The Oracle's Daughter - by Harrison Hill (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A gripping chronicle of the rise and fall of a woman-led cult--and the enduring allure of extremism across America's turbulent religious history.

On a cool fall night in 1999, twenty-six-year-old Sarah Green crept out of her house, retrieved a backpack from its hiding place, 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 punishments and 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 1960s counterculture to its descent into conspiracy-fueled abuse. This is the story of three women--Deborah, the group's founder and self-proclaimed oracle; Maura, one of its first members; and Sarah, Deborah's daughter--bound together by a punitive, baroque set of radical beliefs and practices, including exorcism, kidnapping, and the horrific mistreatment of those who fell out of the leaders' favor. With a dramatic, deeply researched narrative tracing the strange twists and turns of the country's religious development, The Oracle's Daughter illuminates the porous boundary between the fringe and the mainstream--and shows how much more vulnerable we are to extremism than we might like to think.

Review Quotes

"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

"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. Its gaze is both intimate and expansive: attuned to the texture of individual lives even as it surveys the broad, unsettling sweep of American freedom. With nuance and integrity, Hill takes a story many people would feel more comfortable banishing to the fringe and instead asks us to see the ways it illuminates all of America. All the way through, The Oracle's Daughter is as gripping as it is humane; I picked it up and barely put it down until I'd finished. I'll carry this story with me always."
--Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story

"From the opening scene of a young woman's midnight escape from a religious cult run by her mother -- that's right, mom's the messianic leader -- unfolds a decades-long saga that reveals an America of both darkness and light. 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

"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

"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

About the Author

Harrison Hill grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He received his MFA in nonfiction from Columbia University, where he also taught undergraduate writing. His journalism and essays have appeared in The Cut, GQ, Vogue, Travel + Leisure, AFAR, The Threepenny Review, and other outlets. The Oracle's Daughter is his first book.