A BBC TWO BETWEEN THE COVERS BOOK CLUB PICK

After a car accident Jarred discovers he'll never walk again. Confined to a 'giant roller-skate', he finds himself with neither money nor job, a shoplifting habit, an addiction to painkillers and strangers treating him like he's an idiot. Worse still, he's forced to live back home with his estranged father.

Trying to piece himself together, Jarred comes to realise that things don't have to stay broken after all. The Coward is about hurt and forgiveness, how the world treats disabled people, and how we write and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about our lives - and try to find a happy ending.

"Sings from its first lines . . . unbearably poignant . . . a truly uplifting emotional journey; a tender, wise, brutally funny novel" - * Guardian *

"Written with insight and savage wit . . . it is uplifting because McGinnis is a realist who never tries to sweeten the bitter experience of learning to navigate life in a wheelchair. His characters are vivid and impossible to forget, and he has an underlying optimism about the various ways in which muddled lives shake down and settle into something better" - * The Times *

"Black comedy alternates with fragile tenderness in this vivid and fiercely honest novel" - * Daily Mail *

"Visceral yet immensely witty . . . The sections describing the immediate aftermath of the crash are incredibly powerful" - * Herald *

"Riotously funny . . . the book is also a testament to our ability to forgive" - * Big Issue *

"Efficient, bracing and bleakly comic" - * New Statesman *