The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir

The Sound of Gravel is a memoir by Ruth Wariner about her coming-of-age in a polygamist Mormon Doomsday cult. Wariner was the thirty-ninth of her father's forty-two children. She grew up on a farm in rural Mexico without indoor plumbing or electricity, in a community where authorities overlooked their practices. Church teachings held that God would destroy the world to punish the wicked, and that women could only reach Heaven through polygamous marriage and childbearing. When Wariner's father, the colony's founding prophet, was murdered by his brother in a power struggle, her mother remarried as a second wife. The family moved between Mexico and the United States, where her mother received government assistance while her stepfather worked various jobs. As Wariner spent more time in the States, she began to question her community's beliefs and her mother's choices, struggling to balance her love for her siblings with her desire for a different life. Told from a child's perspective, the memoir recounts Wariner's journey of fighting for peace and love while navigating doubt and family loyalty.