A fascinating read, with something important to teach every writer, fiction or non.
“You weren’t bitten by a dog,” one nurse told me. “You were mauled by one.”
It took me months to recover, and that gave me time to think. I thought about my body, which hurt in ways I’d never felt—not just in worse ways, but in new ones. Even my throat burned and ached. At some point, I realized it was because I’d never screamed so loudly before.
I also thought about the book I was writing, a history of the Lewis and Clark expedition. To me, the animal attack felt so brutal, so irrational, so life-changing. But to Lewis and Clark and their men, it was just a Saturday.
People often comment about the amount of detail in my books. There’s a reason for that, and Fehrman articulates it better here than I ever have.
And hells to the yeah, I’ll be reading his book, where I’ll probably learn even more.
Thanks and a hat tip to The Best of Journalism.