Jim Mandelin with Don Rock and Diesvelt / Jim Mandelin with Rock and Don Diesvelt
A Life Worth Dying For: The Jim Mandelin Story, by Jim Mandelin with Don Rock and Alison Diesvelt, is the true story of a man, who endured a childhood strewn with daily incidents of sexual, physical and emotional abuse at home, and constant bullying at school; who survived years as a youth on the streets succumbing to the predations of pedophiles and to addiction; who did multiple stints in prison and was eventually recruited by a biker gang in prison for work as a ’debt collector on the outside’; who eventually became a physical wreck because of addiction, facing cardiac arrest at twenty-two and a near-death experience that changed his life forever. A Life Worth Dying For is woven with fleeting moments of kindness by relative strangers, which ultimately fused Jim with the will to live. This is a story written to raise awareness of the effects of childhood abuse and neglect, bullying and discrimination and how these circumstances so often create conditioning for criminality and gang membership. It is a real-life testament intended to deepen your understanding of what it is to be human, and of the power of kindness to affect critical change in our world.
