Rebuilding a Brick Wall
DriverWorks Ink / 17 November 2021

Rebuilding a Brick Wallby Susanne Gauthier with Evan WallPublished by DriverWorks InkReview by Toby A. Welch$17.95 ISBN 9781927570654 This book opens with a bang. We are immediately transported to the scene of the severe car accident that left Evan Wall with a traumatic brain injury at the age of nineteen. From there we delve into Evan’s life in Shellbrook, a tiny town forty-five kilometres west of Prince Albert. He was an avid football player – “football was my life” – and looked forward to hanging with his buddies on the weekends.  Once the backstory is done, we jump to the summer of 2016. After a night of partying in Canwood, Evan hitched a ride back to Shellbrook from a friend of a friend. Around four a.m. on July 30th, an animal on the road caused the driver to swerve. The truck hit a raised shoulder bank and flipped into the ditch. The seatbelt-wearing driver was uninjured. Evan was not wearing his seatbelt and was ejected through the rear window, landing ten feet away. Paramedics intubated Evan at the scene and he survived despite the odds. He was suffering from DAI, diffuse axonal injury; the connecting fibres in his brain (axons)…