In Polygamy's Shadow: From a Mormon Childhood to a Life of Choice

by Maggie Rayner

A true story of growing up Mormon on the West Coast of British Columbia.FOR MAGGIE RAYNER, conditional love and the threat of violence were the lock on the prison of church and family in which she was raised.Set in the 1950s and 60s on the West Coast of British Columbia, In Polygamy's From a Mormon Childhood to a Life of Choice chronicles Maggie's personal struggle to keep herself from being devoured by the Mormon church and her parents' unrelenting loyalty to it.She questions why her family eats food from a garbage dump while her father rises in the church hierarchy and her parents pay tithing on every dollar that comes into the household. She fears for her future when polygamists from Bountiful visit her congregation on the hunt for young brides.As the church tightens its grip, Maggie battles for the right to think for herself and make her own choices. She realizes at a young age that she will have to make the ultimate choice between family and freedom. In Polygamy's Shadow is both a story of survival and a cautionary tale to anyone thinking of joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."Maggie Rayner has produced an engaging and immediate memoir of growing up Mormon in late-20th century British Columbia. . . a snapshot of a religious community riven by its tumultuous history, still haunted by the shadow - and occasionally the reality - of polygamy."Craig E. Jones, Q.C., BGS, LL.B., LL.M.Professor of LawThompson Rivers UniversityAuthor, A Cruel Inside the Case Against Polygamy

Genres: Nonfiction

251 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 4, 2016

Reviews

[Patricia L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir is terrifically current. There is a court case prosecuting church parents from Bountiful alleging that they smuggled their 13 year old daughter south of the border to become one of the many wives of a 50 year old man. The author helps explain the thinking of her Mormon parents.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A women writes about growing up in a very conservative Mormon. Family in Canada. A very hard childhood.