Review: Escape
October 21, 2007
Escape, by Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer
The cover says, “I was born into a radical polygamist cult. At eighteen, I became the fourth wife of a fifty-year-old man. I had eight children in fifteen years. When our leader began to preach the apocalypse, I knew I had to get them out.”
The book is a fascinating look into the FLDS culture. While it is very one-sided and shreds whatever reputation the FLDS have left, it still stands as one of the few views we have into this insular group. A lot of the book covers the dangerous minefield that life with multiple wives in the Jessop home was:
I planted a huge garden that summer and we managed to eat every meal from its harvest. We bought flour for bread and had some beans in the cellar, bottled vegetbales, and fruit. But despite our best efforts, the tension at home because of he sheer want kept building.
Rather than appreciating our efforts, Merril and Barbara were offended. Merril made it clear that Tammy and I should have checked with Barbara before we implemented changes in the daily household routine. Merril once refused to eat dinner because I hadn’t checked with Barbara before preparing it. I could not believe the ego of that man.
I didn’t think of him as my husband, a gift from God. I thought of him as “that man,” an egocentric bully whom I had been forced to marry, someone who had control over my life and my body. I hated depending on him financially. I still believed in my religion, but I knew Merril wasn’t following it the way he should. I knew the way he treated me and his other five wives was wrong, and yet he was a powerful man in the FLDS. I felt frustrated and confused.
These types of stories continue. These men, portrayed to the FLDS as faithful men, appear in Jessop’s book to be far from saints. This on Warren Jeffs from the time he was the principal of the FLDS private school Alta Academy:
Warren thrived on brutality and seemed to love hurting people. He’d pull some kids out of their classroom and beat them on an almost daily basis. Warren targeted the kids from bad homes whose parents wouldn’t make waves even if their kids told.
Warren also taught brutality. One day he brought one of his wives into the auditorium, which was packed with boys. Annette had a long braid that fell past he knees. Warren grabbed the braid and twisted and twisted it until she was on her knees and he was ripping hair from her head. He told the boys that this was how obedient their wives had to be to them.
As the book tells, the wives live in this crazy abusive environment. One wife is favored, one stays up all night watching television and sleeps all day, a couple do all of the endless housework and laundry. And Merril comes off as quite the ass:
Several years later, Tammy went to Merril and told him she could no longer live wihtout physical affection. How could he expect her to live that way forever?
Merril was reading while she talked. He turned to her when she was finished, took off his reading glasses, looked across his desk, and said, “I always knew you had a weak character!”
For all of you eager to find out what it’s like behind closed doors in a polygamous family, here is one woman’s look at it. I’m sure there are other experiences out there, but this is Carolyn’s.
Escape, by Carolyn Jessop with Laura Palmer
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How would you like your story told by your ex-wife?
This book is for those belonging to hate groups.
Would you read a book written by Bill Gates to learn the beauty of an Apple computer?
This “repressed” woman graduated from college as a certified school teacher.
It seems she learned how to make money by telling stories.