Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy

By Cait West

"A powerful meditation on what it means to be trapped and what it takes to break free." --Publishers Weekly STARRED Review

A gripping memoir about coming of age in the stay-at-home daughter movement and the quest to piece together a future on your own terms.

Raised in the Christian patriarchy movement, Cait West was homeschooled and could only wear clothes her father deemed modest. She was five years old the first time she was told her swimsuit was too revealing, to go change. There would be no college in her future, no career. She was a stay-at-home daughter and would move out only when her father allowed her to become a wife. She was trained to serve men, and her life would never be her own.

Until she escaped.

In Rift, Cait West tells a harrowing story of chaos and control hidden beneath the facade of a happy family. Weaving together lyrical meditations on the geology of the places her family lived with her story of spiritual and emotional manipulation as a stay-at-home daughter, Cait creates a stirring portrait of one young woman's growing awareness that she is experiencing abuse. With the ground shifting beneath her feet, Cait mustered the courage to break free from all she'd ever known and choose a future of her own making.

Rift is a story of survival. It's also a story about what happens after you survive. With compassion and clarity, Cait explores the complex legacy of patriarchal religious trauma in her life, including the ways she has also been complicit in systems of oppression. A remarkable literary debut, Rift offers an essential personal perspective on the fraught legacy of purity culture and recent reckonings with abuse in Christian communities.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802883583
• ISBN13: 9780802883582
• Release Date: April 2024
• Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
• Length: 252 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.8" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Such a great book on leaving the evangelical fundamentalist cult behind!

I found Cait West through Instagram where I was constantly relating to her stories, thoughts and insight. Her posts about purity culture, faith, writing, homeschooling… it often felt like we grew up in the same culture. Her journey felt so similar. She felt like a safe person. When I learned she was writing a book I was so excited. I knew it was going to be epic. When I saw her cover art I was in suspense. When her book came in the mail I was giddy. Rift did not disappoint. Cait is a word master. Her story was not only familiar and compelling, Cait herself is an artist. She chooses her words, she paints a picture, she speaks her truth with such class and grace. Her book is beautiful inside and out, just like its author. It felt so good to be seen in this story. My guess was confirmed — we did share a lot of similarities in how we were raised. From Cait’s struggle with purity culture, her personal experience with the patriarchy. down to details of Halloween gospel tracts, I could relate, recognize and hear my own voice. I appreciate her boldness in publishing her story and putting in words what so many of us ex-fundamentalists have lived, felt and experienced. If you too have deconstructed your faith, grew up in a high control religion,are familiar with evangelical fundamentalism, you are going to want to hear Cait’s story. It is not just a drama… Cait shares a lot of insight to what it’s like to grow up as a stay-at-home-daughter in the evangelical world, what it looks like to escape it, and what it looks like to be allowed to finally be free. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ Ages 15+