Passing Through Paradise

About the Book

In the fall of 1989, young Angela Kiln and her father move to the slowly dying town of Paradise. Once they settle into small town life, Angela and her father, a high school teacher, find that the town isn´t the only thing dying — so, apparently, are students. As Angela and her father seek the truth behind the deaths, they will also face the truth about their own deepest beliefs.

Part suspenseful mystery, part sentimental journey, Passing Through Paradise is an alternately funny, gripping, and frightening account of a young girl, her still-grieving father, and a town that refuses to recognize the future. Filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, Passing Through Paradise dramatically reveals the best and worst of human nature, illuminated against a scathing indictment of an American small town.

This new edition of Passing Through Paradise includes a discussion guide for book clubs. Other novels that take place in Schreiber’s Ironwood County include Hillcrest Journal and Life on the Fly.

"Passing through Paradise is tough to put down. The themes are masterfully interwoven."

— Ruth Hanson, Byron Review

" . . . a suspenseful story told with insight, humor, conviction, and compassion."

— Andrew Johanson, Paradise Post, Ironwood County, Minnesota

"Schreiber has a wide range of imagination and the talent to put it into words. . . . His imagination invents word pictures that spark the mind to envision a screen larger than Hollywood is capable of."

– News-Enterprise, December 1, 2004

Helpful Link:

Schreiber has posted some of his published articles, essays, and poems along with book group discussion questions for Passing Through Paradise at John Schreiber´s Books

About the Author

John Schreiber (born 1954) is an American teacher, theater director, and writer. Originally from Saint Paul, Minnesota, he has taught English and directed over 120 plays in southern Minnesota since 1976. During that time he also helped pioneer teaching over interactive television and developed one of the first concurrent enrollment courses with a local college. He has received numerous awards including Ashland Oil's "Golden Apple Award," and the "Selection of Excellence" from the MN Alliance for the Arts. In 2003, he was a finalist for Minnesota's Teacher of the Year, and in 2012 he was Minnesota's first Theater Educator of the Year. His Ironwood County novels, ("Hillcrest Journal," "Passing Through Paradise," and "Life on the Fly") draw on many of his teaching experiences in rural Minnesota. His collection of short stories, "Tales from 2 A.M." features stories written over the course of many years. Each story is written in a style designed to match the theme. Influences for these stories can be found in sources as diverse as Ray Bradbury and Mark Twain. For his fifth novel, the epic fantasy "Heartstone," Schreiber employed a cinematic, real-time style that brings an extra immediacy to the action. After promising himself never to write a novel as complicated as "Heartstone" again, he broke that promise and wrote the sequel "Heartstone: Under the Shadow." He is currently working on a fourth novel in the Ironwood County series..