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Forgiving Dr. Jekyll: From Hyde to Healing: A Memoir
Not yet published
Expected 15 Apr 26What if forgiveness was the only way to reclaim your life—but the hardest thing you’ve ever done?
Paul Drugan grew up in a world where silence was survival and pain was hidden behind closed doors. Years later, when the weight of shame became unbearable, he made a choice—to confront the past and rewrite his story. In this searingly honest memoir, Drugan shares his journey from devastation to healing, from self-destruction to self-acceptance. With an unflinching voice and a deeply compassionate heart, he explores the power of forgiveness—not for the one who caused the pain, but for himself.
If you’ve ever carried wounds that weren’t yours to bear, this book is for you. If you’ve ever longed for freedom from the past, this book is for you.
The road to healing is never easy, but it is always worth it.
Paul Drugan grew up in a world where silence was survival and pain was hidden behind closed doors. Years later, when the weight of shame became unbearable, he made a choice—to confront the past and rewrite his story. In this searingly honest memoir, Drugan shares his journey from devastation to healing, from self-destruction to self-acceptance. With an unflinching voice and a deeply compassionate heart, he explores the power of forgiveness—not for the one who caused the pain, but for himself.
If you’ve ever carried wounds that weren’t yours to bear, this book is for you. If you’ve ever longed for freedom from the past, this book is for you.
The road to healing is never easy, but it is always worth it.
252 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication April 15, 2026
2 people are currently reading
691 people want to read
About the author
Paul Drugan
1 book4 followersPaul Drugan is a Chicago-based memoirist and men’s mental health advocate who writes about the long-term impact of childhood trauma, emotional repression, and the quiet cost of silence.
Drawing on lived experience, Paul explores how unaddressed trauma—particularly in men raised to suppress vulnerability—shapes identity, relationships, addiction, and self-worth. His work examines the ways shame becomes inherited, normalized, and internalized, and how awareness, acceptance, and action can interrupt those cycles.
Rooted in Chicago—a city defined by toughness, grit, and reinvention—Paul brings emotional honesty and psychological clarity to stories often left unspoken, especially those surrounding men’s pain, silence, and survival. His writing challenges inherited notions of masculinity and stoicism, offering a more humane and expansive understanding of resilience.
In Forgiving Dr. Jekyll: From Hyde to Healing, Paul shares a raw and deeply moving memoir about surviving childhood abuse, confronting generational trauma, overcoming addiction and internalized shame, and discovering the spiritual and psychological practices that make forgiveness—and self-reclamation—possible. While grounded in a male experience of trauma and recovery, his work resonates broadly with readers seeking healing, inner-child work, and emotional reintegration.
Drawing on lived experience, Paul explores how unaddressed trauma—particularly in men raised to suppress vulnerability—shapes identity, relationships, addiction, and self-worth. His work examines the ways shame becomes inherited, normalized, and internalized, and how awareness, acceptance, and action can interrupt those cycles.
Rooted in Chicago—a city defined by toughness, grit, and reinvention—Paul brings emotional honesty and psychological clarity to stories often left unspoken, especially those surrounding men’s pain, silence, and survival. His writing challenges inherited notions of masculinity and stoicism, offering a more humane and expansive understanding of resilience.
In Forgiving Dr. Jekyll: From Hyde to Healing, Paul shares a raw and deeply moving memoir about surviving childhood abuse, confronting generational trauma, overcoming addiction and internalized shame, and discovering the spiritual and psychological practices that make forgiveness—and self-reclamation—possible. While grounded in a male experience of trauma and recovery, his work resonates broadly with readers seeking healing, inner-child work, and emotional reintegration.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
4.75/5⭐
Content warnings: abuse, homophobia, substance abuse.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This memoir is deeply honest, vulnerable, and raw. The author does not shy away from the immense pain that shaped his life, and that unflinching openness makes this a powerful yet emotionally difficult read.
My only critique, if I'd even call it such, lies in how the book handles forgiveness. While I appreciated that the memoir ends with the author discovering a path toward forgiveness, that portion of the story felt surprisingly brief—only a couple of chapters—and leaned more heavily on spiritual relief than I had anticipated. That said, I found the author’s perspective on forgiveness being easier once an abuser is no longer alive to be especially compelling. It helped me better understand why my own sense of forgiveness feels so difficult and unresolved.
