Father of the Rain

Father of the Rain

Author: Lily King

Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published: 2010-07-06

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0802197086

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A New York Times Editors’ Choice—“a gripping epic about a father and daughter that plumbs the dark side of a family riven by addiction and mental illness” (Entertainment Weekly). Gardiner Amory’s life is reeling—Nixon is being impeached, his wife is leaving him, and his worldview is rapidly becoming outdated. His daughter, Daley, has spent the first eleven years of her life negotiating her parents’ conflicting worlds: the liberal, socially committed realm of her mother and the conservative, liquor-soaked life of her father. But when the pair divorces, Gardiner’s basest impulses are unleashed in a deluge, the chasm between all of them widens, and Daley is stretched thinly across it. As she reaches adulthood, Daley rejects the narrow world of her father’s prejudices and embarks on her own life—until Gardiner hits rock bottom. Returning home to help her father get sober, Daley risks everything she’s found beyond him, including a chance at love, in an attempt to repair a trust that was broken long ago . . . In this Winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction, Lily King pulls readers into “a brilliant exploration of the attraction of martyrdom, the intoxication of playing savior. . . . An absorbing, insightful story written in cool, polished prose right to the last conflicted line” (Washington Post).


Book Synopsis Father of the Rain by : Lily King

Download or read book Father of the Rain written by Lily King and published by Open Road + Grove/Atlantic. This book was released on 2010-07-06 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Editors’ Choice—“a gripping epic about a father and daughter that plumbs the dark side of a family riven by addiction and mental illness” (Entertainment Weekly). Gardiner Amory’s life is reeling—Nixon is being impeached, his wife is leaving him, and his worldview is rapidly becoming outdated. His daughter, Daley, has spent the first eleven years of her life negotiating her parents’ conflicting worlds: the liberal, socially committed realm of her mother and the conservative, liquor-soaked life of her father. But when the pair divorces, Gardiner’s basest impulses are unleashed in a deluge, the chasm between all of them widens, and Daley is stretched thinly across it. As she reaches adulthood, Daley rejects the narrow world of her father’s prejudices and embarks on her own life—until Gardiner hits rock bottom. Returning home to help her father get sober, Daley risks everything she’s found beyond him, including a chance at love, in an attempt to repair a trust that was broken long ago . . . In this Winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction, Lily King pulls readers into “a brilliant exploration of the attraction of martyrdom, the intoxication of playing savior. . . . An absorbing, insightful story written in cool, polished prose right to the last conflicted line” (Washington Post).


My Fathers' Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain

My Fathers' Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain

Author: Patricio Pron

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2014-03-11

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0307745422

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The American debut of one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists, My Fathers’ Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain is a daring and deeply affecting story of one Argentine family’s buried secrets. When a young writer returns home to visit his dying father, he finds himself drawn into an obsessive search for a local man gone missing. As the truth—not only about his father but an entire generation—comes to light, the narrator is forced to confront the ghosts of Argentina’s dark political past, as well as long-hidden memories about his own family’s history. Powerful and audacious, this semi-autobiographical novel is a thoroughly original story of corruption and responsibility, of history and remembrance, from one of South America’s most important new writers.


Book Synopsis My Fathers' Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain by : Patricio Pron

Download or read book My Fathers' Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain written by Patricio Pron and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American debut of one of Granta’s Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists, My Fathers’ Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain is a daring and deeply affecting story of one Argentine family’s buried secrets. When a young writer returns home to visit his dying father, he finds himself drawn into an obsessive search for a local man gone missing. As the truth—not only about his father but an entire generation—comes to light, the narrator is forced to confront the ghosts of Argentina’s dark political past, as well as long-hidden memories about his own family’s history. Powerful and audacious, this semi-autobiographical novel is a thoroughly original story of corruption and responsibility, of history and remembrance, from one of South America’s most important new writers.


Rain Reign

Rain Reign

Author: Ann M. Martin

Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

Published: 2014-10-07

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1250064236

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Rose Howard is obsessed with homonyms. She's thrilled that her own name is a homonym, and she purposely gave her dog Rain a name with two homonyms (Reign, Rein), which, according to Rose's rules of homonyms, is very special. Not everyone understands Rose's obsessions, her rules, and the other things that make her different – not her teachers, not other kids, and not her single father. When a storm hits their rural town, rivers overflow, the roads are flooded, and Rain goes missing. Rose's father shouldn't have let Rain out. Now Rose has to find her dog, even if it means leaving her routines and safe places to search. Hearts will break and spirits will soar for this powerful story, brilliantly told from Rose's point of view.


