The Road Back

Matthew Miller had just pedaled up a mountain pass. He was 20, a member of the University of Virginia triathlon club, so fit his resting pulse was 42!  He was on top of the world in so many ways, in love, with dreams of attending medical school. And then, cycling along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, tragedy struck.  The real story is not what happened, but what happened after.  Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Michael Vitez shares with you the incredible, humbling, miraculous story of Matt’s survival and recovery.  It is a story, truly, of grace and grit, of an America that shines – families, community, individuals and institutions.  The story is as gripping as it is inspiring. Ride along! 

The author first chronicled Matt Miller’s story for his newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer. The response from readers was so overwhelming – and Matt’s continued recovery so remarkable – that Vitez  immersed himself in Matt’s world.  The Road Back is not only about a young man’s drive to reclaim his life, but about the people who rode with him, rescued him, helped him heal, and saw up close his amazing comeback.    

Michael T. Vitez has been a staff writer at The Philadelphia Inquirer for 27 years. He won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism for a series of stories about five people approaching the end of life. Vitez has taught classes in narrative non-fiction at the University of Pennsylvania and was a visiting Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton. He is also a former Michigan Journalism Fellow. He is the author of Rocky Stories: Tales of Love, Hope and Happiness at America’s Most Famous Steps. (2006) He graduated from the University of Virginia, where he was editor-in-chief of The Cavalier Daily. He is married to Maureen Fitzgerald, food editor at the Inquirer, and they have three children.  For 12 years, he has organized the annual Erlton triathlon at his local swim club!