A Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Triumphant Story [Paperback]

Anthony Godby Johnson (Author), Jack L. Godby (Introduction), Fred Rogers (Afterword), Paul Monette (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1994

A teenager who, until he was eleven years old, had been the victim of horrific physical and sexual abuse on the part of his parents, describes his escape from torment, his diagnosis with AIDS, and his continuing battle for survival. Reprint.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Extraordinary autobiography of child abuse, nomadic street life, and, finally, AIDS--written with uncommon sophistication by a 14-year-old. The son of outwardly normal Manhattan parents, Johnson endures unspeakable depravity at home (``While other kids were being tossed into the air, hugged and caressed, and lulled to sleep by their mothers, I was being flung into corners and slapped across rooms''). He's denied food, even a bed to sleep on, while suffering savage beatings by his parents, as well as sexual abuse at the hands of one of his mother's friends. The streets become his escape as he searches for food and rides subway trains all night with other abused children. Eventually, the boy, now 11 and on the verge of killing himself, calls a hot line for help. Two social workers from separate agencies respond. They meet at Johnson's hospital bed, fall in love with him, fall in love with each other, marry, and adopt the youth. The fairy tale potential evaporates, though, with the boy's subsequent AIDS diagnosis. Surrounded for the first time by a loving family, Johnson fights on with courage and dignity: ``I am not an object of shame, but a portrait of pride. I hold my head high and say my name aloud.'' With grace and honesty far beyond his years, the boy never lapses into self-pity. He roams beyond the shell of illness, touching on the joys of baseball and hot pretzels, delivering vivid and interesting portraits of family members, doctors, and friends. With an introduction by Paul Monette and an afterword by Fred (Mister) Rogers: A virtuous, unflinching, and unsentimental account of one boy's courage amid some of the world's worst cruelties. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Signet (June 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451181859
• ISBN-13: 978-0451181855
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,083,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Interesting...., October 15, 2003

By 

"tess73" - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Triumphant Story (Paperback)

...work of fiction. But it's a lousy attempt to pull the wool over the reader's eyes; it's unethical and almost unforgivable that neither the author nor publisher have admitted to the book's fictional status, as of October 2003. As a fictional account, the book carries many of the expected traits - child abuse, fatal illness, family strife, all of which are fine in their fictional surrounding. The problem comes from the fact the book is sold as an autobiography, a memoir, a journal. It's none of these; it's a work of pure fiction, with not a single word of truth in the entire sordid journey. We the public are more than happy to read both fictional tales and autobiographical volumes, but we do at least deserve to be treated with respect; this is sadly lacking when a fictional author releases a fictional tale which is then poorly disguised as a true-to-life memoir.

Read it if you want to peruse a "what might have happened to someone, at some point, somewhere along the line" tale. But don't believe that it's a true account - it simply isn't.

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Real Anthony Godby Johnson, August 1, 2006

By 

John "MovieAddict" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Triumphant Story (Paperback)

Well, by this time just about everyone knows it, but he doesn't exist. A movie loosely based on these events is coming out starring Robin Williams, called "The Night Listener."

There's something ultimately creepy about this entire thing, though. Usually "fake" authors or authors who have elaborated/created "true" stories come out sooner or later and admit their work is a hoax (e.g. "A Million Little Pieces") -- but the woman who wrote this novel (whose real first name, I believe, was determined to be Virginia), has yet to come forward. She is believed to have some type of mental disorder and she actually spoke over the phone to people imitating "Anthony's" voice. She then used photos of a young boy (presumably inside the book cover?) - but because Anthony doesn't exist, no one knows who the boy in the book is. It's just strange.

Also, I'm almost positive she's monitoring this book's entry on Amazon, because I noticed all the reviews divulging into the truth behind this story will typically have only one "negative" vote. Unless there's some rabid fan of this novel going around trying to cover up the secret behind this, the author is pretty disgruntled that people aren't enjoying her little game.

107 of 115 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Telling lies to the reader is wrong., June 20, 2002

By 

Meaghan Good "meggilyweggily" (Venedocia, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Triumphant Story (Paperback)

A Rock and a Hard Place, like Go Ask Alice before it, is a supposedly true "memoir" but is in fact patently obvious fiction. I read it for the first time when I was about twelve and I remember thinking, "This sounds so fake." Three years later I found out that people had done some looking into Anthony Godby Johnson and found that there was nothing to see -- he didn't exist. The book is made up out of whole cloth.

It purports to be the biography of fourteen-year-old Anthony "Tony", who is dying of AIDS. He lead a miserable life. His parents seemed normal on the surface, but behind closed doors they beat him and starved him and abused him sexually and lent him out to their friends. This how he became infected. Tony's friends are mostly dead or gone: David committed suicide, Joey overdosed on cocaine, and Alison got lost in the nightmare of addiction and disillusionment. His future is bleak, the only ray of light being the loving family who adopted him when he was eleven.

I didn't like this book when I thought it was true, and I don't like it any better now. It's overly moralistic, Tony is too good to be true, and the dialogue is stilted beyond belief. It's nothing but a lot of anti-homosexual propaganda. Above all I hate it that they say the book is a true story. That's decieving the readers, and for a book to be successful the reader has to believe in it.

I would not recommend A Rock and a Hard Place to anyone.