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| The author, John-Brian Paprock, at age 10 in Berkeley, California. Photo taken by Nancy Roderick (the author's mother) |
INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR OF SURVIVING CHILDHOOD IN AMERICA - A STORY
BY GOLD SUN PRESS, goldsunpress.com
AUTHOR JOHN-BRIAN PAPROCK INTERVIEW - OCTOBER 2025
Before the interview, Google AI was asked “Who is John-Brian Paprock?”
Here is the Google AI answer:
John-Brian Paprock is a multifaceted individual known for his
work as:
·
An Author and Journalist: He is the author-editor of more
than a dozen books and publications, with expertise in journalism and content
creation for various media outlets.
·
An Artist and Photographer: John-Brian is recognized as an
award-winning artist and photographer.
·
An Independent Researcher: He is an independent researcher
with work related to religious studies and interfaith dialogue.
·
An Orthodox Priest: He has served the faith and interfaith
communities of Madison, Wisconsin, for over 30 years he served as an ordained
priest, chaplain, and pastoral counselor in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
·
A Community Organizer: He is known for his work in community
organization, particularly founding Interfaith Awareness Week and engaging in
local ecumenical and interfaith activities.
He currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He is the author of the new book “Surviving Childhood in
America: A story” published 2025.
We are speaking with author, John-Brian Paprock, of the new book “Surviving Childhood in America: A Story” which is available in print at Gold Sun Press (or your favorite on-line bookseller) and as an eBook at Gold Sun Press (PDF or PUB).
John-Brian, your book, based on your
own personal history, is about the resilience of children and about how the
lingering effects of traumatic events linger into adulthood. What sets your
book apart?
JOHN-BRIAN PAPROCK:
About 30 years or more ago, I went
through a process of distilling some ideas and thoughts about my personal
mission in the world. One if the lines
was “To bring light into the darkness.”
So, this book is part of that work:
that light shines through the darkness of our lives; that good and love can
overcome. It was a deep healing process for me to write my story. I hope it
will help others in their healing.
Coming to terms with difficult and
traumatic childhood events in our modern society began for me in therapy as an adult
child of an alcoholic struggling to maintain healthy relationships. It was in that
therapy when I was asked to “draw” a memory with crayons. This led to many
breakthroughs and clarity of memories. Even so, I was initially suspicious of
early childhood memories.
It was in therapy that I was also
asked to tell my story to anyone - someone, outside of therapy. I had not and
the silence of my story persisted, even as I worked through some of the
toughest memories of abuse.
GSP:
Why was that?
JBP:
There were two major reasons I was so
slow to tell my story. First, I did not want to overwhelm anyone. Second, my
life has been complicated and I felt it would take too much time. And there
were so many other reasons and excuses, postponing the telling of my story.
Eventually, I was challenged by my
therapist, at that time, to write my story down. Which I proceeded to
procrastinate repeatedly, excusing myself from writing, off and on, for years. But
the importance of telling my story kept tugging at me. I knew I needed to write
it all down. I did, at least, develop something of an outline over 15 years
ago.
GSP:
Fifteen years? Wow, that is a long
time.
JBP:
I kept trying to write about the more
traumatic events, but it was quite overwhelming. In addition, I was not happy
with the memoir format. I wanted to be accurate to the time and place of the
events, but it was too much like reliving the events. This was very depressing
and required a lot of inner energy that I doubted I could muster. I was anxious
a lot of the time. So, I would stop writing for months, even years, then write
some more and stop again. It was a very
slow process for me. Even so, the writing of my story kept calling me back.
GSP:
That is a significant writer’s block.
How did you get past it?
JBP:
The first thing that happened was a lucid dream, like a vision, that I had
completed the book with the title. That dream helped me reorient the entire
process.
The writing began to flow when I
decided to write it as a story that happened to someone else. I changed names
and compressed a few timelines to fit a story that I could tell, true to my
memories.
Interestingly, one person, who read a
draft of the book, asked that I keep his name unchanged! It was a surprising response and I was
honored to do so.
Basically, I decided to write a
roman-`a-clef novel where real people and events appear with invented names.
The other thing I did was rethink the
outline, so the book is written in flow with the process of remembering –
rather than following a strict timeline.
The other gut check was to shorten the
outline, focusing on the events of my childhood only up to age 11 years old,
including some of the related healing dilemmas in my adulthood, coping with my
mother’s final years of life.
The remainder of the original outline
included events from age 11 years old through 18 years old, until I moved to
New York City. That part of my story was postponed as a proposed second book. I
have already started that roman-`a-clef, historically accurate and true to my
memories.
GSP:
Does that explain the title “Surviving
Childhood in America: A Story”?
JBP
Yes, the sub-title, “A Story,” at
least. The rest of the title was an early working title for my writings of survival
of traumatic events through our childhood. Not as a definitive story of
surviving, but as personal reflections, memories.
