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 … 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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Frighteningly up to date and informative about neighboring history and people, we see ‘polygs’ quite often in Las Vegas and they are always mysterious.
This book is well written and sad. So many of the lost boys wind up in our homeless youth homes.
The story of escape from the FLDS is incredible. It reads like life in a third world nation, not here in the USA. The everyday life of women and children is cruel and harrowing, and the leaders are worse than many dictators. It is hard to read, but like a bad car accident, you cannot look away!
Great story from a strong woman!
Very enlightening, this book opened my eyes to a cult I knew nothing about. So tragic how religion can get twisted into sonething so evil and harmful. I hope this group, whose culture parallels other extreme “religions” can be shut down for good. What a brave woman to escape and reveal the horrors she endured.
A heart breaking, true story with a happier ending
Was horrified that in this day and age such cruelty could be put up with by any decent human being. There were quite a few times that information was repeated, so the book did drag and could have been shorter and more to the point. All in all an interesting read.
This book went ON and ON and ON about the horrors of living with the FLDS and it was waaaaaaaaay too much of the same thing, so I quit reading it about 1/2 way through and just read the epilog. Tragic that ladies can be so stupid but then, that’s the way they were raised. Didn’t enjoy this at all except as a learning experience that I should …
Eye opener!!
I knew very little about what goes on in the Fundamental Mormon world..This book may shock you..no big happy family, like I envisioned. Carolyn lays it all out..how she lived/worked/raised her children …and why she escaped. I recommend this book …I think it has taught me how distorted religion can become when it deviates from the Bible. I …
An autobiographic novel by Carolyn Jessop born, raised and married as a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS). Jessop’s from-the-heart story describes her life in an outlier religion which spiraled downwards into a frightening cult. It’s hard to believe in modern day America that repressive groups such as …
Escape did a good job of showing how under the wrong leadership a group can veer from being a little more out there than the norm to being frighteningly extreme. The arguments that were made to support polygamy were gradually subverted to support total control of all women and children by an increasingly small group of “husbands” and “elders”. I …
This book, non-fiction, shows what can happen when perverted, (perhaps originally with good-intentions, but perverted nontheless ) people take truth and bend it until it is something tragic and terrible–inhuman even. That people have/sometimes choose to live like this in this day is appalling and frightening. Diversion to perversion. So sad.
Enjoyed this book. Looking into her childhood and life,may women is still living in this life and not knowing any better.
Having lived in Utah and had many Morman friends, (and even had one home of neighbors who were part of a plural marriage), I was very interested in this book.
This woman went through a lot and I’m certainly glad in the end she prevailed. What she went through is almost unimaginable.
While it can be hard to put yourself in her place, and it can …
Very informative and sad to think that there are any communities that get away with brainwashing children and women. Scary to think one human has so much power over another.
I knew there were groups of people who believed in having more than one wife. This book is an eye opener. It is terrible that this is allowed to go on in the United States. I hope more people read this book and become more aware of what is happening.
Escape was an eye-opening view into the world of the FLDS. In the midst of great adversity, Carolyn Jessop displayed great character and unconditional love for her children. Their escape from the FLDS cult and her subsequent battle to keep her eight children and herself safe, fed, and housed seemed almost impossible. Escape describes her …
The writing is very disjointed and often contradicts herself, but overall a hauntingly real account of a terrifying cult in America and the woman who lived it.
Wow!!!
you never know what a person is going thru!!!!
Very interesting read – I had no idea that there was a polygamous group like this in Utah so recently. The woman’s courage and determination were very inspirational.