I remember reading part of The Naked Luncha few years back...actually, a lot of years back and found it quite strange, and thus didn't finish it, but never discarded it and planned on reading it later down the line (I have the book on my shelf now). In 2009 (December to be exact) I heard from a friend of a friend about his other book (his, meaning William S. Burroughs) called Junky and thus picked it up and began reading it. It had me quite captivated for it took you on a journey of his drug induced days back East, but the book lost me towards the end.
Burroughs started talking about this little town about a page and a half which diverted greatly from the flow of the story that once he got back on track I lost interest. I guess it shows it doesn't take much for me to lose interest in a story.
I did finish Junky and realized how repetitive it was...he got started on junk, met cool people, met shady people, his friends ended up in the hoosegaw, he got off junk, got back on junk, met cool people, met shady people, HE ended up in the hoosegaw, etc., etc.. In the beginning the book intrigued me, but then it started getting repetitive and rather boring, but its like a bad movie, you want to see how it ends.
As a fanatic of books, I enjoy having another book to read right after the other and I finally found one to read called Escape by Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer (not to be confused with Twin Peaks's Laura Palmer - HA!) which tells the story of Carolyn being born into, living in and escaping from the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), or most commonly known as Polygamy (plural marriage). I think outside of Anne Rule's Everything She Ever Wantedand Too Late To Say Goodbye I don't think I've read anything more profound. She speaks of her childhood with one mother and then ending up with two mothers. Her sister's escape at a young age and her desire to learn and get a good education, but in between were the beatings by her biological mother Nurylon. She ends up marrying Merril Jessop
Merril Jessop (born about 1935) is believed to be the de-facto leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS Church), after its former leader, Warren Jeffs, resigned when he was convicted as an accomplice to rape in 2007. Head of the YFZ Ranch, Jessop has been a lifelong member of the church.
While he was in imprisoned, Warren Jeffs reportedly designated William E. Jessop as the rightful successor to the FLDS Church presidency. However, William Jessop has remained at official church headquarters in Hildale, Utah. Recently, news reports have suggested a possible shift of the church's headquarters to Eldorado, Texas, where a temple has been built by FLDS Church at the YFZ Ranch members. As the bishop of the church at YFZ and spokesmen for the FLDS church, it appears that Merril Jessop is the de facto president and the most powerful person in the FLDS Church.
One of Jessop's former wives, Carolyn Jessop, wrote a memoir in 2007 about their 17 year marriage. Carolyn Jessop left the FLDS Church in 2003 and, after a custody battle with Merril Jessop, won full custody of their 8 children.
According to his former wife's memoir Jessop is the father of more than fifty biological children with at least five wives. His senior wife, Faunita, who suffered from mental illness and was the mother of at least 15 children, was literally abandoned by the roadside when the cult was moved to Texas and became a ward of one of her grandchildren living in the mainstream Mormon community. Jessop is believed to have taken many more wives since the departure of Carolyn. According to his ex-wife's book, Jessop has nebulous business interests that include construction and hotels and has suffered from major heart problems in recent years.Source Wikipedia
I learned of this book after watching Secret Lives of Women: War On Polygamy which focused on two women who escaped/left the "cult" (and I use the word very loosely as to not offend anyone) after years of endurance. I was absolutely mesmerized by what these women went through and what they witnessed, but more importantly the courage they gained to escape their environment.
Barnes and Noble best describes the book:
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 byreligious 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.
I highly recommend this book to any and everyone but I ask that no one confuses the Mormon church beliefs with the FLDS's beliefs.
Wm. S. Burroughs 
Carolyn Jessop
No comments:
Post a Comment