INTRODUCTION
Granville Johnson, Age Three
I AM A survivor of long-term sexual and physical abuse. Survival is the theme of this novel.
I was born and raised in the mean streets of Chicago’s Westside Black ghetto. I am a two-tour Vietnam veteran (1967 through 1968).
I served as a combat medical corpsman, and I died during the 1968 Tet Offensive from a traumatic brain injury.
I have lived with vascular dementia since 2011—a long-term effect of traumatic brain injury. I also live with Converted Disorder, a brain disorder, as a result of repeated trauma throughout my life.
Backstory is my autobiography. I have fictionalized parts of it, and changed names, dates, locales, timelines, and characters for dramatic effect. There are spaces within my story, as there are spaces within my remaining life memories.
Warning: My story is esoteric. My story is unreservedly violent. My story is erotic, at times sexually explicit. Through first-hand experience, incestual rape, non-consensual and consensual seduction, of a minor is portrayed, depicting the point of view of the aggressor as well as that of
the victim and its aftermath. For only by sharing the unvarnished truth of those experiences, and others, can I share with you, the reader, the depth of the wisdom gleaned through the living of them.
My story is a good read. It is not an easy read.
There is much within these vignettes to be explored in thought and emotion. What have been told here, in a sense, are the highlights and lowlights of what my dementia-fogged awareness has afforded my memory within my current consciousness.
Fiction is the story, and within the story is a message about how the seeds of abuse are planted, fed, and grown over time. Yet here, I tell no lies and sugar-coat no truth. I express, as best I can, the core truths and reality of what has been my life as it unfolded.
