To me, the most astonishing thing about Natalie Collins's Wives and Sisters is not that it tells such a dramatic tale of betrayal, fundamentalism, denial, and abuse, but that it all rings so true. Every culture has its bright and dark faces, places where the best and worst of human behavior is played out, but few hide their darkness as devoutly as Mormonism. I’ve heard many true stories that mirror Collins’s fiction, and she perfectly captures the mixture of love, pain, and frustration that accompany surviving trauma in a society where victims are often silenced.

Since writing a non-fiction memoir about leaving Mormonism, I’ve received many letters from gentle, kind, honest Latter-day Saints, some supportive, some admonishing. I’ve also gotten messages that practically foam with rage, written, apparently, by people who ask themselves what Jesus would do, and conclude that he’d probably rip off the limbs of anyone who disagreed with him—or them. I am deeply grateful to Natalie Collins for walking this strange, alarming path before me, and for surviving the aftermath of her book’s publication with humor and grace. My heartfelt thanks and best wishes to you, Natalie, and to the many readers who will identify with your honest, unsparing, articulate work.

Martha Beck

The Exmormon Foundation is a non-sectarian organization that supports people in transitioning out of Mormonism. They hold an annual Exmormon Conference in October of every year, and maintain a website that includes the personal stories of many who have left the Mormon church. http://www.exmormonfoundation.org/

Readers interested in learning more about contemporary Mormonism might enjoy Richard and Joan Ostling's book Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, or an older but still useful book, America's Saints: Rise of Mormon Power by Robert Gotlieb and Peter Wiley.


An examination of the controversy surrounding Joseph Smith's claim to have translated an ancient Egyptian papyrus--subsequently studied by Egyptologists and translated quite differently by them--is found in By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri by Charles Larson.

Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church by Simon Southerton uses DNA evidence to counter the Book of Mormon account of Israelite tribes sailing from the Middle East to populate North America.

One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church by Richard Abanes offers an informative and unvarnished history of Mormonism. The book gives an overview of Mormon teachings and development from the time of Joseph Smith to the present day, and explores the political agenda at the core of Mormonism.

A Healing Dialogue

The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis
The complexities of overcoming child sexual abuse can be overwhelming. This helpful book is widely recommended by therapists and by survivors of abuse because it provides the compassion and practical support that are so important in the healing process.


www.beliefnet.com is a well-conceived web site that supports dialogue between people of different faiths. The message boards and discussions are interesting and lively, with a section of the site dedicated to Mormon-related subjects.

The Rick A. Ross Institute is an organization devoted to providing a broad range of information and research about controversial groups. It maintains an extensive archive on the Internet and is available to assist researchers, the media, professionals, and others concerned with accurate information about various cults, groups, movements and related issues of interest. For links to Mormon-related stories, including those about sex abuse within the Mormon church, visit: www.rickross.com/groups/mormon.html

Darkness to Light works to shift responsibility for preventing child sexual abuse from children to adults, and seeks to reduce child sexual abuse nationally through education and public awareness aimed at adults. The organization provides information to prevent, recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse.
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http://www.darkness2light.org/KnowAbout/hope_van_derbur.asp

The mission of The Recoved Memory Project is to collect and disseminate information relevant to the debate over whether traumatic events can be forgotten and then remembered later in life. That debate has focused on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. But the phenomenon extends to other traumas, including physical abuse or witnessing a murder. Almost everyone would agree that such traumas are normally remembered. That is, most people who experience such a trauma are likely to remember it, perhaps vividly and to the point of being intrusive. But do some people forget completely? A variety of scientific sources say "yes." Peer-reviewed prospective studies and clinical studies continue to document this phenomenon.

Generation Five is a non-profit organization that brings together diverse community leaders working to end child sexual abuse within five generations. Their programs provide leadership training to community members, activists, and agency professionals as they work to foster national strategy and information exchange about child sexual abuse. The organization works in collaboration with service providers to ensure that affordable, culturally relevant support is available to survivors, offenders, and affected families.

http://www.generationfive.org/

For more information about Martha Beck's work please visit MarthaBeck.com.