Straight to Hell

<p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>★ Finalist - 2026 International Book Awards</strong></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>★ Gold Medal Winner - 2026 Illumination Book Awards</strong></p><p></p><p><strong><em>Wilson doesn't clean himself up for the audience. The writing has the kind of honesty most memoirs sidestep.</em>- Asher Syed Readers' Favorite ★★★★★</strong></p><p></p><p><strong><em>The author writes with candor insight and emotion - and without a shred of self-pity. </em>- Elizabeth Ridley Coauthor of <em>The Dirt Beneath Our Door (Matt Holt Books 2025)</em></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Where do you belong when the place you called home no longer wants you?</em></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Raised in poverty in the backwoods of South Alabama John grew up amid violence instability and fear. Home was never safe. Love was never secure.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>When a small Pentecostal church offered safety purpose and belonging he embraced it completely.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>But belonging came at a price.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>To remain part of that world he had to hide the truth about himself-a truth he was taught would send him straight to hell.</span></p><p></p><p><strong>So he abandoned himself and became the person everyone needed him to be.</strong></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>A husband. </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>A father. </span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>A pastor.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>For years he believed that obedience sacrifice and faithfulness would finally earn him a place to belong.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>But when he could no longer hide the truth the life he had spent decades building collapsed forcing him from the only world he had ever known.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Today as a psychologist John returns to the ruins of his past to understand what it cost to abandon himself in order to belong-and what it takes to come home.</span></p><p></p><p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Straight to Hell </em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>is an award-winning memoir about the price of belonging the courage of telling the truth and the possibility of finding home after exile.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>*Includes book club questions and discussion guide.</span></p>