Leaving the Saints: how I lost the Mormons and found my faith

Listeners who enjoyed Beck's Expecting Adam may appreciate revisiting the author's family as they move back to Provo, UT, following the birth of their second child, born with Down syndrome. Looking for the support the Mormon community typically extends to a disabled child, Beck faces further struggles as she deals with repressed childhood memories of sexual abuse that cause her to question family relationships and the structure of Mormonism. She uses her academic training to dissect the beliefs of the Mormon Church and finds that the Latter-day Saints version of history does not hold up to scrutiny. At the same time, Beck chronicles a spiritual awakening that comes to take the place of Mormonism in her life. While the sections on Mormon history and religious practice are well written and fascinating, the parts of the book that deal with Beck's newly found spirituality are often vague, amorphous, and self-serving. Bernadette Dunne's narration, while generally fine, at times seems a bit too perky for the subject matter. Recommended for libraries with a following for Beck's earlier books.-Karen Traynor, Sullivan Free Lib., Chittenango, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Beck is an extraordinarily good writer--not that she doesn't have a lot to work with in this compelling (and controversial) memoir. After the birth of a son with Down syndrome, Beck and her family left Harvard, where she and her husband were studying for degrees, to return to Utah and the comfort of a supportive Mormon community. As the daughter of one of the leading apologists for the Mormon faith, Beck was used to being blessed by strangers for her father's work. But back in Utah and teaching at Brigham Young, her rebellious scholarship gets her in trouble with church authorities. At the same time, her revelation that her father sexually abused her leads to religious, mental, and physical breakdowns. Told in alternating chapters that find Beck confronting her 90-year-old father in a hotel room and flashing back throughout her life, the book offers a powerful testament to the stranglehold that family and faith can put on people, even when both seem to harm rather than help. The highlight, however, is the way that Beck writes about her spirituality. Even in the face of her experiences with organized religion and with her father, she is able to express her newfound connection to God in a manner so pure that it can lift a willing reader to the place of all-encompassing love that she has found for herself. And one other thing: the book can be hilarious. In the midst of all this pain, sorrow, and deeply felt spirituality comes such humor that one can almost hear God laughing. ((Reviewed March 15, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

Home from Harvard grad school after the birth of a Down syndrome son, Beck rebels against the authoritarian Mormon church and recalls past sexual abuse. With a six-city author tour; Beck writes for O Magazine. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Beck follows her bestselling spiritual memoir Expecting Adam with this shocking accusation of sexual abuse and betrayal. The book is full of Beck's laugh-out-loud hyperbolic wit and exquisitely written insights, but it also has a hard, angry edge. She asserts that after returning to Utah in the early 1990s, she began to recall horrific memories of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her father, well-known Mormon intellectual Hugh Nibley. Although all her immediate family members vehemently deny her claims (and one has already published the positive full-length biography Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life), some readers will find that Beck builds a compelling case. She questions the legitimacy of Nibley's prolific apologetic writing and attributes his abuse in part to the pressures he was under to defend the faith even at the expense of truthful scholarship. Although marred by shallow, formulaic anti-Mormon criticisms and an exaggerated description of the LDS Church that will sound foreign to Mormons outside the insular culture of Utah, the book also describes how institutionalized religion can do terrible wrong to some adherents while still being a force of good for others. It will devastate faithful Mormons, satisfy disenchanted ex-Mormons and offer hope to those who believe they have suffered from ecclesiastical abuse. (Mar.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.