A moving, heartbreaking, and lyrical true story of the author’s escape from an apocalyptic cult—and the survival skills that led to her freedom.
As a child, Michelle Dowd grew up on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest. She was born into an ultra-religious cult, the Field, started in the 1930s by her grandfather, who convinced generations of young male followers that he would live five hundred years and ascend to the heavens when doomsday came. Comfort and care are sins, Michelle is told. As a result, she was forced to learn the skills necessary to battle hunger, thirst, and cold; she learns to trust animals more than humans; and most importantly, she learns how to survive in the natural world.
At the Field, a young Michelle lives a life of abuse, poverty, and isolation as she obeys her family’s rigorous religious and patriarchal rules. But as Michelle gets older,
