The Burn Journals - Hardcover

BRENT RUNYON WAS 14 years old when he set himself on fire.

This is a true story.

In The Burn Journals, Runyon describes that devastating suicide attempt and his recovery over the following year. He takes us into the Burn Unit in a children's hospital and through painful burn care and skin-grafting procedures. Then to a rehabilitation hospital, for intensive physical, occupational, and psychological therapy. And then finally back home, to the frightening prospect of entering high school.

But more importantly, Runyon takes us into his own mind. He shares his thoughts and hopes and fears with such unflinching honesty that we understand--with a terrible clarity--what it means to want to kill yourself and how it feels to struggle back toward normality.

Intense, exposed, insightful, The Burn Journals is a deeply personal story with universal reach. It is impossible to look away. Impossible to remain unmoved.

This truly riveting memoir is a spectacular debut for a talented new writer.

Brent Runyon graduated from high school with his class. After graduating from college, Brent worked in radio and created several autobiographical pieces. His first radio piece, 'Fire and Ice Cream,' was about his trip out of the hospital with Tina, his favorite nurse. A second piece, called 'The Burn Journals,' was an early version of the opening scenes in this book. Brent's hope in writing this book was that, by setting down the thoughts and emotions of that time with total honesty and precision, he could explain - if only to himself - the hows and whys of his depression and his recovery, and finally put it to rest. Brent Runyon lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.