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Material Type | Library | Call Number | Item Barcode | Location |
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Book | Searching... Littleton - Reuben Hoar Library | B CASTRO, J | 39965001184224 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
You must always, always tell the truth, no matter the consequences, for you must model yourself on Jehovah, and Jehovah does not lie. This is the most crucial rule of all, Joy Castro is told as a young girl in a Jehovahs Witness family. Joy is 12 years old when her divorced mother marries a brother in the church. He is highly respected in the community, having displayed the ultimate sign of spiritual devotion: he served at Bethel, the Watchtower headquarters in Brooklyn. At home, however, he is a despicable brute. For the two years her mother is married to him, Joy does not grow at all; in fact, she loses 16 pounds, an eloquent testimony to the physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse she suffers at his hands. Her battered mother does nothing to protect her, nor does her church. She is sustained by a consuming fascination for horses and books and her protective love for her younger brother. Their daring escape from this unspeakable cruelty, to discover a nurturing home with their father, is the key to their survival and salvation.
Reviews (2)
Kirkus Review
An uneven look back at an abusive childhood. Castro, an English professor at Wabash College, in Indiana, grew up in horrific, and unusual, circumstances. She was adopted by parents who were Jehovah's Witnesses. When they divorced, she lived with her astoundingly irresponsible, and emotionally absent adoptive mother. (When Mom goes out for a night on the town and Joy begs her to come home at 11 p.m., mom angrily replies, "Do you have to ruin everything for me?") Then Castro's mother remarries, and things go from bad to worse. Castro's stepfather beats everyone in the family, and forbids Castro and her younger brother to talk to their father. Castro's church community is aware that things are not harmonious in Joy's home, but no one steps in. Eventually, Castro escapes and moves in with her adoptive father. Living with him is a decided improvement, even though he has a disturbing habit of commenting on the figure of every woman they meet and refuses to pay for his children to go to college. Castro has plenty of raw material for a powerful story, but the book is seriously flawed. The narrative veers back and forth, from adulthood to childhood to adolescence and back again: The opening eight pages skip from a first-person monologue from the mouth of Joy's birth mother, to a thickly sensory description of Marrakech and San Cristóbal de las Casas, to a four-page reminiscence about Castro's interviews for academic jobs in 1997. In a Cormac McCarthy novel, this episodic style is a strength. Here, it is a confusing distraction, likely to deter all but the most committed reader. The final 85 pages, which follow a clearer chronology, and include a carefully crafted account of Castro's reunion with her birth mother, are stronger...but one wonders whether anyone will get that far. Reads like a first draft. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Jehovah's Witnesses have something they call the truth book, Castro says, which lays the groundwork proving theirs is the one, true religion. As a precocious preteen, and though wholly indoctrinated by her fundamentalist family, Castro began asking simple questions regarding the book's claims. Her mother's response, her father's ambivalence, the unapproachable church elders, and ultimately her stepfather's vicious enforcement of the book's truth constitute the framework for her startling memoir of not just an abhorrently dysfunctional family but also a misfiring religious organization. Castro portrays Jehovah's Witnesses as a religion that recognizes all people as equals yet disenfranchises a member for smoking, and as a passionately proselytizing organization that can turn a blind eye to grossly abusive parenting. Her story is, more than merely engaging, downright embracing. The unfolding fates of Castro and her brother as they endure abuse at the hands of those entrusted with their care, even though we know they emerged whole and sane, prove utterly gripping. --Donna Chavez Copyright 2005 Booklist