One of the most emotionally resonant moments for me was the scene with the author’s father on his deathbed. It was painfully relatable—particularly the sudden expression of love from a parent who was never emotionally open before. That moment rang deeply true and stayed with me long after finishing the book.
Despite my initial reservations about the ending, this memoir is a courageous and heart-wrenching exploration of trauma, survival, and self-understanding. I am glad I read it, and I think it will resonate strongly with readers who value emotional honesty.
Content warnings: abuse, homophobia, substance abuse.
Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This memoir is deeply honest, vulnerable, and raw. The author does not shy away from the immense pain that shaped his life, and that unflinching openness makes this a powerful yet emotionally difficult read.
My only critique, if I'd even call it such, lies in how the book handles forgiveness. While I appreciated that the memoir ends with the author discovering a path toward forgiveness, that portion of the story felt surprisingly brief—only a couple of chapters—and leaned more heavily on spiritual relief than I had anticipated. That said, I found the author’s perspective on forgiveness being easier once an abuser is no longer alive to be especially compelling. It helped me better understand why my own sense of forgiveness feels so difficult and unresolved.
One of the most emotionally resonant moments for me was the scene with the author’s father on his deathbed. It was painfully relatable—particularly the sudden expression of love from a parent who was never emotionally open before. That moment rang deeply true and stayed with me long after finishing the book.
Despite my initial reservations about the ending, this memoir is a courageous and heart-wrenching exploration of trauma, survival, and self-understanding. I am glad I read it, and I think it will resonate strongly with readers who value emotional honesty.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I went into the novel thinking it was a retelling of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde based on the title. It was not long before I realized why it was given the title Forgiving Dr. Jekyll.
This is an honest memoir by the author of growing up in the 1970s, an era where certain topics were taboo to talk about. They had words for all sorts of things, mostly people that were different and Paul’s father treated him differently than his siblings, mostly because Paul didn’t live up to his ideal of what a man should be. Paul didn’t like sports. His main hobby was reading. By today’s standards there is nothing wrong with reading. It is great to see men read but at that time sports was what made a man.
It was heartbreaking when the author started to avoid his father. He did not want to be in the same room with him. Even more heartbreaking is when his father accidently expressed how he truly felt about him. ‘Sissy’. What a word that must have been back in the day. It seems like nothing now, but back then, it must have been the worst thing to be called, especially by your own father.
The beginning of the book starts with his father’s funeral before we go back in time to when he was growing and all the abuse that his father inflicted on him. He was mostly verbally abusive before it escalated as he got older to physical abuse. Both things no one around knew except maybe his mother and siblings but the people that knew his father had no idea.
‘My father wasn’t a drinker but stopped in occasionally to catch up on town gossip with Dom. He’d invariably run into one or two admirers who made sure they shook hands with him. They were always men who went out of their way to bow to my father. To them, he was the epitome of a masculine family man—someone to idolize. But now, all the attendees at the wake, men and women, had life sucked out of them and told stories with downward gazes. Their remembrances weren’t empty words but testimonials of their genuine love for this man. I looked at them trying to mask my confusion. They had no idea about his brutal and violent side. It seemed impossible for them to imagine. But as the oak door closed after the wake and we prepared for the funeral—it was all I could think about.’
This reminds of the scene from It Ends With Us, where the main character attends her father’s funeral and people are staying positive while during her speech she says nothing because she has no favorable things to say about him.
All good things that people remembered about Paul’s father must have been like a shell shock to him. Almost like he was two different people. How he was around his family and how he was around neighbors, coworkers and friends.
It makes you wonder how often this occurred. How often were people in abusive households and the neighbors and friends being none the wiser?
He went through so much with finding and accepting himself as well as forgiving his father. I just wish we knew about his father to understand why he treated him that way. But sometimes you don’t get answers like you want.
This is an honest memoir by the author of growing up in the 1970s, an era where certain topics were taboo to talk about. They had words for all sorts of things, mostly people that were different and Paul’s father treated him differently than his siblings, mostly because Paul didn’t live up to his ideal of what a man should be. Paul didn’t like sports. His main hobby was reading. By today’s standards there is nothing wrong with reading. It is great to see men read but at that time sports was what made a man.
