care, and wondering what his life could have been.
Buddy and Jimmy visited special hospitals and traveled to Lourdes in search of a miracle, never losing hope as they searched for a cure. But as Buddy suffered increasing pain, and also realized that he would never be able to walk again - and never prove himself capable of being loved by Karen, a woman he'd first met in high school - he asked Jimmy to help him end his life.
Beautifully written, both heart-wrenching and hopeful, Mark Kram Jr.'s Like Any Normal Day explores the important bonds between families and the depths of what we're willing to do for those we love.
"Starred Review. A heartbreaking story of love and dedication told with remarkable compassion and literary skill." - Kirkus Reviews
"Drawing on interviews with Miley's family and friends, Philadelphia sportswriter Kram elegantly tells a poignant and sad tale of struggle, loss, and love that illustrates both how quickly life can change and how deep our bonds to our families grow through times of crisis." - Publishers Weekly
"Inspirational." - The New York Times
"There is nothing normal about Like Any Normal Day. In the spirit of his late father, Mark Kram Jr. has stripped away the mythology and stereotypes of the sporting world and found something deeper, the complicated truth of a profound and haunting story." - David Maraniss, author of When Pride Still Mattered
"Like Any Normal Day looks piercingly beyond the moment when the lights dim and the crowds go home in any young athlete's life. Kram's acuity and sympathies stretch far beyond his sportswriter's practiced gaze - indeed, all the way to the realm of literature. It is not a happy story he has to tell us. But it seems to me - perhaps for that very reason - it is an essential and cautionary one." - Richard Ford
"Like Any Normal Day is anything but normal. It's heart-breaking and heart-warming, a compelling story of brothers, love, tragedy and sports. Mark Kram Jr. takes us on a raw emotional journey that turns into a riveting American story." - Christine Brennan, USA Today columnist, ABC News and NPR commentator and author of Best Seat in the House
This information about Like Any Normal Day was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mark Kram, Jr. writes for The Philadelphia Daily News. His feature articles have won the Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists, been awarded top honors by the Associated Press for three consecutive years, and been published six times in The Best American Sports Writing Anthology. Kram lives in New Jersey with his wife and two daughters.
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