Book Synopsis Rain Reign by : Ann M. Martin

Download or read book Rain Reign written by Ann M. Martin and published by Feiwel & Friends. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rose Howard is obsessed with homonyms. She's thrilled that her own name is a homonym, and she purposely gave her dog Rain a name with two homonyms (Reign, Rein), which, according to Rose's rules of homonyms, is very special. Not everyone understands Rose's obsessions, her rules, and the other things that make her different – not her teachers, not other kids, and not her single father. When a storm hits their rural town, rivers overflow, the roads are flooded, and Rain goes missing. Rose's father shouldn't have let Rain out. Now Rose has to find her dog, even if it means leaving her routines and safe places to search. Hearts will break and spirits will soar for this powerful story, brilliantly told from Rose's point of view.


Jokes My Father Never Taught Me

Jokes My Father Never Taught Me

Author: Rain Pryor

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0061745960

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The loving, witty, yet brutally honest memoir of the daughter of comedy legend Richard Pryor. Rain Pryor was born in the idealistic, free-love 1960s. Her mother was a Jewish go-go dancer who wanted a tribe of rainbow children. Rain’s father was Richard Pryor, perhaps the most compelling and brilliant comedian of his era, a man whose self-destructiveness was as legendary as his groundbreaking comedy. Jokes My Father Never Taught Me is an intimate, harrowing, poignant, and often hilarious memoir that explores the divided heritage and the forces that shaped a wildly schizophrenic childhood. It is the story of a girl who grew up adoring her father even as she feared him—and feared for him, as his drug problems got worse. Both lovingly told and painfully frank, it is an unprecedented look at the life of a comedy icon, told by a daughter who both understood the genius and knew the tortured man within. Praise for Jokes My Father Never Taught Me “Rain Pryor pulls no punches . . . Using the same profanity-laced wit her father perfected, she unspools darkly comic stories . . . but never devolves into self-pity or bitterness.” —Entertainment Weekly “Vital, entertaining and appalling, Pryor has fleshed out a familiar dysfunctional family refrain—”It was a lot easier to love him if you didn’t know him”—with bravery and wit.” —Publishers Weekly


Book Synopsis Jokes My Father Never Taught Me by : Rain Pryor

Download or read book Jokes My Father Never Taught Me written by Rain Pryor and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The loving, witty, yet brutally honest memoir of the daughter of comedy legend Richard Pryor. Rain Pryor was born in the idealistic, free-love 1960s. Her mother was a Jewish go-go dancer who wanted a tribe of rainbow children. Rain’s father was Richard Pryor, perhaps the most compelling and brilliant comedian of his era, a man whose self-destructiveness was as legendary as his groundbreaking comedy. Jokes My Father Never Taught Me is an intimate, harrowing, poignant, and often hilarious memoir that explores the divided heritage and the forces that shaped a wildly schizophrenic childhood. It is the story of a girl who grew up adoring her father even as she feared him—and feared for him, as his drug problems got worse. Both lovingly told and painfully frank, it is an unprecedented look at the life of a comedy icon, told by a daughter who both understood the genius and knew the tortured man within. Praise for Jokes My Father Never Taught Me “Rain Pryor pulls no punches . . . Using the same profanity-laced wit her father perfected, she unspools darkly comic stories . . . but never devolves into self-pity or bitterness.” —Entertainment Weekly “Vital, entertaining and appalling, Pryor has fleshed out a familiar dysfunctional family refrain—”It was a lot easier to love him if you didn’t know him”—with bravery and wit.” —Publishers Weekly


After the Rain

After the Rain

Author: Alexandra Elle

Publisher: Chronicle Books

Published: 2020-10-13

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1797202200

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In After the Rain, celebrated self-care storyteller Alexandra Elle delivers 15 lessons on how to overcome obstacles, build confidence, and cultivate abundance. Part memoir and part guide, Elle shares stirring stories from her own remarkable journey from self-doubt to self-love. This soulful collection is filled with illuminating reflections on loss, fear, bravery, healing, love, acceptance, and more. • Readers follow along her journey as she transforms challenging experiences—a difficult childhood, painful romantic relationships, and single parenting as a young mom—into fuel for her career as a successful entrepreneur and author driven by purpose and pasion • Filled with Elle's signature candor and warmth • Includes empowering affirmations and meditations for readers to practice in their own lives After the Rain is a soulful guide to help you embrace all the beauty, love, and opportunity life has to offer. • Presented in luminous package with a foil case and gold accents • A beautiful gift for anyone on the path to self-discovery, and an uplifting reminder that there is always sunshine after the rain • Perfect for the friend who loves meditating, self-care, journaling, or seeking personal transformation and empowerment • Great for those who loved Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist, 100 Days to Brave by Annie F. Downs, and anything written by Brené Brown, Rupi Kaur, Rachel Hollis, and Elizabeth Gilbert


