by Chris Kursel
<p>When Chris was born, the youngest of seven sons, his father (Joel) was 64 years old. Joel was the child of immigrants and grew up poor in a cement factory town in western Pennsylvania. He was a bomber pilot in World War II. Then an ad man who went by another name. Then, when Chris was 16, Joel died of brain cancer.</p><p>Paint the Sun: A Boy's Journey tells the story of Chris's quest to discover who his father really was, reconstruct his life and reflect on his long lingering grief.</p><p>A blend of narrative nonfiction and memoir, each episode weaves together the past and present in a dance of voice-driven storytelling, music and sounds.</p>
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🇺🇲
Publishing Since
3/2/2025
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March 4, 2025
<p>Chris recalls a trip to the movies with his father that unlocked a deeper understanding of Joel's past as a WWII bomber pilot. While never hidden, Joel's stories of war existed fragments, woven into their home’s quiet displays of history. But when Chris uncovers a startling detail about his father's enlistment, he is forced to reconcile the legend he grew up with and the real man behind it.</p>
March 4, 2025
<p>In this episode, we follow Joel’s journey from the familiar streets of Bessemer, PA to the academic halls of Allegheny College in the late 1930's. As he grapples with homesickness and financial hardship, Joel finds himself at a crossroads—torn between the world he knew and the one he yearns for. Along the way, he experiences first love with the beautiful and enigmatic beauty queen Mary Jane Beeler, a campus wide celebrity. But as graduation nears, the looming specter of war threatens to upend everything.</p>
March 4, 2025
<p>Christmas 1999. Chris, now 17, faces the traumatic reality of his father's cancer diagnosis. After Joel undergoes brain surgery, weekly visits to the hospital test Chris's mental and emotional stamina. In between, there are fleeting moments of normalcy with new friends and the energy of high school life. But the hospital looms with its sterile smells, its quiet heartbreak, and a father who emerges from surgery irrevocably changed. Even in Chris's dreams, death lingers—not as absence, but as an unsettling, altered return.</p>
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