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Religion & Spirituality |
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Escape
written by Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer
Studio : Broadway
by Broadway
Release Date : 2007-10-16
Publisher : Broadway
Released : 2007-10-16
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780767927567
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 267 reviews)
List Price : $24.95
Our Price : $13.70
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Product Description |
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The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.
When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.
Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.
Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs. |
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A view into another world |
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Fascinating read. Found I couldn't put it down as I learned so much about this lifestyle that I knew nothing about apart from news articles. As you read it, its hard to believe that is happening in modern day America. Recommended as a book that will fascinate yet horrify you. I commend the author for doing what she has done to give her children a better life. |
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A, Riveting Semi-Autobiographical Good Read |
I rarely read autobiographies or biographies, but I was perusing this at the store and read the first chapter and then decided I had to buy it.
This book is a more intimate glimpse into the FLDS. I read a few other reviews and it seems like there's a lot of shock. I wasn't shocked, but when I read it, it was more like morbid curiousity. I grew up with a few LDS friends and actually have some friends in the greater Salt Lake area. Other than a few oddities in their religion, I never thought Mormons were freaks. People will find whatever strangeness they want to find in any religion. Is it a cult? By it's definition, maybe. Growing up in the San Francisco bay area, I've seen freakier things that have nothing to do with religion.
My Mormon friends in Utah, will sometimes poke fun at the fundamentalists or express sadness. I get the impression that they're sort of a stain on mainstream Mormonism. It's like regular folks in Utah, know it, but don't actively seek the fundamentalists to expose them. Much like illegal immigrants here in California. We know they're there. They know they're involved in something they shouldn't be, but the legal process makes it so difficult to root them out and they hide behind laws that weren't meant to shield them.
Anyhow, this is more like an intimate portrait of the woman who lived this life and how she endured it. It's the story of how she grew up brainwashed and bought into it. Then found herself an advocate against it, but she needed to plan her escape into normal society.
As sad as her story is, I fear there is much more like this in the rest of the U.S. This is just one woman's story that was recently sensationalized because of the juicy parts.
I did find it interesting that she was a wardrobe consultant for the show Big Love and that she ended up with a guy who was Jewish.
I only hope that her life is headed in a good direction. Good read. I had trouble putting it down because it was well-written. It would have been nicer to see more photos, but it is what it is. A very sad story with a good ending.
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impossible to understand |
what an unbelievably horrible way for a woman to have to live. they must be born with NO backbone whatsoever.
those men should all be locked up where they cant hurt anyone else much less keep on reproducing themselves.
what a disgrace to the feminine gendar.
very readable but sickening book.
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Interesting but poorly written |
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While Carolyn's tale is interesting, horrifying and even compelling the story suffers from poorly constructed sentences, BORING redundancies and just plain bad writing. WHERE was this woman's editor?? If it were not for the fascinating insight into this secretive society I wouldn't have been able to trudge through the whole thing. Alas, the story itself saved the book from it's writer. |
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Free at last |
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Having lived in Arizona most of my life I have been following stories about the FLDS for years and watched as much of the story has unfolded and steps were taken to try and stop some of the corruption and abuse that occured once Warren Jeffs became prophet. Carolyn Jessop's book had me glued to it - I could not put it down and it still haunts me a bit as I have gone into the FLDS Truths website and it is eerie how they are still trying to discredit her. It is a true story and her former husband still wields incredible power over the sect and it was scary watching the women speak at the YFZ ranch after the raid. Carolyn is very brave and I hope much good will come of her stepping out of the box and coming forward with her story. I know a lot already has and I hope more follows - anyone who likes this book should watch the documentary "Banking On Heaven". |
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