Posttraumatic: A Memoir

Ron Riekki's Posttraumatic is at turns heartbreaking and hysterically funny, profound and absurd, filled with acerbic wit and a sense of childlike innocence. Drawing on Riekki's experience in the military, as an EMT, as an actor, his time at a marketing firm in China, and much, much more, the essays contained in Posttraumatic are at times hard to believe, but are never short of brutally honest. "Ron Riekki's voice is savage, funny, angry, and very often mesmerizing. With this what-the-hell-is-this-exactly collection, he's written a deeply American and triumphantly strange examination of our national character—also known as 'the mess we're in.' I both admire and am baffled by this wonderful little book." —Tom Bissell, journalist, author of God Lives in St. Petersburg: and Other Stories and co-author ofThe Disaster Artist "Ron Riekki has lived in the world's back alleys, prisons, ambulances, far flung hellholes, with the Navy and the Air Force, as an EMT or a standup comedian, a teacher, a student—but he's a writer and a poet above all else, and he writes about life, death, hope, despair, God, and madness in a way nobody else can. Hilarious, provocative, and often devastating, but always honest, always real. This book is a fever dream with no cure. " —Steve Hamilton, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Lock Artist and Dead Man Running