Monday, August 01, 2011

07: Escape

Our internet went out! >_< It took two days for the evil company to get it fixed, and now I'm behind! *sniffle* I'm actually posting this on the 3rd, but it's been ready since the 1st, so I'll cheat a bit with the posting date!

Escape
Carolyn Jessop and Laura Palmer
Published: 2007

Why?:
I connected this book to The 19th Wife because I read it after, myself. This is the story of Carolyn Jessop, one of the wives of cult leader Merrill Jessop. Her prose is tightly handled, but tells the story of a life in bondage to ignorance and lifestyle with painful clarity. Though there is certainly bitterness and heartbreak in her story, Jessop looks with optimism to the future.

Gist: This is the memoir of a woman who escaped her husband, a leader in the FDLS, and successfully gained sole custody of her children. It tells of her life from her childhood, with her mother and her mother’s sister wives, through her marriage to a much older man at 17, to her current life in the “outside” world.

Bonus Trivia: Carolyn Jessop is the only woman to have left a group of Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints and won full custody of her children. She has released a second memoir entitled Triumph: Life After the Cult, but it focuses more on personal philosophy than the events of her life. For those who might feel uncomfortable hearing just her side of the story, her eldest daughter chose to return to her father’s family. She has announced that she will write her own book about life with the FLDS.

Perfect For: Ages 17+ for dealing with mature subject matter

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir
Keywords: Drama

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