West Deer native pens supernatural young adult novel set in his hometown

Anyone who grew up in West Deer Township during the 1990s may feel a spark of familiarity reading Josiah Golojuh’s new young adult novel “The Paper Boy.”

That’s because the author grew up there and modeled the book’s setting off of his own childhood experiences.

“It’s not a true story, but there’s a lot of reality behind it. It’s all connected to my home and the places are real, the people are at least based loosely on real people. So it’s cool to connect to those people and places,” Golojuh said.

There is so much basis in reality that the author said some characters were recognized by childhood classmates who read early copies of the book.

Recalling the tale of where his love of writing began, Golojuh spoke of his time at Deer Lakes Elementary School. A teacher assigned his fifth-grade class a writing prompt about their favorite vacation.

“At that point, I’d never been on a vacation that I felt was that great, and so I made up a story. And I made up a story that was clearly fictional. … It was fantastical in a way that clearly you made this up, but it was fun,” Goldjuh recalled.

When it came time for the class to vote on which of their fellow students’ stories they liked best, Golojuh tied for first place.

“That was the first affirmation of, oh, when you write things and are creative, people respond to it,” he said.

After that initial taste of literature, he fell in love with comic books and authors like J.R.R. Tolkien. At Deer Lakes High School, Golojuh was involved in drama and independent film study. He studied screenwriting at the University of Southern California and worked in film as a producer. He also teaches writing, passing on that same love to a new generation.

The 42-year-old husband and father currently lives in Huntington Beach, Calif., where his wife grew up.

“The Paper Boy” is a novel very much about making a connection with others through the fantastical. In the book, 14-year-old protagonist Daniel is a bit of a loner who loves comic books and longs to be a superhero himself. He relishes his after-school job delivering newspapers. One day, he is chased by some bullies into the woods. There, he finds the body of a child — and that boy’s ghost begins to haunt Daniel. The comic-book-loving protagonist is then forced to become the superhero of his daydreams to solve the mystery of the ghost boy’s death.

“He just wants to deliver his newspapers to earn his paper money to buy action figures and comic books and to just live in his own little isolated world doing his thing,” Golojuh said of Daniel. The language of comics and pop culture is lovingly woven throughout the book — reflecting the similar lifelong interests of the author.

“These things can connect us. Loving these things, this passion can bring us closer to people,” he said.

“The Paper Boy” has been a long time in the making — it started off as a screenplay for one of Golojuh’s graduate school classes. But he said that having kids of his own and enjoying similar hobbies with them — such as vintage toys and “Star Wars” — has really added meaning to the story for him. While he didn’t necessarily set out to write a young adult novel, he said that it’s the way the story and its themes make the most sense.

“As I got through the first complete draft, I realized, OK, this is for that audience, this younger reader. I think it appeals to — I hope it appeals to, obviously — someone like myself.”

While setting the book in 1995 wasn’t an intentional choice — Daniel is a very similar age to Golojuh himself — he sees a benefit in having the story take place before the widespread adoption of the internet and social media.

“This was a time when we weren’t constantly connected to everything all the time, yet feeling isolated. I think younger people feel that more than we all do, and we all kind of feel it. … This book is about real connection. It’s about how we can connect through real things — real things we’re passionate about — and through interacting with someone real, and yet I always joke and laugh that it’s with a ghost.”

“There’s nothing like spending time with someone and being someone’s friend. That’s what this is about. Someone who’s 13, 14, I hope this can touch them,” he said.

“The Paper Boy” can be found on Amazon on Kindle and in paperback.