The “In America” part of the title was
added as I pondered going to 11 schools in 9 cities in 4 states, from
California to Wisconsin. All by the time I was 11 years old and starting 6th
grade.
GSP:
Let us talk about that. You just said
you went to 11 schools in 9 cities in 4 states. Having read your book, it does
not seem like a travelogue.
JBP:
Thank you. I was trying to write an
engaging story, not a travelogue. Writing about my lived experience of these
places at specific times in history. I made sure of the places we lived, the
institutions we encountered, some of the people, too. Of course, some of these are combined
characters in the book.
GSP:
Tell us about some of these places.
JBP:
The first place I called home was Los
Angeles California, specifically, the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA)
where my father was completing his Master’s Degree in Art Education. Since,
this was early in my life, I was grateful for time to ask my mother before she
passed away for clarifications of places and times. I had some vivid memories
and needed verification of some of these early events and the locations,
particularly those memories that were suppressed. I was leery of just accepting
the reality of these until I could confirm them. Of course, when one is small,
the world is tremendous and one’s focus is pretty close at hand. So, my
mother’s memory of these places was very helpful. For reasons that become
obvious in the book, I did not ask her to confirm all of the events.
Looking back with adult understanding,
insights can be derived that a small toddler mind could not comprehend,
including adult intention. This is also the reason so many of my childhood
memories seem distorted or of little use. It can be hard to establish
undistorted facts – who, what, where, when. Moving from place to place helped
me with a fairly accurate timeline of my life, but everything was written from
my point of view.
About the age of five, my entire
family left California via Route 66 for Chicago. My grandmother still lived in
Oak Park and my father secured a position at Triton College, outside Chicago.
GSP:
Route 66 in the 1960s? Wow, that must
have been exciting, right?
JBP:
In reflection through my memories,
there were a few wondrous places for a five-yea-old. However, we travelled mostly
at night, my parents trading off driving duties. And I have memory of my first
comic book and getting carsick.
GSP:
What was the comic book?
JBP:
Mystery in Space with Adam Strange
flying in space with his jet pack. I also got other comic books: Batman and a
character called Metamorpho. Eventually, I vomited on them before we got to
Chicago. I really liked comic books, but not car sickness. The next stop, my
mother got some Dramamine for me, so I slept a lot of the rest of the trip. We
arrived in Chicago, or rather Oak Park, where my grandmother lived. We arrived during
the middle of the night. I remember my father bragging about how quick they
drove, but, from my five-year-old perspective, I could not tell you how long a
trip it was.
GSP:
Your first impressions of Chicago?
JBP:
Mostly a backyard metal swing set in
my grandmother’s backyard. My grandmother was a babysitter while my parents
worked on getting an apartment The first Chicago apartment was in a large dark
building on Chicago Avenue. I remember
being in awe of how tall all the buildings seemed to be compared to my limited
experience in southern California. Chicago seemed dark. So, my first
impressions were tall buildings and lots of lights. The summery experience of
southern California was soon far behind us and my first snowy winter was
coming.
It was also my first experience with
public schools. I had been fortunate to be part of the new Head Start program
at UCLA. My Chicago public school initiation was difficult for me. I was fond
of the old school buildings of Chicago. I do not recall anything that old in
California. I loved walking through the immense hallways, the heavy wooden
doors. They were very magical places to me as a child. The teachers and other children were kind of
scary to me. From those first impressions, Chicago became lighter for me as I
got older.
In many ways, the cities, the houses,
where we lived had unique personalities which had large impacts on my
experience. They were characters that shifted like the students at the
different schools of my childhood experience.
GSP:
After Chicago?
JBP:
In Chicago, my parents divorced and my
mother remarried. For my step-father, my mother’s pregnancy meant his first
child, and for his parents - their grandchild. This became clear to three
siblings under 8 years old (my sister, my brother, and me) when we were shipped
to their maternal grandmother in Boulder City, Nevada. This first time it was
an adventure, the second trip to my grandmother’s -a year later - was a bit
more tragic. I combined both into one narrative for the book. I will not reveal
much about that except to say that Nevada was a desert in more ways than one.
For me, as a child, there was also this magical aspect to life there. However, I
have not returned to Nevada since.
This place was so significant, that I
fictionalized a conversation from Nevada during the real driving trip out west
that my adult sister and mother went on towards the end of my mother’s life. It
was something my sister told me about the place we lived in Nevada that gave me
clarity for my own story. So, the book, my story, begins with my memory of the
Nevada desert.
From that desert existence, my mother
at the end of her second marriage, moved her 4 children to the San Francisco
Bay area.
GSP:
This was a very intense part of your
story, both magical and tragic.
JBP:
That mixture of childhood delights and tears continued – and continues to this
day. One of the books reviewers
anticipated some of the traumas, as they know me personally. They were glad
that the “bad stuff” seemed balanced with childhood play and other “good
stuff.” They also appreciated the details I included..
GSP:
So, back to California?
