In the Days of Rain
WINNER OF THE 2017 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD
In the vein of Bad Blood and Why be Happy when you can be Normal? an enthralling, at times shocking, and deeply personal family memoir of growing up in, and leaving, a fundamentalist Christian cult.
As Rebecca Stott’s father lay dying he begged her to help him write the memoir he had been struggling with for years. He wanted to tell the story of their family, who, for generations had all been members of a fundamentalist Christian sect. Yet, each time he reached a certain point, he became tangled in a thicket of painful memories and could not go on.
The Exclusive Brethren are a closed community who believe the world is ruled by Satan: non-sect books are banned; contact with non-Brethren is banned; troublemakers are expelled and their families forced to shun them or risk being expelled too; women are made to wear headscarves and not allowed to question the authority of their fathers and husbands and those who disobey the rules are punished by being 'shut up' (forced isolation) for weeks on end. Suicides and breakdowns are common.
Rebecca was born into the sect, yet, as an intelligent, inquiring child she was always asking dangerous questions. She would discover that her father, an influential preacher, had been asking them too, and that the fault-line between faith and doubt had almost engulfed him.
In In the Days of Rain Rebecca gathers the broken threads of her father’s story, and her own, and follows him into the thicket to tell of her family’s experiences within the sect, and the decades-long aftermath of their breaking away.
Praise for In the Days of Rain
'Beautiful, dizzying, terrifying, Stott's memoir maps the unnerving hinterland where faith becomes cruelty and devotion turns into disaster. A brave, frightening and strangely hopeful book.'
- Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City
‘Truly magnificent: a big, beautiful, brutal, and tender masterpiece. A deeply affecting human story that also goes to the dark heart of who we are and how the world works.’
- Mark Mills, author of The Savage Garden
‘A marvellous, strange, terrifying book.’
- Francis Spufford, author of Golden Hill
‘By rights Rebecca Stott's memoir ought to be a horror story. But while the historian in her is merciless in exposing cruelties and corruption, Rebecca the child also lights up the book, so passionate and imaginative that it helps explain how she survived, and – even more miraculous – found the compassion and understanding to do justice to the story of her father and the painful family life he created.’
- Sarah Dunant, author of The Birth of Venus
‘Stott deploys her multiplicity of skills to good effect: as a historian, she delves into newspaper clippings, tape recordings, archive materials, a host of memoirs and books on doctrine, theology and the Exclusive Brethren. As a novelist, she makes the tale dramatic … As an essayist, Stott weaves ideas together with ease and economy.’
- The Guardian
‘Stott is masterly as both a storyteller and a historian.’
- Times Literary Supplement
‘Powerful, distinctive.'
– The Guardian
‘A beautiful writer.'
– Cathy Rentzenbrink
'Troubling yet compelling.'
– Kirkus Reviews
‘An intense accomplishment.’
– Sunday Times
'Dramatic... and moving.'
– Financial Times
'Attractive and interesting.’
– Time Out (London)
'A moving reflection.'
– Literary Review
'Furious and compassionate.'
– The Times
Television documentaries about the Exclusive Brethren
‘Doctrine That Divides’, BBC Everyman, 1976
This documentary features Rebecca's father, Roger Stott, being interviewed four years after leaving the Brethren. He has cast off his Brethren persona and found a dapper, well dressed, bearded version of himself. He had also started the gambling habit that would become a lifelong pathological addiction and lead to a spell in prison in 1982. Roger appears around 16.40 minutes in.
‘The Exclusive Brethren’, HTV, 1993
HTV Midweek documentary ‘The Exclusive Brethren' made and broadcast in 1993, written by Tom Archer and produced by Jeremy Payne. Watch as a sequence with BBC Omnibus documentary 'Doctrine That Divides' (1976) and follow with BBC documentary on the Exclusive Brethren made in 2003.
‘The Exclusive Brethren', BBC Everyman, 2003
A BBC programme that looks at life inside The Exclusive Brethren, containing interviews with members from the group as well as ex-members.