The Walking Wounded

A sobering encounter with lives transformed by gun violence and an urgent call to build more comprehensive systems to care for wounded people.

Gun violence is a plague in the United States; even survivors experience suffering that wreaks havoc on their lives and our communities. Although excellent emergency trauma care means that eighty percent of shooting victims do not die from their injuries, surviving is only the first step. Most find themselves trapped in a healthcare and judicial system that only amplifies their pain, trauma, and uncertainty. In The Walking Wounded, Jooyoung Lee invites readers into the hospitals, courtrooms, and porches where gunshot victims struggle to rebuild their lives. Drawing from years of fieldwork in Philadelphia, Lee shows how victims’ injuries fester into new problems over time in the absence of meaningful follow-up care. Attempting routine tasks with a wounded body reminds survivors that they are no longer who they used to be—both physically and socially. Lee shows how trauma ricochets through a victim’s world as family and friends are also affected by their injuries. To make matters worse, Lee argues that existing government safety nets place victims into ever more precarious circumstances that compound their suffering. In the face of healthcare and judicial systems that fail wounded people, Lee urges a sensible and sensitive rehabilitative process aimed at equipping the walking wounded with ongoing care that aspires for more than mere survival: regaining independent lives. 

Author Biography

Jooyoung Lee is associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Blowin’ Up: Rap Dreams in South Central, also published by the University of Chicago Press.