Stroke – A 5% Chance of Survival

By Ricky Monahan Brown

The day after losing his job in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Ricky suffers a catastrophic haemorrhagic stroke. Fortunately, his girlfriend Beth is nearby. A few minutes later, the unconscious Ricky is wheeled into Brooklyn’s Methodist Hospital with a 5% chance of survival, and worse odds of any type of good outcome. Beth begins an eight-week vigil, grabbing an occasional nap on a waiting room floor. Then Hurricane Sandy does to New York what the haemorrhage did to Ricky’s brain. Amid the rubble of a battered city, brain injury, and lost jobs, Beth and Ricky start planning for a future together. After all, this is a love story.

Reviews of Stroke – A 5% Chance of Survival

‘Written with searing honesty and literary panache, this is a great book about a difficult subject.’ – Doug Johnstone

‘No memoir about a major neurological injury should be this funny.’ – Kaite Welsh

‘A wryly humorous meditation on love, the strangeness of life and the miracle of second chances.’ – Allyson Stack

‘Inspirational, with a fascinating, and unexpected, ending.’ – Professor Sir Kenneth Calman