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Item Description

This copy of "Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See" (Paperback) is autographed by several Olympic and Paralympic athletes:

• Shani Davis, 2006 & 2010 Olympic bronze and two-time gold medalist in Speed Skating
• Angela Ruggiero, four-time U.S. Olympic Ice Hockey Player
• Peggy Fleming, 1986 Olympic gold medalist in Figure Skating
• Bonnie St. John, 1984 Paralympic silver medalist and 2-time bronze medalist, Slalom and Giant Slalom
• And Seeing Eye graduate Mike May, 1984 Paralympic bronze medalist, Alpine Skiing, who is the subject of this true story. 

In his critically acclaimed bestseller "Shadow Divers," Robert Kurson explored the depths of history, friendship, and compulsion. Kurson returns with another thrilling adventure, "Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See," the stunning true story of one man’s heroic odyssey from blindness into sight.

Mike May spent his life crashing through. Blinded at age three, he defied expectations by breaking world records in downhill speed skiing, joining the CIA, and becoming a successful inventor, entrepreneur, and family man. He had never yearned for vision. Then, in 1999, a chance encounter brought startling news: a revolutionary stem cell transplant surgery could restore May’s vision. It would allow him to drive, to read, to see his children’s faces. He began to contemplate an astonishing new world: Would music still sound the same? Would sex be different? Would he recognize himself in the mirror? Would his marriage survive? Would he still be Mike May?

The procedure was filled with risks, some of them deadly, others beyond May’s wildest dreams. And even if the surgery worked, history was against him. Fewer than twenty cases were known to all of history in which a person gained vision after a lifetime of blindness. Each of those people suffered from desperate consequences we can scarcely imagine. There were countless reasons for May to refuse vision. He could think of only a single reason to go forward. Whatever his decision, he knew it would change his life.

"Crashing Through" is a journey of suspense, daring, romance, and insight into the mysteries of vision and the brain. Robert Kurson gives readers a fascinating account of one man’s choice to explore what it means to see—and to truly live.