Escape

Broadway, 2007, Hardcover

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

Title: Escape
Sales Rank: 8896 in Books
Author: Carolyn Jessop, Laura Palmer
Publisher: Broadway, 2007-10-16, Hardcover, 432 pages, ISBN: 0767927567
Package Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches, 1.6 pounds

Customer Reviews

Torturous true story, torturous writing: I don't particularly like this book; I think it is poorly written; even as if it had been written by a secondary school student; BUT it just has too many details and corroboration to be ignored as fiction as some have recommended. It is just too powerful a narrative of what the most extreme example of inequality of the sexes and degradation and devaluation of the women accomplishes. It would be VERY difficult… More reviews

Shocking: I started reading Escape last week. I work full-time and can read only in my spare time. I read this every moment I could. It's hard to believe any woman could live like that. It a shame men are allowed to do this. For females to be brainwashed like that from birth is horrifying. All women should read this book.… More reviews

How can this be happening? Isn't this America?: You are lower than a second class citizen. You will do as I say, obey my every command. You will dress as I please, think what I tell you, love whom I give you to, bear his children and look to him as your god. You are nothing unless you do these things and if you fail you will be cut from your family… More reviews

Fascinating!: This book is so interesting because it is one woman's experience in the FLDS church, which is deeply rooted in polygamy. The women shown in this story are abused so much that it is almost unbelievable that it really could be happening in our country. Escape is very eye-opening and will grab anyone's attention! Worth reading!! As a side note, the FLDS or Fundamental Latter Day Saints is not… More reviews

A must read!: This book is fascinating and sad all at the same time. It not only touches the victims of FLDS but anyone who has been in a abusive situation. Carolyn is an extraordinary woman! I applaud her courage and strength. I couldn't put this book down. It is a unique and current look into the FLDS. Carolyn and Laura Palmer are very descriptive and… More reviews