Book Synopsis After the Rain by : Alexandra Elle

Download or read book After the Rain written by Alexandra Elle and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2020-10-13 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In After the Rain, celebrated self-care storyteller Alexandra Elle delivers 15 lessons on how to overcome obstacles, build confidence, and cultivate abundance. Part memoir and part guide, Elle shares stirring stories from her own remarkable journey from self-doubt to self-love. This soulful collection is filled with illuminating reflections on loss, fear, bravery, healing, love, acceptance, and more. • Readers follow along her journey as she transforms challenging experiences—a difficult childhood, painful romantic relationships, and single parenting as a young mom—into fuel for her career as a successful entrepreneur and author driven by purpose and pasion • Filled with Elle's signature candor and warmth • Includes empowering affirmations and meditations for readers to practice in their own lives After the Rain is a soulful guide to help you embrace all the beauty, love, and opportunity life has to offer. • Presented in luminous package with a foil case and gold accents • A beautiful gift for anyone on the path to self-discovery, and an uplifting reminder that there is always sunshine after the rain • Perfect for the friend who loves meditating, self-care, journaling, or seeking personal transformation and empowerment • Great for those who loved Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist, 100 Days to Brave by Annie F. Downs, and anything written by Brené Brown, Rupi Kaur, Rachel Hollis, and Elizabeth Gilbert


After Rain

After Rain

Author: William Trevor

Publisher: Vintage Canada

Published: 2010-12-22

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 0307367401

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Here is a new collection of twelve absorbing, deeply compassionate tales that reveal the subtle revenges of love and indifference, the deep wells of affection, and the strange, breathtaking tricks of chance that make up the texture of our lives. In the rain-washed Italian hills, a forgotten artist's Annunciation brings light to a heartbroken woman; insidiously, in her struggle for love, the second wife of a blind piano tuner distorts his memories of the first; two children, survivors of divorce, mimic their parents' dramas and passions; a mother, tied through love and fear to her son, watches with helpless dread as she realizes the monster he has become.


Book Synopsis After Rain by : William Trevor

Download or read book After Rain written by William Trevor and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a new collection of twelve absorbing, deeply compassionate tales that reveal the subtle revenges of love and indifference, the deep wells of affection, and the strange, breathtaking tricks of chance that make up the texture of our lives. In the rain-washed Italian hills, a forgotten artist's Annunciation brings light to a heartbroken woman; insidiously, in her struggle for love, the second wife of a blind piano tuner distorts his memories of the first; two children, survivors of divorce, mimic their parents' dramas and passions; a mother, tied through love and fear to her son, watches with helpless dread as she realizes the monster he has become.


The Gift of Rain

The Gift of Rain

Author: Tan Twan Eng

Publisher: Hachette Books

Published: 2009-05-05

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1602860599

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In the tradition of celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell. The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the bookselling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits. In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton-the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families-feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei-to whom he owes absolute loyalty-is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.


Book Synopsis The Gift of Rain by : Tan Twan Eng

Download or read book The Gift of Rain written by Tan Twan Eng and published by Hachette Books. This book was released on 2009-05-05 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell. The recipient of extraordinary acclaim from critics and the bookselling community, Tan Twan Eng's debut novel casts a powerful spell and has garnered comparisons to celebrated wartime storytellers Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene. Set during the tumult of World War II, on the lush Malayan island of Penang, The Gift of Rain tells a riveting and poignant tale about a young man caught in the tangle of wartime loyalties and deceits. In 1939, sixteen-year-old Philip Hutton-the half-Chinese, half-English youngest child of the head of one of Penang's great trading families-feels alienated from both the Chinese and British communities. He at last discovers a sense of belonging in his unexpected friendship with Hayato Endo, a Japanese diplomat. Philip proudly shows his new friend around his adored island, and in return Endo teaches him about Japanese language and culture and trains him in the art and discipline of aikido. But such knowledge comes at a terrible price. When the Japanese savagely invade Malaya, Philip realizes that his mentor and sensei-to whom he owes absolute loyalty-is a Japanese spy. Young Philip has been an unwitting traitor, and must now work in secret to save as many lives as possible, even as his own family is brought to its knees.


Writers & Lovers

Writers & Lovers

Author: Lily King

Publisher: Grove Press

Published: 2020-03-03

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 0802148557

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#ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today Emma Roberts Belletrist Book Club Pick A New York Times Book Review’s Group Text Selection "I loved this book not just from the first chapter or the first page but from the first paragraph... The voice is just so honest and riveting and insightful about creativity and life." —Curtis Sittenfeld An extraordinary new novel of art, love, and ambition from Lily King, the New York Times bestselling author of Euphoria Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with another instant New York Times bestseller: an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman. Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she’s been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey’s fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink. Writers & Lovers follows Casey—a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist—in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King’s trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.


