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Forgiving Troy: The Art-O-Biography
"In 1989, my brother beat our mother to death with a baseball bat. This book is a record in words and images of my need to understand why she was murdered. The search was debilitating and caused me to doubt my own sanity. It was also exhilarating and miraculous."
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First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
August 25, 2010
Thom Bierdz is an actor, artist, author and loving brother who reaches into his own psyche to tell a heart wrenching and raw account of his life that will leave you breathless.
Not only does Thom write about his struggle to understand why his brother murdered his mother, but he writes about his struggles with his religious beliefs, his sexuality, his acting career and his own mental challenges. His writing style is remarkable. You feel like he is sitting right in front of you telling his life story and he leaves nothing out.
A very gripping book that pulled me in from the beginning. I read this book in one setting and will not forget it. One of the best memoirs I have read in a long time. I look forward to Thom's return to The Young and the Restless and I hope to see a motion picture soon based on this book.
Also, I want to mention Thom's striking artwork that is displayed throughout the book. He has a website at www.ThomBierdz.com that shows more of his work.
Thank you very much to Thom and Bostick Communications for giving me the opportunity to review this book.
Not only does Thom write about his struggle to understand why his brother murdered his mother, but he writes about his struggles with his religious beliefs, his sexuality, his acting career and his own mental challenges. His writing style is remarkable. You feel like he is sitting right in front of you telling his life story and he leaves nothing out.
A very gripping book that pulled me in from the beginning. I read this book in one setting and will not forget it. One of the best memoirs I have read in a long time. I look forward to Thom's return to The Young and the Restless and I hope to see a motion picture soon based on this book.
Also, I want to mention Thom's striking artwork that is displayed throughout the book. He has a website at www.ThomBierdz.com that shows more of his work.
Thank you very much to Thom and Bostick Communications for giving me the opportunity to review this book.
October 15, 2017
This book was a piece of self-centered, self-absorbed writing. It seemed every other sentence reminded us how famous Thom was (as if he needed to make sure we hadn't forgotten that he had been a TV star). There was more information about his lovers than there was about how this incident affected his family. I found it to be very self-serving and narcissistic. It clearly showed that Thom also had severe mental health issues. One of the most scary being when he strangled his pet monkey, who was afraid of Thom, in order to show him who was boss and to try to get the monkey to like him. Not only is that very sick but a clear symptom of being a psychopath. I also found the displays of his artwork to be disturbing and distracting from what story there was. Not a book I would recommend to anyone.
January 7, 2021
I don't watch the Young And The Restless so I did not know who Thom Bierdz was. I wanted to read it because it looked like it was a True Crime book. It really isn't. There is very little about the crime. It is mostly a memoir about the author. His brother kills his mother with a baseball bat. There is a lot here about the author and how he felt about his brother and the rest of the family. His brother is schizophrenic and the author doesnt seem to be very stable himself. He talks about his homosexuality a lot and how insecure he is in his feelings about that but he tells us often how good looking he is. His acting career never really gets off the ground and he turned to his artwork. He has put a lot of his artwork in the book and if you want to see more you can go to his website. I didnt really understand the artwork and it wasnt my cup of tea.
May 22, 2018
This is a fascinating and horrible book. The author is a soap-opera actor who is also a pretty good cubist artist and for whom Scarlet Johansson once sponsored a one-man show. His family was a study in dysfunction. The author is talented, but he has a severe social phobia, which he gets around by being a Stanislawsky (sp?) Method actor, then later consciously chooses to become multiple personalities, which is usu something that characterizes victims of childhood sexual or physical abuse and is an unconscious defense, not a choice.
His younger brother, Troy, is a very peculiar child growing up and ultimately murders the family's mother with no remorse (blunt force trauma with an aluminum baseball bat). He is diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia, but is so enigmatic in court that no one is sure whether he really is schizophrenic or is just crazy like a fox, saying inappropriate things in court that seem to show he was mentally ill and unaware of his actions when he beat his mom to death. Finally, the court decides that he is paranoid schizophrenic with absolutely no remorse for this long-planned murder.
He gets a life sentence in a prison in Portage, Wis. His brother, the author, feels a psychic need to go visit him in prison, where Troy mumbles nonsensical sentences and statements to indicate he really IS mentally ill and not just faking it.
