About the Book
LIFE IS HARD! In the walk of life, nobody is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. We learn by living. Walk a Mile in My Shoes: Surviving Life's Challenges is an 'award- winning' narrative (LITERARY TITAN) that embraces a sense of nostalgia mixed with pain and trauma. This heartfelt chronicle is about hard times, courage, and survival. KIRKUS REVIEWS describes the book as “a wrenching ... Kafkaesque journey”. The author creates a conversational tone that is inspirational and sometimes uncomfortable. His rhythm shifts like an “...emotional rollercoaster...” (INDIES TODAY) as harsh realities of his life are detailed about poverty, child abuse, divorce, prison, war, homelessness, sexual orientation conflict, and the disheartening absence of restorative justice in our draconian criminal probation system. The book’s imagery and narrative exude a blend of raw emotions and unprecedented self-realizations as the author confronts multiple life-altering happenings - and the imperfect consequences of each experience. But Walk a Mile in My Shoes isn’t just a gut-wrenching saga about tragedy -- it's also about hope, lessons learned, and the resilience of the human spirit. Sometimes, the hardest roads lead to the greatest understanding.
KIRKUS REVIEWS:“The author of this wrenching, often graphic memoir pled guilty to aggravated sexual assault of a minor in Texas and the attempted sexual assault of a minor in Colorado, which resulted in a sentence of five years in prison and 10 years’ probation, including mandatory treatment. “I accept complete responsibility for my contemptible crime,” he now writes in this book, in which he says that his “hope is that the world can see me as I am now—instead of the way I was.” He relates a story of an abusive childhood, and his unsettling teenage feeling of being “different” from other boys in his California high school. After the child told officials of the author’s actions, Bradford was honest with his attorneys about the crime, but not with his spouse or adult children. This is all revealed in what the author portrays as a Kafkaesque odyssey through the correctional system, emphasizing its unrelenting punishment in prison and on probation; at one point, he notes that during his probation, he once ended a call to a Veterans Administration suicide-hotline counselor because he had to call his probation officer on time: “Suicide can wait—but abiding by probation’s rules could not.” Readers may find that such moments raise disturbing questions, such as whether rehabilitation and reentry into society is possible for child sexual-abuse offenders. These are certainly issues worth addressing, although many readers won’t sympathize with this account’s exploration of them."