This is the last week before Wabash students arrive for Freshman Saturday. And I have this last "summer" column space to devote to something other than Wabash students and their activities.
So I’ll use this spot today to draw your attention to author Joy Castro.
I’m someone who is published frequently—in this newspaper; in magazines; and in various other media. Yet I have met only a handful of "real" published authors. You know, people whose words and lives are bound between two hard covers of a book, whose souls are laid bare in cold black and white type.
Sure, I’ve shaken hands and gotten autographs in books dozens of times when authors have come to campus to give readings. But I’ve only ever gotten to know well a couple of book authors.
I feel as though I know Dan Simmons pretty well. Dan is a Wabash alumnus, Class of 1970, who makes his living writing spine-tingling horror novels and out-of-this-world science fiction epics.
To sit down and talk with Dan, though, you’d never guess that he’s the guy behind those creepy and dark characters in his horror stories. He’s just as friendly, bright, and congenial as your neighbor next door. (In Dan’s case, we’re all glad real life doesn’t imitate fiction!)
And now there is Joy Castro, Wabash English professor by day and published author on the side.
Her novel, The Truth Book, is now on sale in bookstores across the country and has received stunning praise from some amazing sources. Well-respected authors have called the book "exquisitely honest," "achingly beautiful," and "unflinching and unforgettable."
In fact, Joy was invited by the New York Times Magazine to submit a column on her book, which ran yesterday in "Lives" section.
Again, I thought I knew Joy Castro pretty well. We’ve worked together for seven years, I’ve read her frequent submissions to Wabash Magazine and this newspaper, and I’ve even sat in on her classes a few times. She is meticulously polite, soft-spoken, and always eager to collaborate on a range of projects to improve the College. I thought I knew her pretty well.
Then I read The Truth Book.
Subtitled "Escaping a childhood of abuse among Jehovah’s Witnesses," Joy’s memoir tells the story of a brutal stepfather who routinely beat her and her brother, Tony. They were denied television, books, and given only tiny portions of food to eat. They were told how to walk, talk, and behave. They wore only second and third-hand clothes. All in the name of Jehovah.
After reading an advance copy of the book, I kept asking myself, "Why isn’t she angry? Why didn’t she end up on the streets? How could she be such a caring, loving mother to her son when she was denied such basic instincts from her own mother? Why doesn’t she show the scars of her abuse?"
But the book isn’t just about the abuse Joy and her brother suffered. In many ways, it’s a book about hope and will and sacrifice. It’s the true story of a young woman with an imagination off the charts, whose love of books and the written word propelled her to a graduate degree in English and a tenured position in the English department at Wabash College; whose unfailing love of her son has no boundaries.
Joy was denied even a scrap of respect as a child. Today she is respectful of others, and quintessentially respected by her colleagues, students, and anyone who has read her work.
If you know Joy Castro you never could imagine the abuses of her childhood and struggles as a young mother. You only know her as she is today, as I do, which makes me understand that The Truth Book is really, ultimately a story of redemption.
But I’m just a part-time columnist and PR guy. Joy is the real author, the author I know "pretty well." And she says it best: "You try to be decent and treat people gently, knowing that they, too, have their scars and madnesses that, like yours, do not show."
Read the book. It’ll make you want to live your life differently. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll treat people—even those you think you know well—with the gentle kindness that is respectful of any hidden scars.
Amidon is Wabash College's Director of Public Affairs and College Secretary. His column appears each Monday in the Crawfordsville Journal Review.