Stillness and Survival: A Life Between Trauma, Glitter, and the Echo of My Own Voice

I was a quiet boy with loud dreams. But dreams don't grow well in a house full of fear.

As a gay child in a home where silence meant survival, I learned to vanish. For years, I kept my voice hidden - not just from the world, but from myself.

Then came music. Drag. Glitter. Applause.

And, for a time, freedom. Onstage, I could be someone bigger than the pain. For twenty years, I sang and performed my way into pieces of joy I never thought I'd know.

But trauma has its own rhythm.

In the quiet of the covid years, the past came roaring back. I lost my voice again - this time to adulthood pain, depression, and the unhealed echoes of my childhood. Stillness and Survival is a story of silence and expression, queerness and survival, collapse and return. It is about finding your own voice - again and again - even when the world tries to take it away.

This is not just a memoir.

It's a reclaiming.

Editorial Reviews

"Transparent and raw in its delivery, Rose's memoir is a poignant narrative of a survivor who overcame past trauma."

-BookLife Reviews

"Stillness and Survival is a raw, luminous memoir of resilience that transforms pain into power. Jacob Anthony Rose writes with breathtaking honesty and lyrical grace, turning trauma into testimony and survival into art. Each page shimmers with courage, compassion, and the hard-won wisdom of someone who has faced darkness and chosen light. This is not just a story of endurance, it's a triumph of authenticity, self-love, and the unbreakable human spirit."

-Kathryn Dare, San Francisco Book Review

"A deeply personal and cathartic memoir...This memoir unashamedly celebrates the joys and power the author found in San Francisco's drag queen world, but it also highlights the depth of pain that "being different" can bring and how quickly those repressed feelings can reemerge...For anyone struggling with their self, identity, or mental health issues, this is an extremely rewarding and positive read. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it."

- Grant Leishman, Readers' Favorite (5-star review)