Sign-In
Cart
Sacred Youth
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Aug 21 2025
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.76
Height: 0.58 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Julian Thomas, a heroin-ravaged actor with dreams of becoming a writer, clings to survival. Fresh from rehab, he's qualified for only one role: scholastic chess coach-the get-well job that forces him to live one day at a time.
A fortunate audition once propelled him into the prestigious American Academy Theater Company, where he studied the art of performing while desperately hiding his growing obsession with opiates. Like so many of his idols, Julian fell slave to escape, his lust for life consumed by the relentless pursuit of one more fix. He destroyed relationships, careers, and himself, culminating in humiliating collapse, finally exiled from the world of artists and playwrights.
Salvation arrives in an unlikely sanctuary: Crossroads, a free non-profit program for society's outcasts making one final bid for sobriety. Far from the illustriousness of the Academy, this place unveils vulnerability's raw truth. Here, the homeless felons existing on the fringes of society show rare kindness. Strangers become brothers. Budding chess students offer unexpected purpose. Julian unknowingly finds himself reshaping a self-absorbed life into something profound and unforeseen.
Sacred Youth weaves a tapestry of suffering through growth, delving into how addiction devours potential while recovery restores it. Julian's odyssey from selfishness to selflessness reveals that true redemption lies not in achieving fame, but in igniting light in others. In our ephemeral world, our marks endure through the youth we nurture-be it in art, love, or simple acts of guidance. It's a story that reminds us: brilliance fades, but the sacred echoes remain.
Also in
General Fiction
Elizabeth Spencer: Novels & Stories (Loa #344): The Voice at the Back Door / The Light in the Piazza / Knights and Dragons / Stories
Spencer, Elizabeth
Hardcover
Anniversaries, Volume 2: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, April 1968-August 1968
Johnson, Uwe
Paperback
Philip Roth: Novels 1973-1977 (Loa #165): The Great American Novel / My Life as a Man / The Professor of Desire
Roth, Philip
Hardcover
Selected Writings: Robert Musil: Young Torless, Three Women, the Perfecting of a Love, and Other Writings
Musil, Robert
Agee, Joel
Paperback
Before Gatsby: The First Twenty-Six Stories
Baughman, Judith
Fitzgerald, F. Scott
Bruccoli, Matthew J.
Paperback