Book Synopsis Writers & Lovers by : Lily King

Download or read book Writers & Lovers written by Lily King and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick as Featured on Today Emma Roberts Belletrist Book Club Pick A New York Times Book Review’s Group Text Selection "I loved this book not just from the first chapter or the first page but from the first paragraph... The voice is just so honest and riveting and insightful about creativity and life." —Curtis Sittenfeld An extraordinary new novel of art, love, and ambition from Lily King, the New York Times bestselling author of Euphoria Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with another instant New York Times bestseller: an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman. Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she’s been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey’s fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink. Writers & Lovers follows Casey—a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist—in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King’s trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.


The Pleasing Hour

The Pleasing Hour

Author: Lily King

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published: 2010-03-22

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0802197868

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The award-winning novel of a young American girl in France—hailed as “an impressive debut” that is “written with quiet, lyric forcefulness” (Elle). A New York Times Notable Book Young, inexperienced, and fleeing a terrible personal loss, Rosie—the new au pair to the Tivot family estate in France—finds herself ill at ease when trying to connect with Nicole, the cool, distant, and beautifully polished mother of the three children she cares for. There is something about the woman that both fascinates and unnerves Rosie. The same is true of the rest of the Tivot clan. Nicole’s dissatisfied husband, Marc, and their children all seem to be caught in an unending struggle against each other for love and acceptance. Only when Rosie is sent to care for Nicole’s now-elderly guardian—the storyteller of the family’s secrets—does she finally discover the truth. There, Rosie will learn of a past darkened by war, duplicity, and a tragedy that still resonates in the Tivot’s lives . . . With this novel of family, betrayal, and the naïveté of youth, Lily King has spun a story that is “powerful . . . splendid . . . [and all] so assured that it’s hard to believe the book itself is her debut” (The New York Times Book Review). “Expertly constructed, full of surprises, superbly paced and sweetly sad, King’s book hardly reads like a first novel.” —Publishers Weekly


Book Synopsis The Pleasing Hour by : Lily King

Download or read book The Pleasing Hour written by Lily King and published by Grove/Atlantic, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-03-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning novel of a young American girl in France—hailed as “an impressive debut” that is “written with quiet, lyric forcefulness” (Elle). A New York Times Notable Book Young, inexperienced, and fleeing a terrible personal loss, Rosie—the new au pair to the Tivot family estate in France—finds herself ill at ease when trying to connect with Nicole, the cool, distant, and beautifully polished mother of the three children she cares for. There is something about the woman that both fascinates and unnerves Rosie. The same is true of the rest of the Tivot clan. Nicole’s dissatisfied husband, Marc, and their children all seem to be caught in an unending struggle against each other for love and acceptance. Only when Rosie is sent to care for Nicole’s now-elderly guardian—the storyteller of the family’s secrets—does she finally discover the truth. There, Rosie will learn of a past darkened by war, duplicity, and a tragedy that still resonates in the Tivot’s lives . . . With this novel of family, betrayal, and the naïveté of youth, Lily King has spun a story that is “powerful . . . splendid . . . [and all] so assured that it’s hard to believe the book itself is her debut” (The New York Times Book Review). “Expertly constructed, full of surprises, superbly paced and sweetly sad, King’s book hardly reads like a first novel.” —Publishers Weekly


In the Days of Rain

In the Days of Rain

Author: Rebecca Stott

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2017-07-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0812989082

