Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #777 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-16
• Released on: 2007-10-16
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Seventeen years after being forced into a polygamous marriage, Jessop escaped from the cultlike Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints with her eight children. She recounts the horrid events that led her to break free from the oppressive world she knew and how she has managed to survive since escaping, despite threats and legal battles with her husband and the Church. Though sometimes her retelling overflows with colorful foreshadowing and commentary on how exceptional she is, the everyday details she reveals about this polygamous society are devastating and tragic. Frasier delivers Jessop's words in a soft voice that develops intriguingly from an innocent and naïve tone into a more assertive and self-confident one that mirrors Jessop's journey. She maintains the same rhythm, but through the inspired words of the text, she really embraces Jessop's persona. The bonus telephone interview with Jessop on the final disc suffers from poor sound quality and, unfortunately, doesn't add any new information. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover.
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Review

"Escape provides an astonishing look behind the tightly drawn curtains of the FLDS Church, one of the most secretive religious groups in the United States. The story Carolyn Jessop tells is so weird and shocking that one hesitates to believe a sect like this, with 10,000 polygamous followers, could really exist in 21st-century America. But Jessop’s courageous, heart-wrenching account is absolutely factual. This riveting book reminds us that truth can indeed be much, much stranger than fiction."
—Jon Krakauer, Author of Under the Banner of Heaven, Into Thin Air, and Into the Wild

About the Author

CAROLYN JESSOP was born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a group splintered from and renounced by the Mormon Church, and spent most of her life in Colorado City, Arizona, the main base of the FLDS. Since leaving the group in 2003, she has lived in West Jordon, Utah, with her eight children. LAURA PALMER is the author of Shrapnel in the Heart and collaborated on five other books, the most recent being To Catch a Predator with NBC's Chris Hansen. She lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Escaping and FLDS cult
Carolyn Jessop's story of escaping with her 8 children from an FLDS cult is shocking and disturbing. I admire her courage and tenacity in freeing herself from the cruelty and damage the cult inflicts upon its members, especially women and children and young boys who are deemed a threat or not worthy. She is to be commended for breaking free.

I do not agree that the book could have been better written--or that she portrays herself without going into detail about her mistakes. This is a first person account--not a biography. She has the right to write it from her perspective. If someone wants to write from another perspective they have the right to do so also.

In light of what has transpired in Texas--and the recent indictment again of already jailed and convicted Warren Jeffs--this time for marrying an underage girl--the words of Carolyn Jessop ring truer than ever.

I commend her for strength and courage to give her children and herself a better life and for her activism to help others caught in the web of a destructive, abusive cult that is really a mask for misogyny and power by a select few of power hungry and dishonest and mysogynistic men.

This book helped me learn what really goes on behind closed doors--it is much much worse than I thought.

I recommend this book highly.

Amazing Story
I didn't like this book. Not because it wasn't a truely amazing story but because as she was describing the tension that was going on in her life it made me tense also. It took me a long time to read it because it stressed me out too much.

She tended to repeat herself a few times during the book and sometimes the writing was a little unorganized. She is a novice writer and I blame most of that on the editor.

Overall it's an amazing story. It truely gives a detailed account of what the FLDS is all about and all the abuse (mental and physical) that goes on inside these communities. It also shows just how hard these people have to work to free themselves and their children from this horrendous oppression.

Eye Opening
This book opened my eyes like no other I've ever read. I honestly had no idea that the conditions of a FLDS home were that severe. My heart ached for Carolyn as I read about the abuse she and her children suffered at the hands of Merrill Jessop. The book is very well-written and one that I had a very hard time putting down.

Hands down the most troubling - but one of the best captured stories I've ever read.