Jeremy Renner didn’t want to write a book.
That’s the essence of the opening paragraphs of his new memoir “My Next Breath” (out now from Macmillan), which recounts the “Hawkeye” actor’s serious injury in a 2023 snowplow accident.
Renner was crushed under a 14,000-pound snowplow after trying to prevent the machine from sliding toward his nephew. Renner suffered more than 30 broken bones, a collapsed lung and his left eye was “squeezed out of its orbital socket,” he writes in the book. In “My Next Breath,” Renner writes that he didn’t want to relive the “incident and its violence, nor the ramifications,” but that he realized the accident had a continued “ripple effect” on others.
USA TODAY listeners can hear an exclusive audiobook clip, including real footage from the 911 calls neighbors made after the accident.
Listen to Jeremy Renner narrate snowplow accident in ‘My Next Breath’
“My Next Breath” spares no details when it comes to Renner’s injuries, but beyond the gruesome bits, Renner offers an intimate look at his physical and mental recovery following the accident.
Throughout several chapters, he weaves his own perspective of the accident with flashbacks from his family’s New Year’s Eve celebration and earlier memories. In this audiobook clip provided exclusively to USA TODAY, neighbors Barb Fletcher and Rich Kovach call 911 after Renner’s nephew ran to their house for help. Fletcher, who is medically trained, runs outside with towels, cradling Renner’s head and applying pressure to stop the bleeding while Kovach talks with the dispatchers.
During this, Renner, who also hosts the Disney+ vehicle rebuilding docuseries “Rennervations,” recalls keeping his breath regulated and “problem-solving” as he lay awaiting help.
“In my agony, I still maintain a kind of blind hope. Despite what had just happened, and with each breath in thrall to the fear that this is where the story ends, I still find in myself a level of what I can only describe as optimism,” Renner writes. “Though my body is completely smashed, my eye hanging out, every breath an agonizing push-up from the depths of drowning, still my mind manages to delve into a kind of instinctual problem-solving.”
Jeremy Renner explains his return to acting, ‘Mayor of Kingstown’
Jeremy Renner says his return to the “Mayor of Kingstown” set was “part of his recovery” after his near-death snowcat accident.
Jeremy Renner memoir recounts ‘tiny, monumental’ mistake that led to accident
In “My Next Breath,” Renner recalls not setting the parking brake on the snowplow as “an innocent, critical, life-changing moment” and a “tiny, monumental slip of the mind would change the course of my life forever.”
Renner attempted to jump across the snowplow’s tracks and into the cab and press an emergency stop button to prevent it from crushing his nephew, but he missed the leap and instead ended up under the machine.
“Nothing after that moment could yet be imagined,” he writes.
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at [email protected].
Leave a Reply