A Deadly Wandering: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in the Age of Attention

by Matt Richtel

Overview

An ordinary Utah college student named Reggie Shaw fatally strikes two rocket scientists while texting and driving. Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Matt Richtel follows Reggie from the moment of the tragedy, through the police investigation, the state's groundbreaking prosecution, and ultimately, Reggie's wrenching admission of responsibility. Richtel parallels Reggie's journey with leading-edge scientific findings regarding human attention and the impact of technology on our brains.

Remarkably, today Reggie is a leading advocate who has helped spark a national effort targeting distracted driving, and the arc of his story provides a window through which Richtel pursues actionable solutions to help manage this crisis individually and as a society. A propulsive listen filled with fascinating scientific detail, riveting narrative tension, and rare emotional depth, A Deadly Wandering is an audiobook that can change—and save—lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062350763
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	09/23/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 5.70(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Matt Richtel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times technology journalist and novelist. He is the author of two previous critically acclaimed novels, Hooked and Devil's Plaything, and his fiction, like his journalism, focuses on the impact of technology on how people live, behave, and love in the 21st century. He won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for his series on distracted driving. He lives in San Francisco with his family.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Part I Collision

Chapter 1 Reggie 11

Chapter 2 The Toll 21

Chapter 3 The Neuroscientists 30

Chapter 4 Reggie 36

Chapter 5 Terryl 49

Chapter 6 The Toll 55

Chapter 7 The Neuroscientists 60

Chapter 8 Terryl 72

Chapter 9 Reggie 81

Chapter 10 Reggie 90

Chapter 11 The Neuroscientists 98

Chapter 12 Reggie 110

Chapter 13 Hunt for Justice 115

Chapter 14 The Neuroscientists 119

Chapter 15 Terryl 129

Part II Reckoning

Chapter 16 The Neuroscientists 139

Chapter 17 Terryl 147

Chapter 18 Hunt for Justice 155

Chapter 19 Reggie 158

Chapter 20 The Neuroscientists 165

Chapter 21 Terryl 172

Chapter 22 Hunt for Justice 179

Chapter 23 The Lawmakers 189

Chapter 24 The Neuroscientists 192

Chapter 25 Reggie 200

Chapter 26 Terryl 206

Chapter 27 The Neuroscientists 214

Chapter 28 Hunt for Justice 223

Chapter 29 Reggie 235

Chapter 30 Hunt for Justice 240

Chapter 31 Hunt for Justice 248

Chapter 32 Hunt for Justice 251

Chapter 33 Terryl 256

Chapter 34 Reggie 262

Chapter 35 Hunt for Justice 269

Part III Redemption

Chapter 36 Hunt for Justice 281

Chapter 37 Reggie 287

Chapter 38 Hunt for Justice 289

Chapter 39 The Lawmakers 295

Chapter 40 The Lawmakers 300

Chapter 41 Justice 306

Chapter 42 The Lawmakers 317

Chapter 43 Justice 319

Chapter 44 Reggie 321

Chapter 45 Redemption 334

Chapter 46 Reggie's Brain 334

Chapter 47 Terryl 340

Chapter 48 Redemption 345

Chapter 49 The Neuroscientists 356

Chapter 50 Reggie 362

Epilogue 369

Author's Note 378

Acknowledgments 388

Index 391

Editorial Reviews

…Richtel gives Shaw's story the thorough, emotional treatment it is due, interweaving a detailed chronicle of the science behind distracted driving. As an instructive social parable, Richtel's densely reported…compassionate and persuasive book deserves a spot next to Fast Food Nation and To Kill a Mockingbird in America's high school curriculums. To say it may save lives is self-evident…Richtel displays admirable empathy for everyone involved but reserves a special place in his heart for Reggie—impassive and forlorn, monosyllabic but tortured, evasive yet sincere. Shaw's conversion is depicted with revelatory precision, his epiphany realistically subdued and painstakingly gradual.

The New York Times Book Review - Robert Kolker

07/28/2014
A deadly driving-while-texting car crash illuminates the perils of information overload in this scattershot saga of digital dysfunctions. New York Times reporter and novelist Richtel (The Cloud) recounts the story of Reggie Shaw, a 19-year-old Utah man who in 2006 swerved into oncoming traffic while texting his girlfriend; the resulting accident killed two other men. Part of the book is a lucid, interesting account of the developing brain science of how we focus our attention and how it is distracted by the addictive flood of information from our always connected wireless devices and our insistently multitasked jobs. (Researchers tell the author that texting impairs ones driving as much as being drunk.) Interspersed is a drawn-out journalistic account of the accident’s aftermath, with grieving families, legal proceedings that explore the growth of jurisprudence on driving and cell phones, and Reggie’s guilt and subsequent rebirth as an anti-texting crusader. The author’s determination to juice up the science with human interest, emotional anguish, and courtroom drama feels overdone—many figures in the book have their back stories ransacked for extraneous episodes of trauma and abuse. Still, when Richtel lets the research speak for itself, he raises fascinating and troubling issues about the cognitive impact of our technology. Agent: Laurie Liss, Sterling Lord Literistic. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Richtel’s compassionate and persuasive book deserves a spot next to Fast Food Nation and To Kill a Mockingbird in America’s high school curriculums. To say it may save lives is self-evident.

