Kintsugi
金継ぎ “golden joinery”
The Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, so the fractures are not hidden but honored.
Gold in the Cracks
A Memoir of Silence, Performance, and Repair Coming soon
“I carried this for twenty-five years.”
The same wiring that made my body elite at everything measurable was quietly breaking the parts of life no scoreboard could hold.
Read the prologue free
San Diego, 5:30 a.m. — read the opening pages of Gold in the Cracks, delivered immediately to your inbox.
The book
A story buried for twenty-five years—and what happened when it stopped staying buried.
This is a memoir of childhood sexual abuse buried for decades, and of the nervous system that kept telling the story after I stopped using words.
It is also the story of fatherhood, performance, collapse, and the decision to stop mistaking a wound for a personality.
I wrote it while the pieces were still moving—for myself, and for anyone carrying a weight they have never been able to name.
It is a story I wouldn’t change. It made me who I am.
“I am still healing. Pieces are getting put back together, seams still showing. That is the point.”
The architecture of the memoir
This book lives between two words.
One names the repair. The other names the fear that time will run out before the gate closes.
Torschlusspanik
German “gate-shut panic”
The fear that the door is closing before you have made it through.
This memoir lives in the distance between them: the fear of running out of time, and the slow work of making the breakage into something you would never trade away.
About the author
Dr. Peter Verdin
Dr. Peter Verdin was an SEC outfielder drafted by the Washington Nationals before earning a PhD in human and sport performance.
He spent years as an elite athlete, a coach, and an educator—the person who looked most put-together in every room—while quietly carrying what this book is about.
He is a father of two, and Gold in the Cracks is his first book.
Media & appearances
Conversations beyond the page.
Podcasts, interviews, and appearances exploring the story behind Gold in the Cracks—trauma, performance, identity, fatherhood, and repair.
New
SASS
Sexual Assault Survivor Stories
A conversation with Dave Markel about childhood sexual abuse, the ways trauma can hide inside achievement, and what healing looks like when you are still in it.
Coming soon
Unlikely Allies
Unlikely Allies
A conversation about trauma, achievement, identity, and the surprising places two very different stories can recognize the same of healing.
Episode coming soon
NEW
BREAKING THE SILENCE
Breaking the Silence
A conversation about trauma, survival, performance, and what it means to break silence after decades of carrying the story.
With co-guest Sonny Von Cleveland ↗
COMING OCTOBER
DEAR KATIE
Survivor Stories
A conversation about survival, silence, identity, and what it means to tell the story while the healing is still unfolding.
COMING DECEMBER
HANDING THE SHAME BACK
Handing the Shame Back
A conversation about trauma, healing, and the long work of giving shame back where it belongs. My episode is coming in December.
COMING OCTOBER
AFTER THE ATHLETE
After the Athlete Podcast
A conversation about how baseball became my armor, and the searching that began when the pursuit that had defined me finally came apart.
The first chapter is yours
Start reading where the story breaks open.
The prologue lands in your inbox. Release updates come later—only when there is something worth saying.
