Thank Algonquin Books, #partner for the finished copy of Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult in exchange for my honest review. I borrowed the audiobook from the library.
Publisher: Algonquin Books / Hachette Audio
Published: February 27, 2024 – Paperback Release
Summary:
A moving, heartbreaking, and lyrical true story of the author’s escape from an apocalyptic cult—and the survival skills that led to her freedom.
My family prepared me for the end of the world, but I know how to survive on what the earth yields.
As a child, Michelle Dowd grew up on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest. She was born into an ultra-religious cult—or the Field as they called it—started in the 1930s by her grandfather, a mercurial, domineering, and charismatic man who convinced generations of young male followers that he would live 500 years and ascend to the heavens when doomsday came. Comfort and care are sins, Michelle is told. As a result, she was forced to learn the skills necessary to battle hunger, thirst, and cold; she learned to trust animals more than humans; and most importantly, she learned how to survive in the natural world.
At the Field, a young Michelle lives a life of abuse, poverty, and isolation, as she obeys her family’s rigorous religious and patriarchal rules—which are so extreme that Michelle is convinced her mother would sacrifice her, like Abraham and Isaac, if instructed by God. She often wears the same clothes for months at a time; she is often ill and always hungry for both love and food. She is taught not to trust Outsiders, and especially not Quitters, nor her own body and its warnings.
But as Michelle gets older, she realizes she has the strength to break free. Focus on what will sustain, not satiate you, she tells herself. Use everything. Waste nothing. Get to know the intricacies of the land, like the intricacies of your body. And so she does.
Using stories of individual edible plants and their uses to anchor each chapter, Forager is both a searing coming-of-age story and a meditation on the ways in which understanding nature can lead to freedom, even joy.
My thoughts:
I always love picking up memoirs because I love to get a glimpse into someone else’s life, especially someone who has had experiences drastically different from me. And of course, when I see the word “cult” involved, I’m even more inclined to pick it up because I’m just so fascinated by anyone who has lived in or been part of a cult.
Despite being raised in an abusive, ultra-religious cult where she was often left alone and to fend for herself outdoors, Michelle Dowd learned some incredible survival skills along the way. This book isn’t an easy read, especially in the first half where we see her being quite vulnerable as she relives those days back on the mountain where she was left isolated, having to fend for herself, or being subjected to emotional, physical and sometimes even sexual abuse. But what she was taught was to survive and that she did.
I loved how each chapter starts with a description of an edible plant and the plant’s purpose. I looked forward to these brief pauses from what was becoming a very raw and painful journey. But by the end of the book, I also realized it is these plants and this knowledge that helped Michelle survive. How powerful is that!
This isn’t going to be a book for everyone. It’s a coming-of-age story that is emotionally disturbing, heartbreaking and tough to read at times. But it’s also a story of survival and resilience, and for that, I’m glad I picked it up.
Audio thoughts:
I am always a fan of the author narrating their own memoir – it just makes it that much more powerful and that is certainly the case here. She tells it in such a way that I was mesmerized the whole time.
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