- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
There are many books on the cult phenomenon that bloomed in the wake of the social upheaval of the 1960s, and many discuss the abuses of cult leaders; the physical, mental, and emotional challenges of breaking free; and the lived experiences of those who manage to leave and begin to heal. With Mama Said: A Daughter’s Escape from the Alamo Christian Foundation, we get a unique angle—what the daughter of a cult leader could see from the inside.
Christhiaon Coie grew up “Little Susie,” the daughter of Susan Alamo and stepdaughter of Tony Alamo, founders of the Alamo Christian Foundation. Coie continued to embrace the faith as she got older, but she was not a little girl anymore and began to realize that people don’t go to church and leave with the offering. She did not embrace the “faith” her mother was peddling, and she saw the financial grift that exploited the vulnerable followers. This is a story about the complex, unremitting relationship between a daughter and her abusive mother. Coie shares insight into Susan Alamo before her foundation days and reveals what it was like to grow up as her daughter between the 1950s and early 1970s. Across thirty-six chapters, she chronicles life within the Alamo cult and the twisted mother-daughter dynamic that persisted through it all. As Coie’s story unfolds, we see Little Susie transform into Christhiaon, navigating a manipulative mother and the distorted biblical teachings enlisted to her cause.
With a foreword from noted Alamo cult historian Debby Schriver, Coie’s gritty memoir is a true survivor story. What she survived, however, was not the cult only but the cruel double bind of what “mama said.”
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Table of contents
- Illustrations
- Foreword
- debby schriver
- prologue
- Summer of ’53
- LA in ’57
- Roaring ’50s
- More Responsible
- Nothing Came in an Unmarked Can
- Sollie Lippo
- Train Wreck—Minus the Train
- First Love
- Discovered and Undiscovered in 48 Hours
- The Back of Aldo’s
- Always on Duty, Always in Charge
- “Fuck Me” Pumps
- Change Girl Needs Change
- Rape
- Defiled
- Reconnected
- Galley Girl/Deckhand
- Not in “Now Voyager”
- Solitary in Juvy
- Learning to Be a Mom
- Ed
- Beginning of the Foundation
- Baby Christians
- December 5, 1969, 8:05 p.m.
- Mother and Children
- Surprises
- That Day My Telephone Was My Lifeline and Went from Friend to Enemy in a Blink
- The Police Came Back . . .
- Scrambling
- Informal Deprogramming
- Dream
- I Knew the Punch Line to a Bad JokeThat Was about to Happen . . .
- Tacky Jackets
- Dragging Her Around Again
- I Try to Get Out and They Drag Me Back Again
- The Courthouse
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Suggested Reading