Pilgrim's wilderness : a true story of faith and madness on the Alaska Frontier

Title:

Author:

Kizzia, Tom.

Personal Author:

Kizzia, Tom.

ISBN:

9780307587824

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Crown Publishers, c2013.

Physical Description:

xx, 309 p. : ill., map ; 25 cm

Contents:

Prologue: Third Month -- Part One. Pilgrim's Trail -- The Road to McCarthy -- History's Shadow -- The Bollard Wars -- Sunlight and Firefly -- Motorheads -- The Rainbow Cross -- Hostile Territory -- Holy Bob and the Wild West -- God vs. the Park Service -- The Pilgrim's Progress -- Part Two. The Farthest-Out Place -- Hillbilly Heaven -- Flight of the Angels -- The Pilgrim Family Minstrels -- Part Three. Out of the Wilderness -- A Quiet Year -- The Wanigan -- Exodus -- Pilgrim's Last Stand -- The Man in the Iron Cage -- Epilogue: Peaceful Harbor.

Abstract:

Documents the story of Robert "Papa Pilgrim" Hale and the anti-establishment family settlement in remote Alaska that was exposed as a cult-like prison where Hale brutalized and isolated his wife and fifteen children.

Personal Subject:

Hale, Robert (Robert Allen), 1941-2008-Family.

Hale, Robert (Robert Allen), 1941-2008.

Subject Term:

Fundamentalists -- Alaska -- McCarthy -- Biography.

Abusive men -- Alaska -- McCarthy -- Biography.

Dysfunctional families -- Alaska -- McCarthy.

Criminals -- Alaska -- McCarthy -- Biography.

Pioneers -- Alaska -- McCarthy -- Biography.

Cults -- Alaska -- McCarthy.

Incest -- Alaska -- McCarthy.

Geographic Term:

McCarthy (Alaska) -- Biography.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	978.8 H163 XK	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

No Marketing Blurb

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A journalist's gripping account of a modern fundamentalist Christian pioneer family and the dark secrets that held it together. Robert "Papa Pilgrim" Hale, his wife and 15 children came to the remote little town of McCarthy, Alaska, convinced that it was God's will they settle there. Claiming that he and his family wanted nothing more than "to live our old-time way and be left in peace," Pilgrim bought privately owned acreage that happened to be surrounded by lands managed by the National Park Service. McCarthy residents fell in love with the idealistic, God-fearing family members and marveled at how they "could light up any space" with their idiosyncratic brand of American roots music. But when Papa Pilgrim decided to clear a road that ran on public land to the property he christened Hillbilly Heaven, residents became enmeshed in a bitter battle that ensued between their neighbors and the Park Service. On assignment from his newspaper, Kizzia (The Wake of the Unseen Object: Travels Through Alaska's Native Landscapes, 1998) successfully solicited the media-wary Pilgrim for an interview. What he learned--that Pilgrim was the son of a rich Texas family with links to the FBI--was only a small part of the whole story, which came out only after Pilgrim's eldest children ran away from home. The real Papa Pilgrim was a deluded megalomaniac who physically and emotionally brutalized his wife and children. He was also a sexual deviant who coerced his eldest daughter, Elishaba, "to keep his flesh working" so that he could bring forth the 21 children he believed God wanted him to have with Elishaba's mother. The horror at the heart of this story about religious extremism on the fringes of the last American frontier is slow to reveal itself, but when that horror fully emerges, it will swallow most readers. Provocative and disturbing.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.