The debut novel from Josiah Golojuh, a Pittsburgh-area native, follows a paper boy who makes friends with the ghost of a young boy. Its cover, of two boys in the foreground haunted by a large, looming monster in the background, makes its horror vibes obvious.
Despite its horror leanings, Golojuh sees The Paper Boy, a 268-page novel published in September by Stag Beetle Books, as a superhero story. And he’s not the only one — in one of the book’s promotional quotes, Tom Perrotta, the mind behind Little Children, Election, and The Leftovers, describes The Paper Boy as “a clever and suspenseful contribution to the superhero genre.”
“I love that he said that, because that’s how I saw it the whole time, that it’s a superhero story in a nontraditional fashion,” Golojuh tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “And I hope that those young readers, especially, can see that this is about how you can be a superhero, too.”
On Sat., Dec. 28, Golojuh will visit Phantom of the Attic Comics in Oakland to sign copies of the book.
Golojuh, 42, now lives with his wife and two young daughters in Huntington Beach, Cali., where he teaches college writing courses. He originally focused on screenwriting and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Southern California.
Perrotta helped Golojuh revise the book and proved especially helpful in making the book work as a young adult novel. An early draft had a more adult tone, which didn’t work, Golojuh says. The project changed even more dramatically, though — it started as a screenplay originally conceived in 2008. In a grad school class, he wrote a scene in response to a writing prompt from his professor Coleman Hough, who worked on films such as Steven Soderbergh’s Full Frontal. Hough recently passed, and, in addition to his family, Golojuh dedicated the book to her.
Family played a major role in Golojuh’s work — he recalls laughing at his mom, who, upon reading the book, referred to the fictional protagonist as “you,” meaning him, her real-life son. It makes sense, though — not only does his character share his origin story as a paperboy in West Deer Township, Golojuh gave his character the name “Daniel” — his middle name.
“I’ve used the name Daniel before as a placeholder, and I’ve changed it usually,” Golojuh says. “In this case, I didn’t change it, and it just stuck.”
Golojuh shelved the project for years but published a short story version in 2015 titled The Corpse Boy. Then, in 2017, when he would supervise one of his daughters during her daytime naps, he began writing it as a novel. Every minute she napped, he wrote. Before long, he had an approximately 60,000-word early draft that worked as a novel.
“I love movies and all that, I have a passion for those, but with a book, you can just really dive deep into things and go into these deeper places,” Golojuh says.
Revisions rolled into the pandemic. Before finding a publisher, Golojuh created a comic book with artist Cai Willis called Young Zombie, from the made-up publisher Main Title Comics, which exists in the canon of his novel. It’s a fun zombie story with Star Wars and Evil Dead references.
Golojuh will have copies of Young Zombie, including ones with a super-cute variant cover drawn by one of his daughters, at the Phantom of the Attic event.
In the late stages of revision, Golojuh found a VCR at a Southern California thrift store that could be connected to modern televisions. He used it to watch VHS tapes of himself as a young boy. The videos captured Christmases, special family events, and home movies starring Golojuh as Daredevil and the Punisher.
This proved indispensable in putting the finishing touches on the book and allowed Golojuhto to nail the finer details of Daniel as a character.
“It was really cool to see myself as a kid, and that was very helpful, too,” Golojuh says. “‘Okay, what was it like when I was that age? What was I saying, how was I reacting to things?’ There were not a lot of moments when I was on camera, but, when I was upset, how did I respond? Those little things.”
The Paper Boy Book Signing with Josiah Golojuh. 12-3 p.m. Sat., Dec. 28. Phantom of the Attic Comics. 411 S. Craig St., Oakland. Free. facebook.com/josiahiswrite
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2024.
