Nobody's Thrall

De: Bonnie Zieman

Narrado por: Nicholas Cain

This novel drops you into a fictional congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Its characters and plot make you privy to their meetings, training sessions, social gatherings, the expectations and rules by which they govern their lives, their carefully-measured conversations, and certain members' private thoughts and feelings about it all. These people are psychologically captive to an extremist belief system. Called 'servants' by their leaders, they devote their time and energy on this organization's behalf. One need only envision a version of the red-robed, bonneted women in Margaret Atwood's book, The Handmaid’s Tale.

This tale of religious and patriarchal domination will introduce you to: Joe Sinclair, an elder worried about his teenagers’ lack of engagement with the group, and who courts newly-emerging misgivings of his own. Lauren Barlow, an elder’s wife tormented about the constraints of her life, who longs to escape a dead marriage. David Goddard, a skeptic, full of self-reproach about not freeing his sons from an organization that discourages post-secondary education. Gigi Sinclair, a high-spirited twenty-year-old, registering for college despite admonitions it will expose her to unholy ideology and association. As each character grapples with the inner conflict of staying in the group or breaking free, a tragedy strikes the town, implicating the congregation itself. As well, rumors circulate that a pedophile may be hiding among them. Amidst all this, these unhappy members agonize over the consequences of claiming personal sovereignty, knowing they will be renounced and ostracized by everyone they have ever loved.

This novel offers a window into this mysterious organization of JW.org. Such an in-depth portrayal is possible because the author was raised a JW—every member of her family a devotee. Bonnie Zieman struggled with the same longings and fears as the characters in this novel and, when she defected, suffered the group’s mandated repudiation and shunning.

©2024 Bonnie Zieman (P)2025 Bonnie Zieman