In the Days of Rain

WINNER OF THE 2017 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD

This title was previously available on NetGalley and is now archived.
Buy on BN.com Buy on Bookshop.org
*This page contains affiliate links, so we may earn a small commission when you make a purchase through links on our site at no additional cost to you.
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app

1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date 01 Jun 2017 | Archive Date 23 Oct 2017

Description

WINNER OF THE 2017 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD

In the vein of Bad Blood and Why be Happy when you can be Normal?: an enthralling, at times shocking, and deeply personal family memoir of growing up in, and breaking away from, a fundamentalist Christian cult.

As heard on Jeremey Vine

‘At university when I made new friends and confidantes, I couldn’t explain how I’d become a teenage mother, or shoplifted books for years, or why I was afraid of the dark and had a compulsion to rescue people, without explaining about the Brethren or the God they made for us, and the Rapture they told us was coming. But then I couldn’t really begin to talk about the Brethren without explaining about my father…’

As Rebecca Stott’s father lay dying he begged her to help him write the memoir he had been struggling with for years. He wanted to tell the story of their family, who, for generations had all been members of a fundamentalist Christian sect. Yet, each time he reached a certain point, he became tangled in a thicket of painful memories and could not go on.

The sect were a closed community who believed the world is ruled by Satan: non-sect books were banned, women were made to wear headscarves and those who disobeyed the rules were punished.

Rebecca was born into the sect, yet, as an intelligent, inquiring child she was always asking dangerous questions. She would discover that her father, an influential preacher, had been asking them too, and that the fault-line between faith and doubt had almost engulfed him.

In In the Days of Rain Rebecca gathers the broken threads of her father’s story, and her own, and follows him into the thicket to tell of her family’s experiences within the sect, and the decades-long aftermath of their breaking away.

WINNER OF THE 2017 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD

In the vein of Bad Blood and Why be Happy when you can be Normal?: an enthralling, at times shocking, and...


Available Editions

EDITION Ebook
ISBN 9780008209186
PRICE £4.99 (GBP)
PAGES 288

Average rating from 5 members


Featured Reviews

Author Rebecca Stott was raised in the separatist cult of the Exclusive Brethren from birth until a major schism saw her family finally withdraw. Stott was part of a third-generation Brethren family, and knew of no other way of life. She was forbidden all contact with outsiders and with worldly temptations such as reading novels, secular music, films; even eating in the company of outsiders was banned.

The Brethren evolved from being an isolationist Christian sect to something much darker and weirder, where members were hounded to suicide, families sundered and people withdrawn from for little or no reason. Withdrawal usually meant the loss of contact with all family members, and often one's livelihood.

Stott's father and grandfather were leading figures in the Brethren and played their part in these acts of intimidation and repression. After leaving the cult, her father had a crisis of faith which eventually did great damage to the family.

Stott's account of her ancestors initial involvement in the Brethren, and its gradual decline into a brutal cult is gripping and somewhat hair-raising. It is difficult to believe, as she intimates, that no doctor, teacher or other professional ever thought to intervene and ask what was going on with these people, rather than just look the other way.

The story of what happens after the family is finally extricated is both thoughtful and sad. Her own struggle to make sense of her life is ever-present, and one gets the sense that she will never entirely shake off the damage wrought by her formative years.

This book is a beautifully written account of a dark and secretive organisation, and the impact it had at a very personal level. It is moving, wise and compelling in equal measure.

Was this review helpful?

Readers who liked this book also liked: