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GIMP: When Life Deals You a Crappy Hand, You Can Fold -or You Can Play | 
 enlarge | Authors: Mark Zupan, Tim Swanson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $0.31
You Save: $24.64 (99%)
New (32) Used (34) Collectible (1) from $0.31
Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 271994
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 006112768X
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.43092
EAN: 9780061127687
ASIN: 006112768X
Publication Date: October 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Small stickers. Ships Next Business Day!
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Product Description
Mark Zupan was a college soccer star, out drinking one night with friends. Tired from the game and from a few too many beers, he decided to take a nap in the back of his best friend's pickup truck. Still asleep when the vehicle started and drove away, he was suddenly jolted awake as the truck crashed. Mark was thrown into a canal and was stuck in frigid water, barely clinging to a tree branch, for fourteen hours. When he was finally rescued, Mark discovered the terrible truth—he'd broken his neck and would most likely be a quadriplegic, facing life in a wheelchair, with only limited use of his four limbs. At first Mark's only goal was to walk again, and when that proved impossible, he fell into the depths of despair and retreated from the world and from the people closest to him, increasingly bitter and furious with himself. But through love, friendship, and an introduction to a new sport, Mark realized that he could live a more-than-full life in a chair and has gone on to create an existence that's truly exceptional. Now a Paralympic athlete (playing quad rubgy, aka "murderball") who's starred in a movie, Mark explains in his memoir that, in a way, getting hurt was the best thing that could ever have happened to him—and that despite people's prejudices, a guy in a chair still gets to have sex with his girlfriend, party with his friends, and even crowd-surf at Pearl Jam shows. Inspiring, defiant, and revealing, GIMP will appeal not only to fans of Murderball but also to anyone ready to be motivated by a touching, captivating, and heartfelt story about triumphing over adversity.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Book purchase March 18, 2008
The product was great and Woody's book store communicated great through email about the purchase and ordering information. The only thing is the number of days that it took to ship was confusing; I thought it would get to me sooner, but what the number of days meant was when it would be shipped as opposed to it arriving to me.
Zupan Rules! December 30, 2007
Sometimes, people who have been "handicapped" in some manner end up withdrawing into themselves. A few of them are downright miserable. Mad at the world for being stuck in the situation they're in... the best they can hope for (because they're depressing to be around) is to have people feel sorry for them.
Mark Zupan (who, hopefully, you know from the astoundingly-good, and deserved-to-win-the-Oscar documentary, MURDERBALL), is NOT one of those people. He doesn't WANT anyone to feel sorry for him. (In fact, he doesn't even want to be seen as a "role model," or an "inspiration," though [sorry Mark!], to a lot of people, he is.)
Mark was an athletic, fun-loving 18-year-old, having a blast in South Florida when everything he knew changed in an instant. Sleeping off a night of heavy partying in the back of his buddy Chris Igoe's parked pickup, he had no clue when his friend got in and (also drunk) drove off. Not too long thereafter, Igoe swerved off the road and Mark ended up flying out of the truck-bed, over a fence, and into some dense foliage overhanging a small lake. (Igoe had no idea Mark was in the truck bed, so when the police came, they never looked for him.)
Mark regained consciousness, only to find himself unable to move (he didn't know it yet, but he was paralyzed from the neck down), hanging upside-down from a branch with his nose just inches from the water... and getting closer by the moment. He hung there for 14 hours, before a workman heard him yelling for help.
And that's just the START of the story!
In the years that followed, he has not only become one of the star players of the sport known as Quad Rugby (a.k.a. Murderball), his attitude about his "situation" (whether he likes it or not!) has helped untold numbers of others* to better cope with their own situations.
* I know of what I speak. My young and lovely wife has been in a wheelchair for several years due to Multiple Sclerosis. After seeing the movie MURDERBALL --and *especially* after meeting Zupan at a tournament, her attitude went from "good" to fantastic. She's no longer "the girl in the wheelchair." She's simply my wife, who's fun to be around, and who's interested in doing the things she CAN do, rather than fretting about the things she can't.
-Jonathan Sabin
Not Your Usual Feel Good Story of Triumph Over Adversity December 3, 2007
A fast paced, gritty look into an Athlete's brush with death and the long road to recovery. If you are looking for the next inspiration for a cheesy After School Special on overcoming adversity...don't read this book. If you are looking for a well written, insightful look into how one guy copes with tragedy and disability, then this is an excellent read. To say Gimp has texture is an understatement thanks to its subject, Mark Zupan, a quadriplegic athlete who was made famous by the documentary Murder Ball. Gimp details how this proud, perhaps arrogant athlete dealt with a tragic accident that cost him the full use of his limbs thanks to drunken night that resulted in a brush with death and a debilitating spinal cord injury.
Gimp does not spare us the details that are often left out of such stories including the uglier side of human emotion. The books subject faces Zupan's denial, doubt, guilt, fear, despair and loss as a result of his tragedy. While he ultimately comes to terms with his injury and recovery, it is not without some serious setbacks, some self inflicted. It is this part of writer Timothy Swanson's writing that really sets Gimp apart. He does not spare Zupan some hard looks into his darker nature to include arrogance, self indulgence and outright self destructiveness at times. If there is a villain in the book, it is Zupan himself and his own feelings of despair and anger. It is Swanson's description of Zupan's struggle with his own dark feelings and fears that give the story its power.
The book is not without its own sense of humor and offers a dark amusement that Zupan has for the hand life has dealt him. Gimp deftly shows Zupan's outlook on life which is headstrong and confident but not without his fair share of hidden frailty in the face of a near death experience. In fact, the description of the actual accident that describes Zupan clinging to life, literally perhaps, is the book's strongest section. I have many friends who suffer from war wounds, especially brain injuries from IED's or "danger close" air strikes and I can say from personal experience that Gimp does an excellent job at looking at how proud warriors (in Gimp's case a world class athlete), deal with injury and recovery. I recommend this book without reservation to certainly anyone who knows someone who suffers from a disability or who has seen the documentary Murder Ball. The book has broader appeal to fans of sports writing as well since the book leaves no doubt that Zupan is an athlete. The fact that it is an easy read and has a brisk pace is no small feat given that other works of this genre tend to drag on, lack direction and are often burdened with sappy and cliched, touchy-feely housewife book club nonsense. Zupan's force of will as described by Swanson carries the book along as does the suspense of how he will cope with each stage of his recovery and his entrance into the world of quad rugby aka Murder Ball. I thought it was a great read and recommend it without reservation.
Awesome read July 19, 2007
This is a great book. Inspiring, entertaining, hilarious, and real. Mark doesn't pull any punches in this. It is not a self-pity book nor does it try to lecture the reader. It is a real account of someone who is very inspiring, yet doesn't pretend to be what he isn't.
Once I started reading this I couldn't put it down. Awesome!!!
psgator May 6, 2007
Mark Zupan makes you think about what you have, not what you do not have.
He may be in a chair, but he is not handicap. Mark Zupan speak frankly and openly about his life before and after. He does not blame anyone for his injury.
Make you think you life is O.K. and despite what happens you can survive and go on.
Life is not so bad.
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