The father of this family is a therapist who leaves his wife and kids when they are very little because he finds his wife too controlling. The kids are very disadvantaged by growing up with no father. After the author becomes famous in Hollywood, his brother, Troy, the murderer, lives in a close and suffocating relationship with their mother until he kills her. The only daughter in the family is so freaked out that she thinks Troy is going to escape prison and kill her as well, because Troy talks about killing all his siblings and torturing them beforehand. The youngest boy is a charmer for whom everything seems to come easy. Unlike the author, he is straight and confident, and he hopes also to become a Hollywood actor. He never makes it, but he ends up marrying a rich, traumatized wife who is always terrified that he will leave her. At one point, she twists his genitals all up because she thinks he is not fulfilling his husbandly duty, which, after that incident, I think he found much harder to fulfill. They argue like cats in heat until they finally separate. The youngest boy moves into a very tiny room near Hollywood and tries to become an agent. When this doesn't work out, he shoots and kills himself, and the police find his body two days later, dead in his closet among all his Armani jackets. The author demands that the door to his brother's apartment be blown down because he suspects something bad has happened. When he finds his brother's body, he is now freaked out because he has a dead mother, a matricidal brother, and a suicidal youngest brother. Only he and his sister are left alive.
Throughout the book, the author feels he has been given a psychic message from his dead mother that he is the only one who can save Troy, so he spends much time visiting him over several years, trying to shake him into some kind of reality and getting him psychotropic drugs. Over the years he gets Troy to become more sane. The author is always terribly curious about what happened when Troy killed his mom. He never gets a complete answer.
The book is absorbing and troubling because the family is so weird and mentally ill. The author feels that his mom allowed herself to be killed because she was protecting the other kids.
It's very hard to come to definitive conclusions about this book. The family is too mentally ill and just plain weird to be able to diagnose what all is going on. The book is hard to put down because the narrative is driven by each new crime or psychological break that happens. It's very interesting and absorbing to read, but I felt somewhat unfinished and shaken by the book's end.
His younger brother, Troy, is a very peculiar child growing up and ultimately murders the family's mother with no remorse (blunt force trauma with an aluminum baseball bat). He is diagnosed as having paranoid schizophrenia, but is so enigmatic in court that no one is sure whether he really is schizophrenic or is just crazy like a fox, saying inappropriate things in court that seem to show he was mentally ill and unaware of his actions when he beat his mom to death. Finally, the court decides that he is paranoid schizophrenic with absolutely no remorse for this long-planned murder.
He gets a life sentence in a prison in Portage, Wis. His brother, the author, feels a psychic need to go visit him in prison, where Troy mumbles nonsensical sentences and statements to indicate he really IS mentally ill and not just faking it.
The father of this family is a therapist who leaves his wife and kids when they are very little because he finds his wife too controlling. The kids are very disadvantaged by growing up with no father. After the author becomes famous in Hollywood, his brother, Troy, the murderer, lives in a close and suffocating relationship with their mother until he kills her. The only daughter in the family is so freaked out that she thinks Troy is going to escape prison and kill her as well, because Troy talks about killing all his siblings and torturing them beforehand. The youngest boy is a charmer for whom everything seems to come easy. Unlike the author, he is straight and confident, and he hopes also to become a Hollywood actor. He never makes it, but he ends up marrying a rich, traumatized wife who is always terrified that he will leave her. At one point, she twists his genitals all up because she thinks he is not fulfilling his husbandly duty, which, after that incident, I think he found much harder to fulfill. They argue like cats in heat until they finally separate. The youngest boy moves into a very tiny room near Hollywood and tries to become an agent. When this doesn't work out, he shoots and kills himself, and the police find his body two days later, dead in his closet among all his Armani jackets. The author demands that the door to his brother's apartment be blown down because he suspects something bad has happened. When he finds his brother's body, he is now freaked out because he has a dead mother, a matricidal brother, and a suicidal youngest brother. Only he and his sister are left alive.
Throughout the book, the author feels he has been given a psychic message from his dead mother that he is the only one who can save Troy, so he spends much time visiting him over several years, trying to shake him into some kind of reality and getting him psychotropic drugs. Over the years he gets Troy to become more sane. The author is always terribly curious about what happened when Troy killed his mom. He never gets a complete answer.
