Terry Iwanski’s Candid Memoir of Living the Rock-n-Roll Rebel Lifestyle Earns High Marks from Reviewers

Terry Iwanski’s memoir, “Gravel Soldiers,” shares a fearless portrait of a life lived on the edge. And now, more reviews have come in praising it for both its candor and the unflinching attention to detail in describing his rock-n-roll rebellion.

The memoir chronicles his journey, from a childhood shadowed by domestic abuse in St. Paul, Nebraska, to his embrace of 1960s counterculture. From there, he opens up about the inevitable struggles with several addictions, as well as brushes with law enforcement.

All of these experiences are described with graphic and almost cinematic detail, which is an opinion shared by book review publications.

The U.S. Review of Books writes, “Like the English diarist Samuel Pepys, he’s unsparing in portraying the less appealing aspects of his younger self – his abusiveness towards his first wife, his omnivorous sexuality – and it’s this sense of a fully developed and complex personality that makes the book endlessly absorbing.”

Another one from the Pacific Book Review says, “Writing isn’t polished, and honestly, that’s what makes it feel so real. Even though there are some rough and raw passages, the author skillfully delivers sentences that strike you…”

In these and in other reviews, it is clear that “Gravel Soldiers” is another riveting life story that appeals to readers who love raw, personal accounts as well as gritty stories of redemption.

Copies of “Gravel Soldiers” are already available at various digital bookstores, including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. To learn more about Terry Iwanski and his work, visit his website at https://www.terryiwanski.com/.

Author: Terry Iwanski
Published date: October 3, 2022
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Memoir

“Gravel Soldiers” by Terry Iwanski is a bold, frank, explicit, yet poignant memoir of one man’s struggle to embrace the sadness of his turbulent past filled with parental neglect, spousal abuse, and personal loneliness. It is also a profound memoir of a man finding, at long last, the soulmate and genuine ‘true love’ of his life.

As a small child, the author begins his story walking the streets of St. Paul, Nebraska, while “the muffled echoes of the past” pushed at his back. Searching for answers in the abandoned ruins of a small town lost, the young author marched on.

Returning home later that night, he remembers how his mother would “bustle about the small kitchen,” with fear in her eyes. The glaring and unspoken judgment of her unhinged husband kept everyone walking on eggshells. His son (the author) and his older sister Kayla, who shared the basement with Gramma Josephine and Grandpa Andy, his mother’s parents were all victims of his abuse.

From ages eleven to thirteen, the author served as an altar boy for Farther Figlersi in St. Peter and Paul’s Catholic Church, a three-block weekly walk from their home, which the author performed with his grandparents, whom he loved deeply. Along with them the author’s ’gravel soldiers,’ marched quietly in his mind as they had first done on his childhood walks.

After a few years as an altar boy, the author begins to doubt the existence of God. And when he sees his Grandpa Andy’s spirit float upward from the window of his hospital bed after his death, the author begins to question everything. Then, his Uncle Clarence appears in a dream-like vision at the end of the author’s bed and tells him to be a good boy. He feels these occurrences are messages from beyond, steering him in the direction he must go.

The pain of witnessing his mother’s abuse is a sorrow he cannot accept. Nor can the author endure his father’s disappointment of not turning into the man he expected him to be. Judgment, the frustration of never being good enough, and the burning desire to escape--give the reader an exceptional true-to-life ’rebel without a cause,’ story, one which Hollywood did not create. Mr. Iwanski has indeed given us the real deal.

“Gravel Soldiers” has it all, the restlessness of a coming-of-age journey, sex, fast cars, drugs, and alcohol, run-ins with the law, biker journeys across the midwest, looking for adventure, broken families, broken hearts, and then, travels to Malaysia, Borneo, and the far east. And finally, a fulfilling redemption of sorts.

As Iwanski puts it: “I adjusted to the sex, the hate, and the Violence. I sucked it all inward. Only to have it come outward as I matured and learned, along the way. I have no regrets. I am who I am. I sit in my back yard and sip from a can of cold beer while Pedo, my wife works peacefully in her garden. The voices of my gravel soldiers have fallen silent. And their silence remains today. I no longer hear their incessant chatter. In their place, I, like my wife, feel a sense of peace. And calm. I am content with my life, as it was, and as it is today. And I hope you will be able to relate to my story.”

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