A powerful story of one man’s experience within a cult.
In this slim, shocking work of nonfiction, debut co-authors Hardeman and Oglesby expose the horrors perpetrated upon a congregation in Atlanta.
Although called “the House of Prayer church,” a supposedly Christian ministry, the authors contend it was a perverse cult run by a “dictator,” Rev. Arthur Allen Jr. The octogenarian announced to his flock that he was a “superman in the bedroom.” He invited his male and female followers to display their genitals before the congregation, while he derided them with foul-mouthed epithets. He encouraged men to beat their wives and kids and women to submit to their husbands, but only after they submitted to him. These examples of ruthless behavior merely scratch the surface of the pastor’s lurid exploits. Through personal, painful experiences within the House of Prayer, the narrator lays out how he was demeaned and controlled, until a new member of the church abused a number of children, including the narrator’s daughter. When Allen defended the child molester, the narrator, despite recriminations and family betrayal, excommunicated himself. Although penned by two authors, the story is told in first-person singular, which creates a bit of confusion. Did both men belong to the House of Prayer and combine their experiences? Or did one simply assist the other in the writing? Despite this, the narrator’s voice is forceful and instructive. The recollections of degradation, abuse and kidnapping—featured on a number of TV news programs—are jaw dropping. A few typos and some mangled sentences pop up occasionally. For example, “It is trendy for the pastor to kidnap children that has been awarded by the court to the parent that has left his church,” the authors note in a list of bullet-pointed items. Overall, their noble efforts might help those who find themselves under the sway of a cult.
A powerful story of one man’s experience within a cult.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2012
ISBN: 978-1478340560
Page Count: 44
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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