INSPIRING LIVES
SJU Helped Rosengren Kick Addiction, Write His Own Story By Frank Rajkowski In many ways, John Rosengren’s latest book has brought the 1986 Saint John’s University graduate and noted Minnesota author full circle. The novel – A Clean Heart – is set on Six West, a fictional adolescent drug treatment center where counselor Carter Kirchner continues to manage his own efforts to remain clean and sober. Adolescent addiction was also a topic Rosengren – who has been open about his own struggles with addiction as a teen – explored in his first book, the loosely autobiographical collection of short stories Life is a Party: Portrait of a Teenage Partier published in 1989. A Clean Heart was written only a few years later. “I went through treatment myself when I was 17, and later I worked in an adolescent treatment center,” he said. “So I was able to draw on my own experiences, although my mother wants everyone to know the novel is fiction. Unlike Kirchner’s mother in the book, she was never an alcoholic. “I wrote it back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I tried to get it published then and it got rejected. Every five years or so, I’d revive it and send it back out. But the response was always the same. So I’d sort of resigned myself to the fact that it was going to be the proverbial unpublished novel sitting in a desk drawer. “Then recently, after I’d finished another novel, I thought I’d send this one off again too. And sure enough, A Clean Heart is the one that got picked up. So it’s really kind of a sequel to my first book. It’s just been delayed about 25 or 30 years.”
Rosengren has written nine books as well as penning short stories, essays and numerous articles for prestigious publications and websites including The Atavist, The New Yorker, The Washington Post Magazine, Sports Illustrated, History Channel Magazine, SB Nation and Vice. His long expose for The Atlantic – titled How Casinos Enable Gambling Addicts – was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2017. A good deal of his work has focused on sports, including books like The Fight of Their Lives: How Juan Marichal and John Roseboro Turned Baseball's Ugliest Brawl into a Story of Forgiveness and Redemption (2014), Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes (2013) and Blades of Glory: The True Story of a Young Team Bred to Win (2003). He also co-wrote Alone in the Trenches: My Life as a Gay Player in the NFL with former Minnesota Viking Esera Tuaolo in 2006. “I don’t consider myself a sports writer,” Rosengren said. “I write about a variety of subjects. But what they all seem
to have in common is that they’re stories about the human spirit. I’ve always related to people who’ve had to overcome obstacles in some fashion and were able to succeed.” Perhaps that’s because Rosengren is no stranger to overcoming obstacles himself. He credits his time at Saint John’s with helping strengthen the foundation that makes his career possible. When he arrived on campus in the fall of 1982, Rosengren was newly sober. He said the community he found on campus helped him continue down the path he had embarked on. “Saint John’s was really innovative in that there were AA meetings on campus,” he said. “Back in the fall of 1982, that was somewhat unusual. “I think a big part of maintaining sobriety is having that spiritual foundation. And at Saint John’s, I drew a lot of support from Benedictine values and principals, and the sense of community that exists there.”
Inspiring Lives is reserved for reflective pieces with a Benedictine theme. Please submit essays, poetry or other reflections for consideration to Dave DeLand at ddeland@csbsju.edu.
68 WINTER/SPRING 2021
