Excommunicated: A heart-wrenching and compelling memoir about a family torn apart by one of New Zealand’s most secretive religious sects for readers of Driving to Treblinka and Educated

Description

A heart-wrenching multigenerational family memoir by an excommunicated member of the Exclusive Brethren After coming out as gay, Craig Hoyle was excommunicated from the New Zealand Exclusive Brethren and forced to say goodbye to his family forever. The conservative sect was everything he’d ever known – a childhood where television, pop music, sports and even pets were against the rules. Joining public society – the ‘worldlies’ – for the first time, Craig sets out to meet his grandfather who was excommunicated in the 1980s and, using his diaries and letters, uncovers two centuries and seven generations of the family’s tangled and often cruel relationship with the Brethren. Weaving their past with Craig’s own upbringing in this secretive and oppressive religious group, Excommunicated charts the evolution of the Exclusive Brethren in New Zealand and the heartwrenching stories of a family torn apart.