The book is absorbing and troubling because the family is so weird and mentally ill. The author feels that his mom allowed herself to be killed because she was protecting the other kids.
It's very hard to come to definitive conclusions about this book. The family is too mentally ill and just plain weird to be able to diagnose what all is going on. The book is hard to put down because the narrative is driven by each new crime or psychological break that happens. It's very interesting and absorbing to read, but I felt somewhat unfinished and shaken by the book's end.
October 5, 2010
Listen up, soap opera fans! You Y&R people all know who Philip Chancellor III is. Whether you've been watching since the 80's or are a new fan, you've at least heard the name. Personally, I only remember snippets from my aunt watching during my childhood, but I still know who Philip Chancellor III is. The actor who plays Chancellor is Thom Bierdz and his book is an interesting look into his personal life.
Years ago, Thom's brother, Troy, brutally murdered their mother. After a difficult divorce between their parents, Thom and his siblings all had issues coping. Troy had the most problems of the bunch and was repeatedly in trouble. As Thom's career rose and fell, he watched his family fall apart. This book is the product of Thom's search for peace after a troubled past.
Though I expected to pick up this book and be bored to tears hearing about the murder of Thom's mother, it wasn't like that at all. Thom definitely has a talent for writing. Each page keeps you flipping, engrossed in Thom's life. The murder of his mother is definitely an integral part of the story, but it was so much more. Thom shares with us his struggles with being gay and his fear that he, himself, may be psychotic. We get an insider look at his family life and how he handles it. Instead of being the simple murder tale I was expecting, I found a deep personal search that one man took in finding himself.
Thought-provoking and heart-wrenching, I strongly suggest Thom's book to his fans as well as anyone looking for a good non-fiction read.
Years ago, Thom's brother, Troy, brutally murdered their mother. After a difficult divorce between their parents, Thom and his siblings all had issues coping. Troy had the most problems of the bunch and was repeatedly in trouble. As Thom's career rose and fell, he watched his family fall apart. This book is the product of Thom's search for peace after a troubled past.
Though I expected to pick up this book and be bored to tears hearing about the murder of Thom's mother, it wasn't like that at all. Thom definitely has a talent for writing. Each page keeps you flipping, engrossed in Thom's life. The murder of his mother is definitely an integral part of the story, but it was so much more. Thom shares with us his struggles with being gay and his fear that he, himself, may be psychotic. We get an insider look at his family life and how he handles it. Instead of being the simple murder tale I was expecting, I found a deep personal search that one man took in finding himself.
Thought-provoking and heart-wrenching, I strongly suggest Thom's book to his fans as well as anyone looking for a good non-fiction read.
Read
July 29, 2011The preface, and front cover, tell the jist of Bierdz' memoir in the first sentence: "On July 14, 1989, my youngest brother beat our mother to death with a baseball bat." What follows is the author's exploration of his and his family's journey and discovery of their brother's paranoid schizophrenia. Thom Bierdz left his midwest home and reached Hollywood and for 3 years appeared as Phillip Chancellor III on The Young & The Restless. In the summer of 1989, his brother killed is mother and was reported on his way to California to kill Thom. His brother also attempted to set his brother Thom up for the murder as well. Bierdz telling of his family's experience is wrenching and rending. His brother mental illness had been observed for a long period of time; his mother sought assistance but the court and social work systems failed this family -- with horrible consequences. Bierdz', in revealing so much of his family's experiences and emotional states and questions is completely honesty and sincere. The things revealed about his brother's mental illness are startling and difficult to comprehend at times. The reader is in complete empathy and sympathy as this family reaches out to each other to come to a healing of the tragedies it has face.
September 13, 2016
OK, so this was a brave book and Thom's honesty about his family's mental illness was commendable. However, I didn't like Thom or the way he told the story. I don't watch soaps so I had never heard his name but he mentioned how famous he was many times so I was overly aware of his "notoriety". There were so many opportunities for him to dig deep and help us understand more about the inner workings of paranoid-schizophrenia. Instead, he hopped around, content with shallow ground. I needed to know more about the family and less about Thom's relationships with his partners. All of a sudden his sister Hope was ready to visit Troy in prison. How did this happen? I found it sad but totally believable that Troy's care in prison was abominable until Thom started to visit and ask questions. So many passive prisoners sit for decades with no visitors and little care. Causing problems is one of the only ways to get attention. This memoir felt disjointed and often redundant. His art work interspersed throughout the book seemed more self-serving than meaningful. Plus the e-book needs to be cleaned of typos.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 21, 2017
The many loose threads in this confessional biography and the writing style made it seem more like an outline for a memoir than a finished product. Bierdz courageously shares stories of his own abusive behavior and is unsparing in his documentation of his brother Troy's misdeeds. The details are there, but the book needs more structure and a clearer explanation for why Bierdz makes the choices he makes and feels the way he feels.
The personal tragedies Bierdz has endured are many, and the way these fragments are presented underscore the kind of compartmentalizing that happens after enduring a great shock (or in Bierdz' case, several). I think Bierdz would have benefited from either a co-writer or perhaps some time between the events and his retelling to give a more cohesive perspective. This is how someone describes being inside a tornado when they're still trapped in it, rather than from a safe distance. Maybe the reassurance that Bierdz is safe is what is lacking?
The personal tragedies Bierdz has endured are many, and the way these fragments are presented underscore the kind of compartmentalizing that happens after enduring a great shock (or in Bierdz' case, several). I think Bierdz would have benefited from either a co-writer or perhaps some time between the events and his retelling to give a more cohesive perspective. This is how someone describes being inside a tornado when they're still trapped in it, rather than from a safe distance. Maybe the reassurance that Bierdz is safe is what is lacking?
February 18, 2016
This was a could not put down book. Although it's not for the faint of heart, if you want a true story about forgiveness, compassion, courage, finding yourself and moving on, Thom has lived it! Being a Young and Restless fan and a lover of art, I have followed Thom on Facebook and Twitter. He has painted 2 beautiful paintings of my husband and myself and one of our 4 fur babies. Naturally I wanted to know more about him and what drew him to his paintings and their meanings. What he and his family went through wakes you up to some realities of everyday life for some. His story gives me strength.
August 18, 2012
horrible. the author could not be more self obsessed. what should have been a heartbreaking story of a familys trouble, instead became a pathetic self serving joke.
August 27, 2018
Worth reading
As a fan of Thoms from his time in Y&R and having seen the story of his Mother's homicide.at the hands of his Brother made me as t to read Thoms story. He did not shy away from anything. I recommend this book.
As a fan of Thoms from his time in Y&R and having seen the story of his Mother's homicide.at the hands of his Brother made me as t to read Thoms story. He did not shy away from anything. I recommend this book.
April 16, 2018
Quick Read. Story was more about Thom and not even as much about the tragedy that affected his family.
June 13, 2018
Interesting and sad
Very well written, just honest and open and scary and sad to feel all the emotions and fears and feelings of one person.
Very well written, just honest and open and scary and sad to feel all the emotions and fears and feelings of one person.
January 7, 2019
Very moving if a bit preachy at times. His power of forgiveness is incredible.
January 22, 2016
I was astounded by this book. The story was very sad and tragic, but I also felt Thom's inner struggle to find himself and forgive.
The art is outstanding and definitely adds depth to the feelings and struggles in this story.
The art is outstanding and definitely adds depth to the feelings and struggles in this story.
August 6, 2011
What an amazing story. I could barely put the book down but work and sleep made me. I don't know if I could be as strong as Thom if I had been in his shoes. I highly recommend this book. :)
April 8, 2013
A good change of pace from my normal reading genera .
If this act can be forgiven , why do we cling so tightly to our petty angers ?
If this act can be forgiven , why do we cling so tightly to our petty angers ?
April 7, 2016
Wow what a story !
Very riveting book. If you have family members with mental illnesses you won't want to miss this one. Very open and honest book.
Very riveting book. If you have family members with mental illnesses you won't want to miss this one. Very open and honest book.
August 7, 2016
This book is sad, disturbing, and not very good.
August 14, 2023
Well Done
A very moving novel. Well written from the heart. The tragedy of a murder that never should have happened. Society totally failed this family.
A very moving novel. Well written from the heart. The tragedy of a murder that never should have happened. Society totally failed this family.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews