Frigid temperatures this weekend prompt cold weather advisories

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

“Cancer took my mother. But religion would take my life.”

So writes journalist Rachel Louise Snyder in her new memoir, “

It recounts with brutal honesty how the death of her mother upended her previously peaceful world, launching her father into a new marriage within the confines of a strict, fundamentalist Christianity. Violence and rage became her new norm, until she was kicked out at age 16 for refusing the obey the many rules her father imposed. 

But that dark moment turned out to be a gift. Snyder found support in unlikely places and forged a new path, one where light and dark coexist and where forgiveness is not synonymous with exoneration. 

This week, on Big Books and Bold Ideas, Snyder joins MPR host Kerri Miller to talk about her journeys. They discuss how the prosperity gospel dismantles human agency, how her work investigating violence led her to think about her own, and how travel can heal past wounds and open up new vistas. 

Use the audio player above to listen to the podcast version of the conversation.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Kerri Miller podcast on 

for the latest book and author news and must-read recommendations.

Arts and Culture

The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Shows

Big Books & Bold Ideas with Kerri Miller

Host

Author

The award-winning author of “No Visible Bruises,” Rachel Louise Snyder returns to share her own story of childhood violence within within a fundamentalist evangelical sect. 

Rachel Louise Snyder's memoir is as beautifully complex as her life.

Woman poses next to separate photo of book cover

Rachel Louise Snyder's memoir is as beautifully complex as her life.

Go Deeper.

Like this?