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A father-daughter story that tells of the author’s experience growing up in a separatist fundamentalist Christian cult, from the author of the national bestseller Ghostwalk Rebecca Stott grew up in in Brighton, England, as a fourth-generation member of the Exclusive Brethren, a cult that believed the world is ruled by Satan. In this closed community, books that didn’t conform to the sect’s rules were banned, women were subservient to men and were made to dress modestly and cover their heads, and those who disobeyed the rules were punished and shamed. Yet Rebecca’s father, Roger Stott, a high-ranking Brethren minister, was a man of contradictions: he preached that the Brethren should shun the outside world, yet he kept a radio in the trunk of his car and hid copies of Yeats and Shakespeare behind the Brethren ministries. Years later, when the Stotts broke with the Brethren after a scandal involving the cult’s leader, Roger became an actor, filmmaker, and compulsive gambler who left the family penniless and ended up in jail. A curious child, Rebecca spent her insular childhood asking questions about the world and trying to glean the answers from forbidden library books. Only when she was an adult and her father was dying of cancer did she begin to understand all that had occurred during those harrowing years. It was then that Roger Stott handed her the memoir he had begun writing about the period leading up to what he referred to as the traumatic “Nazi decade,” the years in the 1960s in which he and other Brethren leaders enforced coercive codes of behavior that led to the breaking apart of families, the shunning of members, even suicides. Now he was trying to examine that time, and his complicity in it, and he asked Rebecca to write about it, to expose all that was kept hidden. In the Days of Rain is Rebecca Stott’s attempt to make sense of her childhood in the Exclusive Brethren, to understand her father’s role in the cult and in the breaking apart of her family, and to come to be at peace with her relationship with a larger-than-life figure whose faults were matched by a passion for life, a thirst for knowledge, and a love of literature and beauty. A father-daughter story as well as a memoir of growing up in a closed-off community and then finding a way out of it, this is an inspiring and beautiful account of the bonds of family and the power of self-invention. Praise for In the Days of Rain “A marvelous, strange, terrifying book, somehow finding words both for the intensity of a childhood locked in a tyrannical secret world, and for the lifelong aftershocks of being liberated from it.”—Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill “Writers are forged in strange fires, but none stranger than Rebecca Stott’s. By rights, her memoir of her father and her early childhood inside a closed fundamentalist sect obsessed by the Rapture ought to be a horror story. But while the historian in her is merciless in exposing the cruelties and corruption involved, Rebecca the child also lights up the book, existing in a world of vivid play, dreams, even nightmares, so passionate and imaginative that it helps explain how she survived, and—even more miraculous—found the compassion and understanding to do justice to the story of her father and the painful family life he created.”—Sarah Dunant, author of The Birth of Venus


Book Synopsis In the Days of Rain by : Rebecca Stott

Download or read book In the Days of Rain written by Rebecca Stott and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2017-07-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A father-daughter story that tells of the author’s experience growing up in a separatist fundamentalist Christian cult, from the author of the national bestseller Ghostwalk Rebecca Stott grew up in in Brighton, England, as a fourth-generation member of the Exclusive Brethren, a cult that believed the world is ruled by Satan. In this closed community, books that didn’t conform to the sect’s rules were banned, women were subservient to men and were made to dress modestly and cover their heads, and those who disobeyed the rules were punished and shamed. Yet Rebecca’s father, Roger Stott, a high-ranking Brethren minister, was a man of contradictions: he preached that the Brethren should shun the outside world, yet he kept a radio in the trunk of his car and hid copies of Yeats and Shakespeare behind the Brethren ministries. Years later, when the Stotts broke with the Brethren after a scandal involving the cult’s leader, Roger became an actor, filmmaker, and compulsive gambler who left the family penniless and ended up in jail. A curious child, Rebecca spent her insular childhood asking questions about the world and trying to glean the answers from forbidden library books. Only when she was an adult and her father was dying of cancer did she begin to understand all that had occurred during those harrowing years. It was then that Roger Stott handed her the memoir he had begun writing about the period leading up to what he referred to as the traumatic “Nazi decade,” the years in the 1960s in which he and other Brethren leaders enforced coercive codes of behavior that led to the breaking apart of families, the shunning of members, even suicides. Now he was trying to examine that time, and his complicity in it, and he asked Rebecca to write about it, to expose all that was kept hidden. In the Days of Rain is Rebecca Stott’s attempt to make sense of her childhood in the Exclusive Brethren, to understand her father’s role in the cult and in the breaking apart of her family, and to come to be at peace with her relationship with a larger-than-life figure whose faults were matched by a passion for life, a thirst for knowledge, and a love of literature and beauty. A father-daughter story as well as a memoir of growing up in a closed-off community and then finding a way out of it, this is an inspiring and beautiful account of the bonds of family and the power of self-invention. Praise for In the Days of Rain “A marvelous, strange, terrifying book, somehow finding words both for the intensity of a childhood locked in a tyrannical secret world, and for the lifelong aftershocks of being liberated from it.”—Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill “Writers are forged in strange fires, but none stranger than Rebecca Stott’s. By rights, her memoir of her father and her early childhood inside a closed fundamentalist sect obsessed by the Rapture ought to be a horror story. But while the historian in her is merciless in exposing the cruelties and corruption involved, Rebecca the child also lights up the book, existing in a world of vivid play, dreams, even nightmares, so passionate and imaginative that it helps explain how she survived, and—even more miraculous—found the compassion and understanding to do justice to the story of her father and the painful family life he created.”—Sarah Dunant, author of The Birth of Venus