How I Became a Man: A Life with Communists, Atheists, and Other Nice People

This book takes us into the heart of the Soviet Union, where Alexander Krylov grew up as an underground Catholic in the 1970s and 1980s, never even entering a church until he was a teenager. How does faith in God live on when God is outlawed? How I Became a Man shows us, offering glimpses at the everyday reality of Communism through the eyes of a child, with humor, irony, and a keen sense of human goodness.

Divided into short vignettes, this book challenges us look at our own lives differently–especially with regard to freedom. How I Became a Man is a courageous, joyous, even whimsical testimony of living the Catholic faith in today’s world.