New York Times Book Review

Keen and elegantly raw. ... Not just a morality tale but a probe sent into the world of technology. ... Richtel draws all the characters with a fine brush, a delicacy that treats misery both respectfully and front-on.

Christian Science Monitor

A portrait of our digital age that will deeply frighten you and cause you to reevaluate many common aspects of your ‘connected’ life. ... An extraordinarily important book that everyone—and I mean everyone—should read.

Douglas Preston

Americans are addicted to their technology, putting us on a modern day collision course with very real consequences. Matt Richtel brilliantly tells the story of the aftermath of a deadly distracted driving crash. His portrait is riveting. I could not stop reading, and neither will you.

Ray LaHood

A masterpiece of reporting, insight, and empathy. ... A beautiful, cautionary tale that reads like a novel, and that we disregard at our risk.

Robert Kurson

A Deadly Wandering is more than a page-turner. It’s a book that can save lives.

Nicholas Carr

Matt Richtel’s riveting book is narrative nonfiction at its finest. ... This book should be placed in every school and legislative chamber in the country.

Jon Huntsman

This book does that most amazing of feats: it makes cutting-edge scientific research feel relevant to the choices we make every time we get in a car, sit at a desk, or talk to our friends and family.

Charles Duhigg

A gripping book. ... This is human drama and the latest knowledge about obsessive technology woven together in memorable style.

Ralph Nader

Intensely gripping, compelling, and sobering... A Deadly Wandering gives the potentially lethal risks of the digital age a very human face — one which we can, if we’re honest, readily see in the mirror.

Winnipeg Free Press

Exhaustively researched. ... Richtel brings a novelist’s knack for unspooling narrative conflict to bear on Shaw’s real-life drama.

San Francisco Chronicle

Each page is... irresistible. ... A richly detailed and compellingly readable exploration of the ‘clash’ between our brains and the electronic devices that, for many of us, have become essential to ‘every facet of life.’

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Keen and elegantly raw. ... Not just a morality tale but a probe sent into the world of technology. ... Richtel draws all the characters with a fine brush, a delicacy that treats misery both respectfully and front-on.

Christian Science Monitor (One of the 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year)

Richtel’s compassionate and persuasive book deserves a spot next to Fast Food Nation and To Kill a Mockingbird in America’s high school curriculums. To say it may save lives is self-evident.

New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice)

Intensely gripping, compelling, and sobering... A Deadly Wandering gives the potentially lethal risks of the digital age a very human face — one which we can, if we’re honest, readily see in the mirror.

Winnipeg Free Press (A Best Book of the Year)

Exhaustively researched. ... Richtel brings a novelist’s knack for unspooling narrative conflict to bear on Shaw’s real-life drama.

San Francisco Chronicle (A Best Book of the Year)

09/15/2014
Richtel (New York Times) expands upon his Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting on distracted driving by presenting the story of Utah teenager Reggie Shaw, who caused a fatal accident as he texted while driving. This unfortunate event resulted in a passionate police officer as well as a victims' advocate collaborating to seek justice in an era in which reliance on—or addiction to—mobile devices is a common factor in vehicular accidents. Alongside this narrative of Shaw's evolution from stubbornly refusing to apologize to becoming an advocate for stricter legislation about distracted driving, Richtel details the work of a group of neurosurgeons as they research the extent to which technology consumes and controls the mind. While these sections are certainly compelling and relevant, they bog down the text at times. Ideally, these would have a more natural inclusion into the broader narrative of the accident and its aftermath. VERDICT Overall, this is a highly accessible and timely work. Readers of popular narrative and scientific nonfiction will certainly find this to be a brisk and important read.—Ben Neal, Richland Lib., Columbia, SC

Library Journal

★ 2014-07-01
A novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter explores with nearly Javert-ian persistenceone of the early cases of traffic fatalities caused by texting while driving.On Sept. 22, 2006, college student Reggie Shaw, texting inhis truck, veered into the oncoming lane on a narrow highway near Logan, Utah,and struck a car, knocking it into an approaching truck. Both men inside thatcar were rocket scientists with families, and both died. Richtel (Devil's Plaything, 2011, etc.) beginshis account with an MRI of Shaw's brain (he returns to this scene near theend), then reports the crash in detail, following the story to its most recentlegal and emotional conclusions (insofar as there can be conclusions). Healternates his focus throughout: from Shaw and his family, to the victims'families, to the police and legal system, to the legislators consideringtexting laws, to the latest scientific research on how much we can possiblyattend to in our incredibly distracting world (not nearly as much as we think).Readers will be alarmed to discover what science has learned about the dangersdrivers create when they text or talk on the phone. The vast majority of us arejust not capable of doing so safely. Richtel excels at bringing to life hiscast of sundry characters. (Virtually everyone agreed to interviews.) Readersget to know Shaw's parents, the widows, the daughters of the victims, theattorneys on both sides, a judge who keeps LesMisérablesnear at hand (and required Shaw to read it), a victims rights advocate,scientists and, of course, Shaw himself, who emerges as a modest young man (adevout Mormon), a young man who'd never before been in trouble, a young manwho, we eventually realize, could be any one of us.Comprehensive research underlies this compelling, highlyemotional and profoundly important story.

Kirkus Reviews