It was heartbreaking when the author started to avoid his father. He did not want to be in the same room with him. Even more heartbreaking is when his father accidently expressed how he truly felt about him. ‘Sissy’. What a word that must have been back in the day. It seems like nothing now, but back then, it must have been the worst thing to be called, especially by your own father.
The beginning of the book starts with his father’s funeral before we go back in time to when he was growing and all the abuse that his father inflicted on him. He was mostly verbally abusive before it escalated as he got older to physical abuse. Both things no one around knew except maybe his mother and siblings but the people that knew his father had no idea.
‘My father wasn’t a drinker but stopped in occasionally to catch up on town gossip with Dom. He’d invariably run into one or two admirers who made sure they shook hands with him. They were always men who went out of their way to bow to my father. To them, he was the epitome of a masculine family man—someone to idolize. But now, all the attendees at the wake, men and women, had life sucked out of them and told stories with downward gazes. Their remembrances weren’t empty words but testimonials of their genuine love for this man. I looked at them trying to mask my confusion. They had no idea about his brutal and violent side. It seemed impossible for them to imagine. But as the oak door closed after the wake and we prepared for the funeral—it was all I could think about.’
This reminds of the scene from It Ends With Us, where the main character attends her father’s funeral and people are staying positive while during her speech she says nothing because she has no favorable things to say about him.
All good things that people remembered about Paul’s father must have been like a shell shock to him. Almost like he was two different people. How he was around his family and how he was around neighbors, coworkers and friends.
It makes you wonder how often this occurred. How often were people in abusive households and the neighbors and friends being none the wiser?
He went through so much with finding and accepting himself as well as forgiving his father. I just wish we knew about his father to understand why he treated him that way. But sometimes you don’t get answers like you want.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 17, 2026
Mixed Feelings
I feel like this memoir has the potential to be better and in that regard, I am reminded that every one of us has that potential at any point despite whether we have suffered our own trauma or led a relatively "normal" and stable life. That being said, I like that Paul has courageously chosen to not only tell some of his story but he refuses to remain a victim and chooses health and healing. In doing so he chooses life.
As a fellow abuse survivor, we have some similarities. I too chose life when many years ago I walked into a therapist office for my first appointment despite my intense fear, pain, shame and doubt and in the midst of planning a wedding neither of us were ready for. I chose it again when i got started taking part time college classes to earn my degrees (while working full time). Still later, I filed suit against my abuser in court.
As is typical of me I very much dislike when authors take the Lord's name in vain -- even if it's not them speaking but rather they are quoting what someone else said. I feel that someone intelligent and ambitious enough to write a book should easily be able to come up with expressions of anger, frustration or hurt without using blasphemy. Also typical of my reviews, depending on whether this occurs once -- or several times, I deduct a star or two.
I wish the reader had been able to hear more about the siblings experiences with their dad and especially why in the world the mother would let her son be brutalized but do NOTHING about it!
The book did seem slow moving at times. Underlying theme of sexuality issues
I feel like this memoir has the potential to be better and in that regard, I am reminded that every one of us has that potential at any point despite whether we have suffered our own trauma or led a relatively "normal" and stable life. That being said, I like that Paul has courageously chosen to not only tell some of his story but he refuses to remain a victim and chooses health and healing. In doing so he chooses life.
As a fellow abuse survivor, we have some similarities. I too chose life when many years ago I walked into a therapist office for my first appointment despite my intense fear, pain, shame and doubt and in the midst of planning a wedding neither of us were ready for. I chose it again when i got started taking part time college classes to earn my degrees (while working full time). Still later, I filed suit against my abuser in court.
As is typical of me I very much dislike when authors take the Lord's name in vain -- even if it's not them speaking but rather they are quoting what someone else said. I feel that someone intelligent and ambitious enough to write a book should easily be able to come up with expressions of anger, frustration or hurt without using blasphemy. Also typical of my reviews, depending on whether this occurs once -- or several times, I deduct a star or two.
I wish the reader had been able to hear more about the siblings experiences with their dad and especially why in the world the mother would let her son be brutalized but do NOTHING about it!
The book did seem slow moving at times. Underlying theme of sexuality issues
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews