Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson (A Harvest Book)

Sister Aimee is a biography of Aimee Semple McPherson, America's first superstar evangelist. Rising from an unfulfilled housewife in Rhode Island, McPherson became known as the "miracle woman" and one of the most prominent Christian evangelists in the country. She traveled throughout the United States in a 1912 Packard with her mother and children, preaching in tents, concert halls, boxing rings, and speakeasies. She prayed for the healing of hundreds of thousands of people, founded the Foursquare Church, and built a Pentecostal temple in Los Angeles, with input from Charlie Chaplin on its design. Beyond her public success, the biography examines the personal costs of her fame: exhaustion, insomnia, nervous breakdowns, sexual scandals, loneliness, and a notorious public disgrace that threatened to destroy her. The book presents McPherson's life story as one of a unique woman driven by passionate faith, while also documenting the controversies and struggles that defined her legacy.