Rift: A Memoir

Paperback edition includes a new afterword by the author and an interview with Kristin DuMez An essential story for understanding what’s at stake when women’s rights are stripped away Cait West was five years old the first time she was told her swimsuit was too revealing. By the time she turned eighteen, the rules in her home were ironclad: no college, no career, no choices of her own. As a stay-at-home daughter in the Christian patriarchy movement, she was trained for one purpose―to serve the man her father would eventually allow her to marry. She learned to cook, to clean, to disappear. She learned that her body was a threat and freedom was sin. Her life would never be her own. While dystopian novels like The Handmaid’s Tale explore the extremes of patriarchy as fiction, Rift tells a true story of gender oppression―one that many American women are experiencing now behind closed doors at home and at church.