One Equal Music (A Personal History of Life After Violence)

“My favorite nonfiction book of the past 25 years... humane and angry and subtle and heartbreaking. I give it to people all the time.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“Unrelenting, mesmerizing, and beautifully written… Transformative.”—Foreword Reviews

Published in hardcover as Disturbance (2020), Philippe Lançon’s One Equal Music is a portrait of a man’s shifting relationship to time, to his caretakers, to writing, music, and journalism, and to his own changed body.

On January 7, 2015, two men force their way into the Paris offices of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and open fire. The attack leaves 12 dead, 11 injured, and sends shockwaves radiating across the world. A global solidarity movement unites instantly under the banner Je suis Charlie, and a fierce debate ignites over the freedom of the press. 

Journalist Philippe Lançon is among the gravely wounded. His world is upended. He will spend months in hospitals under police protection, undergoing multiple reconstructive surgeries, with a whiteboard and marker as his only means of communication.

During the course of his convalescence, he finds surprising solace and meaning in music and literature. In this astonishing, poignant memoir, with honesty, erudition, and humor, Lançon reckons with his past, an uncertain future, and the hard journey back to life and love.