Journal According To John [Paperback]

Sheryl Keen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 19, 2008

Following a nasty bar brawl, John, a twenty-eight-year-old man, follows a close friend's advice and begins keeping a journal. He's recently divorced from his wife, Debbie, and he hopes the journal will provide a tool with which to make some sense of his brief, failed marriage and to determine why he is so emotionally challenged.As a therapist specializing in behavioral issues, he knows he has to pull his own life together. If he tells people to clean up their own lives, modify their thoughts, and learn new, more appropriate behaviours, he knows that he's got to step up and follow his own advice. Early on, he realizes that his mother, the curator of a gallery that specializes in steel art and other nontraditional works, has largely shaped his thoughts and actions. But just how much can he blame her for his current state of affairs?Soon the words in the journal are flowing easily and quickly. When painful thoughts are no longer avoided and dreams provide fuel for his writing, the journal takes on a life of its own. Will John discover the reasons for his dysfunctional situation? Can keeping the journal help him improve his life?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sheryl A. Keen has a bachelor's degree in history with a minor in English literature from the University of the West Indies. She lives in Canada where she works in administration.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse (November 19, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 059551541X
• ISBN-13: 978-0595515417
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,101,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Sheryl A. Keen is a writer and an artist. She writes both poetry and prose. When she is not writing books or reading them, she enjoys painting and listening to a wide range of music.

She holds a bachelor's degree in History with a minor in English Literature. She lives in Canada.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars An Enlightening Journey Of Self-Discovery, April 28, 2009

By 

Apex Reviews (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Journal According To John (Paperback)

Fresh off a divorce from a marriage that barely lasted two years, John soon gets into a nasty bar brawl, leaving him much worse for the wear. Increasingly alarmed by his disastrous tendencies, his cousin, Maya, suggests that he begin keeping a journal, regularly documenting his thoughts and feelings. In so doing, she hopes that he'll come to a greater awareness of precisely what motivates him to come to the various self-destructive decisions that he makes.

John complies with Maya's request - albeit begrudgingly - and he initially scoffs at the notion that any attempts at self-analysis will yield fruitful results. As time goes on, though, he is enlightened to the full depths of his conscious and self-conscious behavior - chief among them the compulsions that stem from his strained (to say the least) relationship with his mother. Ultimately, his journaling takes on a life of its own, revealing long-suppressed pain and emotional scarring that he can - and will - no longer choose to avoid...whether or not it ultimately leads to the spiritual and psychological healing he so sorely needs, though, is all but guaranteed.

In Journal According To John, author Sheryl Keen has penned a powerful, insightful treatise on the complicated delicacy of the human condition. Though John's particular dysfunctional behavior emanates from a specific source, his general life story is representative of anyone who has suffered emotional damage over the course of their lives. As such, Keen takes the reader on a vicarious journey through the standard cycle of pain, damage control, assessment, and ultimate reconstruction - with which we are all familiar on some level. Regardless of how the damage is done in our lives, our reactions to it are often identical, and Keen's adept portrayal of John's journey through self-analysis - however personal it may be - skillfully displays that.

Edifying and entertaining, Journal According To John takes the reader on an eye-opening sojourn through the depths of the common humanity that unites us all. A can't-miss literary treat.

Linda Waterson

Apex Reviews