In the Days of Rain: A Daughter, a Father, a Cult

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He has cancer and she is the family member who volunteering to watch over him as he spends time in the hospital and at home slowly dying.

The book reminded me a little of Oranges Are not the Only Fruit, by Jeannette Winterson, except Winterson's book about growing up in a strange English sect was complicated by her being a lesbian and suffering that particular brand of ostracism. And as for the Brethren, though diminished by scandal, they remain active and apparently unreconstructed. While this elite boarding school may make some people instantly think “Uh-oh, posh misery memoir”, the Gordonstoun as Doyle remembers it is a living hell, with one suspect teacher instructing children to strip naked for “birthday baths” and swimming (so as “not to get their costumes wet”).

It gives people vitality, can [contribute] to self-esteem, and increases endorphins that have a positive effect on the mood. 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. Yet, each time he reached a certain point, he became tangled in a thicket of painful memories and could not go on.

The book conveys a huge amount of information about Brethren and family history but never loses sight of what is most important: what it was actually like to be in a cult and have your life defined by its rules and its paranoia about the outside world. Both imposed tighter and tighter control over their charges after taking over, JT in the 1960s and WJ in the 1980s, cutting them off from the outside world, prohibiting access to television and radio, controlling employment and access to a wide range of material goods, houses, land, etc. He was a Shakespearian actor, a gambling addict, a former prisoner, and a high-ranking member of a religious cult. This resulted in members being bullied, secluded from other people outside of their community, and also resulted in suicides, because they were told that outside of the Brethren, there is only Satan.This story of how she escapes and discovers the rest of the world is by turns tragic and enlightening. All the while, the inner guard of The Brethren spent their time sifting through the Bible for quotations to support their new disciplinary procedures.