Escape: A Memoir

1. How is God used to justify FLDS beliefs about sex, marriage, and parenting? How do these beliefs affect the daily lives of FLDS members? How are women particularly affected by the risk of sexual shame?

2. What are the biggest differences in the way men and women are treated in the FLDS? How does this influence the relationships between spouses?

3. Discuss the dynamics among the wives described by Carolyn. How did their situations cause cruel behavior, often driven by scarce resources? What does it take to reduce humans to such destructive levels of competition?

4. Why do you think polygamy has continued to exist in the modern world? What did the medias images of Yearning for Zion mothers indicate about why a woman would stay in a community that strips her of power?

5. How do Carolyns recollections of her childhood both sustain her and haunt her? What did her two mothers teach her about the role of women in the world?

6. How do the nusses at times act like typical teenagers? What alliances does Carolyn build with them? What does marriage do to the nussess sense of sisterhood?

7. Early on, Carolyn dreamed of becoming a doctor. In her Epilogue, she describes her former classmate, Lloyd Barlow, who now serves as a physician at Yearning for Zion, and she expresses concern that an in-house FLDS doctor might turn a blind eye to abuse. How would you explain the FLDSs attitude toward healthcare? Ultimately, what forms of healing, emotional and physical, was Carolyn able to find?

8. How do FLDS children adapt to living in extremely large families? Do they typically accept their new brothers and sisters? How are favoritism and competition handled? How does this experience shape the way they view the world and their relationships with others?

9. How did you react when Carolyn described the ex-convict who began working at her husbands motel? Why didnt Merril care about her personal safety? How was Colorado City affected by the fact that the FLDS controlled local law enforcement?

10. Well into her marriage, at a later age than most FLDS women, Carolyn was allowed to receive the prophecy of her destiny. The reading predicted that she had special intellectual gifts that would be applied to unusual purposes. Why were such revelations of a womans destiny kept private? Do you believe she received any sort of true prophecy that day?

11. Carolyn describes how Warren Jeffs used 9/11 to claim that God was answering the prophets prayers for the wicked to be destroyed. What led so many people in the FLDS to follow Jeffss apocalyptic preaching at that point? What happened to those who were skeptical?

12. How was money managed in Carolyns family and within the FLDS? How did Carolyn learn to make do and become a good provider for her family? How was Warren Jeffs able to build his fortune?

13. Why do you suppose Carolyns daughter, Betty, returned to the FLDS? How would you have handled the prospect of having to testify against your own daughter?

14. Carolyn believes that the Yearning for Zion ranch prevailed in court in 2008 partially because of substantial financial resources. Do you predict that the FLDS will ever become extinct, or dismantled by a court order?

15. Education is tightly controlled by the FLDS, another tactic that limits the freedom of women. What led Carolyn to graduate from college, despite constant obstacles?

16. How did you react to the news footage when authorities raided the Yearning for Zion ranch in 2008? What did Carolyns Epilogue reveal that was not covered by the media? Did media attention help or hurt the FLDS?

17. Discuss the powerful scene in which Carolyn testifies before a Senate Judiciary committee, alongside mainstream Mormon Senator Harry Reid. How did that experience transform her?

18. Carolyn continues to celebrate everyday freedoms, such as a simple dinner and a movie with Brian. How has her story affected the way you appreciate your own life? What actions could you take to help victimized women and children in your community, or elsewhere in the world?

The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one womans 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 Carolyns 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 husbands psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.

Carolyns every move was dictated by her husbands 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 wifes 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 Jessops 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.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The dramatic true story of one woman's life inside the ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect featured in Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey--and her courageous flight to freedom with her eight children

With a new epilogue by the author - "Escape provides an astonishing look behind the tightly drawn curtains of the FLDS church, one of the most secretive religious groups in the United States. A courageous, heart-wrenching account."--Jon Krakauer

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. 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 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. 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 the followers the right to make choices, brainwash children in church-run schools, and force women to be totally subservient to men. Against this background, Carolyn's flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power.

Not only did Carolyn 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, and later the conviction and sentence, of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.