Tag Archives: Stolen Innocence

Literary Review: Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall

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If you were to ask me why I decided to pick up a few audiobooks about those that have fled the “polygamist cult” also know as “The Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints” – FLDS for short – I wouldn’t be able to give you a straight answer.

I think it started while I was browsing various news articles one day on Yahoo.com and came across one about a young woman by the name of Ruby Jessop who fled FLDS and reached out to her sister (or was it cousin) Flora Jessop who had left years earlier.

The Yahoo News article expanded by talking about others that have fled including Suzette Steed and her children when their father/patriarch – Carling Steed – was banished from the FLDS community by Warren Jeffs. Within the article a few of the daughters mentioned how they were most afraid of being arranged in a marriage with someone that they would dislike… to which a cousin of theirs – Elissa Wall – understood.

According to Elissa she was forced to marry her first-cousin when she was 14 and he 19 (much like Ruby Jessop who was forced to marry her second-cousin when she was 14 and he in his early 20s). Elissa recounts her experiences before, during and after her ill-fated marriage in her personal memoir: Stolen Innocence.

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Possibilities: Changing Gears about a Character’s Background

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FLDS…

Polygamy…

Placed Marriages…

Why in the world would I want to learn more about this off-shoot of… well I don’t really know how to explain it.

Let’s put it this way, a while back I wrote something that when I did some research and background prior to writing it involved being in an enclosed community that a couple of characters escaped from.

However as time wore on I started to feel unsure as to the legitimacy of what I was trying to do. So I decided to shelve the project until some smidgen of inspiration came for me to look at it again and rework it.

Well that moment happened and I found myself researching the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and their world which led me to look into the autobiographies of those that have escaped that particular world and their reasons (which tended to have similar reasons).

Thus how I found myself listening to the audiobooks of Elissa Wall (Stolen Innocence) and Carolyn Jessop (Escape and Triumph). As thus this post will begin with the first of the three audiobooks that I started listening to in an effort to understand the inner-workings of a community that I knew nothing about and suddenly have a desire to use as background information for a character and to use as realistically as possible.

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