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The Oracle’s Daughter

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What to expect

'Terrifying, gripping, all true. I couldn't put it down' Stephen King

'Excellent... told with rare sensitivity. Hill is an extremely skilled writer, and his conscientious, measured reporting is a gift... The propulsive feel of a novel.' New York Times

'Troubling, uplifting, heartbreaking... a masterwork.'
Ron Suskind, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Life, Animated

On a cool autumn night in 1999, twenty-six-year-old Sarah Green crept out of her house and ran for her life. She was escaping not just the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps, a paramilitary religious cult operating out of the New Mexico desert, but also the cruelty of the cult's leader-her mother, Deborah.

In The Oracle's Daughter, Harrison Hill traces the fascinating beginnings and violent end of ACMTC, from its early days as an outgrowth of the hippie movement, through the conspiracy-theorist 1990s and into the present day. It follows Deborah, the group's founder and self-proclaimed oracle; Maura, one of its first members; and Sarah, Deborah's daughter, among the cult's primary victims.

With a propulsive, deeply researched narrative, The Oracle's Daughter illuminates the strange world of religious cults-and how more vulnerable we are to extremism than we might like to think.

Critics Review

Harrison Hill's The Oracle's Daughter is a staggering achievement, synthesizing rigorous reportage, incisive cultural analysis, and a deeply compassionate gaze into a propulsive and unforgettable narrative
Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story
Harrison Hill's The Oracle's Daughter does far more than delineate in vivid detail the alarming story of the Aggressive Christianity Mission Training Corps, surely one of the most frightening cults in modern religious history. Hill also provides essential cultural context, focusing not only on what happened involving that quasi-military group but also on how and why such a group can emerge. Anyone trying to understand religious cults should consider The Oracle's Daughter required reading - it's that comprehensive and excellently written besides
Jeff Guinn, author of Manson, The Road to Jonestown and Waco
Troubling, uplifting, heartbreaking, unforgettable - tapping into seminal issues of our increasingly divided nation - Harrison Hill has written a masterwork of narrative nonfiction. A must-read
Ron Suskind, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Hope in the Unseen and Life, Animated
With dogged research and rare access to victims and their stories, Harrison Hill has created a riveting portrait of one of the strangest American cults in recent memory. The Oracle's Daughter takes the reader deep inside the female-led AMCTC, describing in harrowing detail the exorcisms and bizarre rituals while also laying bare the psychological and physical abuses inflicted by the cult's autocratic leaders. With a cast of unforgettable characters-including courageous former cult members who broke free-the book offers compelling insights into the makings of religious cults and why their allure is increasing in our hyper-polarized, grievance-infused age
Joby Warrick, author of Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
The Oracle's Daughter is both an intimate portrait of one insular group and a revealing exploration of the broader cult history woven through America. Harrison Hill has written a gripping and deeply-researched account of belief, belonging, and betrayal. If you've ever wondered how a person could fall prey to a high-control group, or what it takes to get out, this book is essential reading
Rachel Monroe, author of Savage Appetites
Hill is unsparing in his reportage. But more, he offers thoughtful notes on how cults work... A compelling study of the meeting of religious zealotry with the cult of personality
Kirkus Reviews
A moving, true and complex family story that sheds light on individual struggles for freedom. Hill traces a line from American hippie culture offshoots, through 1990s and 2000s paranoia and outsider movements, to militant fanaticism within families and closed communities. Anyone seeking to understand how extremism and coercion can touch all of our lives would do well to read it. I couldn't put it down. Intimate and expansive, it is both disturbing and hopeful
Suzanne Joinson, author of The Museum of Lost and Fragile Things
The Oracle's Daughter is a propulsive reckoning with a mother, her daughter, and the extremism woven through the story of American religion. Beautifully told, un-put-downable, and urgently necessary, Hill offers a novelesque account of a cult that pushes beyond familiar narratives, asking us to consider just how far we truly are from the most radical edges of American life
Heather Radke, author of Butts: A Backstory
Author Harrison Hill
Narrator Harrison Hill
Duration 10 hours and 33 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781405569163
Format Audiobook
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Genre True crime
Availability AU, GB, IE

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