God Must Be Sleeping

Book excerpt: Gregg Tyler Milligan's story is told in two volumes - Book I: A Beautiful World and Book II: God Must Be Sleeping. Shocking and moving - both are rife with gritty realism, endurance, and hope. More information can be found at godmustbesleeping.com/ A Beautiful World describes a child's battle for survival against a depraved alcoholic mother, building to a desperate escape that saves the author and his siblings. Subjected to beatings, molestations and forced prostitution - this visceral book heralds one boy's courage in the face of devastation. God Must Be Sleeping delves into the fight through the next 11 years of Milligan's life. Living with abusive family members, in foster homes and on the street - battling rage and depression, he uses the smallest of opportunities as means to survive. He eventually earns a college scholarship and bachelor's degree. Taking readers along his jagged path to triumph - Milligan shows every fall taken to reveal the joy in every hill climbed. Milligan's piercing narrative has the intensity of a freight train - diving unabashedly into the pit of adversity and human depravity. From the beginning, the straightforward prose recounts the graphic details in the only way the story can be told - with raw truth so that readers may truly relate. Bold and emotionally shattering, Milligan's story exposes the complex struggle of survival. In A Beautiful World, a courageous young boy fights to escape the savagery of the only home he has ever known and his abusive mother. Struggling in his devotion to her and the atrocities done unto him, he must choose between love and survival. God Must Be Sleeping continues Milligan's journey into adolescence and young adult years. Some days, his will to live is no more than a tiny flicker he struggles to keep lit with any chance afforded. He hangs on to a thread of hope, enduring homelessness, hunger, rage and depression - even surviving a nervous breakdown. Never giving up, he attains his college degree and looks ahead to future journeys. In a way that no other recovery memoir addresses, Milligan draws readers into his personal insights and the path he traveled along the road to healing and deliverance - including his use of education as a key. Milligan provides readers resounding proof that no matter what struggles afflict us, we can all emerge amazingly strong and drive headlong into the possibilities that await us. He faces his past head on, showing the world it is possible to endure - and not only survive, but keep fighting and help one another best the demons that chase us. More information can be found at godmustbesleeping.com/