Charles “Chaz” Holesworth of Willow Grove (Upper Moreland Township) recently published an autobiography titled “Life and How to Live It: Volume Two: Near Wild Heaven”.
The book is the second installment in Holesworth’s multi-part memoir series. “Life and How to Live It: Volume One: Begin the Begin” was released in July 2024.
Holesworth, who works in Glenside, said he was inspired to write his life story after witnessing his sister die in hospice from an aggressive form of cancer in 2019. She was 45 years old.
“She was diagnosed in February and died four months later. Watching her in her final moments, gagging for breath shook me to my core,” Holesworth said. “I had a moment of clarity that night while processing it all and decided to write my life story that was full of trauma, hope, good times and some overwhelming moments.”
Holesworth says he was “raised dirt poor in the Kensington section of Philly by a heroin addicted father and mother who turned to the evangelical born again Christian faith for comfort, dragging me and my sister along.”
“Once I was old enough to question and then leave the faith I knew since I was four years old, it was friends I made along the way and the music of the 1990s that showed me my way, especially the music of R.E.M.,” he said. “The title of the book and the subtitles all come from songs from the band that literally changed my life.”
Holesworth said he knew his story was unique, but he didn’t know how to tell it until the night of his sibling’s death.
“Her death wasn’t just another crushing moment but a wakeup call to do something constructive with my life and the negative and positive experiences I had,” he said.
From the book’s description on Amazon.com:
In the gripping second volume of his memoir series, Chaz Holesworth steps out of the wreckage of his Philadelphia childhood and into a new wilderness: adolescence, longing, awakening, and the dangerous freedom of life beyond the rules that once defined him. Raised in a world where faith meant fear and obedience meant survival, Chaz enters his teenage years numb and isolated. Emotions are weakness. Questions are sin. Desire is the enemy. But when first love cracks open the cage, and forbidden music floods in, everything he has been taught about identity, God, and himself begins to unravel.
With every lyric he wasn’t allowed to hear, and every mile he runs from home, Chaz discovers pieces of a self he never knew he could claim. Friends become family. Music becomes prayer. And movement becomes the only escape from a growing storm of shame, confusion, and spiritual fallout he doesn’t yet have language for. Drugs, heartbreak, adventure, and raw curiosity collide as Chaz tries to live fast enough to stay ahead of his past. But survival has a cost, and reclaiming his voice means confronting everything silence once protected him from.
Lyrical, honest, and unflinchingly human, Life and How to Live It: Near Wild Heaven is a coming-of-age memoir about breaking indoctrination, surviving first love, and learning to choose life after years of enforced silence. Set against the pulse of mid-90s music and youth culture, it is a story for anyone who has ever tried to outrun their past, or finally stopped running.
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