Hollidaysburg native and psychiatrist Jesse H. Wright, an international leader in psychiatry and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and award-winning medical author, has added a new accomplishment — fiction novelist.
Wright, 78, splits his time between Hollidaysburg and Louisville and released his debut novel, “A Stream to Follow,” on April 19. He also has two additional novels in the publication pipeline while he continues to teach medical students at the University of Louisville and treat patients.
“A Stream to Follow” is set between 1944-46 in Hollidaysburg and Altoona and forays to area fly fishing streams as lead character and battlefield surgeon Bruce Duncan rebuilds his life after World War II.
Wright’s family has lived in Hollidaysburg for generations and are descendants of the founders of Hollidaysburg, Wright said in a telephone interview. He continues to serve on the board of directors of the McLanahan Corp. based in Hollidaysburg as a descendant of Col. William Stone, who helped found it.
Characters in the novel arrive at the Altoona PRR train station, Wright said, and the railroad and area histories are featured.
“It gives it a lot of good character and a sense of place. People say they can feel like they are walking the streets of Hollidaysburg,” he said.
His father, the late Jesse Wright Jr., and grandfather once operated a commercial laundry in the borough. Wright’s mother lived in the family homestead until shortly before her death at 101 in 2019.
“I have deep roots and am so well connected to the area,” Wright said, explaining it made sense to set his work of fiction in Blair County. “My dad and I went fly fishing together in Spruce Creek and along Yellow Creek in Loysburg, all pretty, gorgeous streams that are infused into the novel. Readers will recognize the settings.”
His father died at age 50 without ever talking about what he saw while based in the Pacific as a member of the chemical corps. His uncle Donald Slep served as a fighter pilot based in England. Like many WWII soldiers, they didn’t talk about their war experiences.
“They were a silent generation,” Wright said, “My uncle never said a word until diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and then he spilled it all out to me over two days. He flew mustard planes over the English Channel. Every man in his tent was shot down and died — except for him.”
In WWI, soldiers suffered from “shell shock,” and WWII veterans had “combat fatigue,” Wright said, other names for what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Soldiers like his father and uncle were treated with a brief respite from battle or sometimes received an injection of a powerful sedative.
Early in his professional career, Wright treated Vietnam veterans and participated in research into psychotherapies, mostly based on cognitive-behavior therapy, which he said, “offers great hope for most victims of PTSD.”
As an Air Force veteran and former military psychiatrist, Wright said he “has a lot of professional experience and a lifetime of experience” in PTSD. But the book also contains hope as he “gives people a vision of how one can experience trauma and then heal from it.”
Wright has written nonfiction self-help books, including “Breaking Free from Depression” and “Good Days Ahead,” an online program for depression and anxiety, as a leading expert in cognitive-behavior therapy.
An accomplished scientific medical author, Wright said he enlisted a writing coach and copy editor to help him make the switch into nonfiction with a “Stream to Follow.”
“When I started, I wasn’t trying to write an autobiography about my dad and uncle’s experiences, but it did percolate the story and played a role in why I wanted to write the story,” he said.
Through his character Bruce Duncan, Wright said the tale is “part page-turning thriller and part love story but is mostly a story of recovery with a focus on how relationships and forgiveness play a role in healing traumatic wounds.
Pre-sale reviews call the novel “engaging” and “insightful” by Publishers Weekly’s BookLife and has been praised by Reader’s Favorite as “complex and in-depth … a standout novel in post-WWII fiction that will grip your heart and never truly let go,” according to a news release.
“A Stream to Follow” is available online and in person at the Barnes and Noble store in Logan Town Centre. Wright hopes to be able to have a local book signing event in the coming months.
Credit: Source link