JBP:
Well, it wasn’t the California from my
early childhood. My mother had a high school friend that lived in Berkeley. So,
that’s where we went. Only we could not afford to live in the hills where her
friend lived with her professor husband. But with help of social services, we
moved to the edge of Berkeley. We could walk into Oakland, if we wanted. It
continued the story of the trauma and difficulty of Nevada, ending in a similar
manner: another late-night geographic escape to a different state. After an
eventful stop in Iowa, we ended up in Wisconsin.
GSP:
That clarifies the title, but there is
a side story throughout the telling of your story. It’s not just about your
survival or your siblings’ resiliency. Your mother has a story in this as well,
doesn’t she?
JBP:
Yes. She has a lead role in my story.
My father, as well. In fact, I could not complete the writing until they both
had passed on and my anxieties lessened a bit.
My mother had breast cancer and was in
remission for many years. By the time it came back aggressively, my siblings and
I were all adults. As she moved closer to the end, she seemed to want to
resolve outstanding issues. I am not sure if she was conscious of the impact
the tragic events and traumas had on us. I am not sure my siblings had much
time to process any of it. I was fortunate to have a therapist and others along
the way to help me navigate the treacherous and dangerous paths toward better
mental and spiritual health – a difficult journey that continues into the
present.
In the book, I included some of my
issues and problems of healing as an adult to round out this part of my story.
GSP:
In the book, you mention several ways
you received help that nurtured your personal healing as an adult, but not as a
child. At the same time, there seems to be a thread of spirituality and almost
angelic protection throughout your childhood story.
JBP:
Let me take these separately.
Until my memory of being abused as a
child was restored, I was completely ignorant of the reasons for my troubles
relating to people. It seemed I drifted from one problem to another. I
considered my memory to be thorough and complete, with many traumas and
difficult times well within my understanding. My emotional stability started to
deteriorate as the birth of my son drew nearer. I have come to learn this is
very common for male survivors – the full or almost full repression of
traumatic memory and the remembering predicated by a family life change, like a
birth.
When early traumatic memories returned
that I had not previously known, it was nearly as painful and surprising as
when it first occurred. After they came back, I could never be the same. Every
way I had used to get by as an adult was tossed aside. It was as if I started
over in so many ways. I was fortunate that a safety net of therapists and
healers was available for me at that time: individual therapists, group
therapy, male survivor group, a special group for survivors becoming parents and
the art of healing group of adult survivors using art to heal. I am profoundly
grateful for all the help I was able to receive. I started to integrate those early
disconnected memories in to the story I have finally written.
One of the issues that stressed me
while completing the writing is what survivors call “being triggered.” It is
part of post-traumatic stress syndrome, where the emotional-physical responses
are “triggered” and revert to the time of the trauma. For me, some of the
trauma was early in my childhood, when I did not know how to articulate what
was happening. And so, as an adult, I would struggle to articulate what was
happening to me, why I urgently needed to be safe, not even being conscious
that I was being driven to be safe. As one might guess, this made my
interpersonal relationships difficult. All I can say is that I am better now,
finding safe people and clarifying some of my own needs.
Spirituality has always been important
to me. There was so much “reporting” of events in some of the initial writing
that writing was labored. It was when I allowed spirituality, those magical
moments, to be included, that the full story began to take shape.
GSP:
Would you like to say anything else
about that?
JBP:
I believe that discovery in reading this
book for those spiritual moments is best as curiosities and surprises.
As follow up to the healing I just
discussed, I would like to mention that I contacted a couple of Male Survivor
networks and will be contributing to them from the proceeds.
I received an encouragement from both Tom
Maher of The Twin Cities Men’s Center in Minneapolis, and Nathan LaChine of the
national MaleSurvivor Network resource.
Nathan LaChine sent a nice letter when I asked for a book review:
“I want to be the first to congratulate you on your book being published
and let you know that it has been added to the MaleSurvivor Bookstore, CLICK HERE. At this time, we will not be writing a review of your
book. This is not a reflection on your book, the work you put into it, or
anything of that nature. We rarely if ever write public reviews for books.
“Again congratulates!"
- Nathan LaChine, MaleSurvivor Board of Directors
Donate
to Give the Gift of Hope Healing Support
Twin Cities Men's
Center can be reached at www.TCMC.org 612-822-5892
GSP:
Finally, what are
your hopes for “Surviving Childhood in America, A Story”?
JBP:
My hope is that
every story of recovery from childhood abuse and trauma can lead to healing; that
there is hope for healing from the most traumatic events of our life, even if
it takes a long time or takes a long time to begin; that every movement toward
healing, however small, can be seen in the light of progress. Whatever shadow
or darkness that our past can cast into our present life, healing angels can
reach us and show us the way to wholeness and healing.
***
Signed copies are available in print
from Gold Sun Press
eBook: Gold Sun Press (PDF or PUB).
or through Amazon.com and all major on-line
booksellers!
