Jesus Land, by Julia Scheeres

Published in 2006. 384 p.

Rating: 5 stars

Summary: This is Julia Scheeres memoir about her relationship with her adopted brother, David Scheeres. Her family dynamic is: Christian zealot parents, two older biological sisters, one older biological brother, and one same-age and one older adopted brothers. Her adopted brothers are black, and radically different: one sexually abuses her, while the other is her best friend. The novel is split into two parts; the first part is about moving to a new town and going to a new high school where race becomes an issue both in school and at home, driving Julia and David apart. The second part is about being sent to a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic, where no law exists governing child abuse.

Review:

Having been raised in a conservative, born-again Christian household, books on how religions repress some of their followers are of great interest to me. I look for similarities in the repression inferred, and how the author(s) or character(s) overcame their repression and how their religious life was affected after that. This book fit right in with my interest level, and although I in no way suffered to the extent of Scheeres (or even in similar ways), I could still identify with the pressure of being forced to be a certain religion at a time when a person should be experimenting and trying to “find themself” as it has become called, and the fear of persecution by the religious (and for all those Christians who talk about how they are persecuted by those who don’t believe what they do when other religions are tolerated: right back at you!)

This book is amazing in the terror that it instills. I read the whole book in three sittings, which is something I haven’t done in years. The second part of the book was much quicker going; it sort of sucks you in and you have to find out the whole story just to see if they make it out okay. The first half is interesting because it sets up the family dynamic and the neighborhood dynamic: David is an outsider wherever he goes, no matter how much he tries to fit in. Julia is an outsider when she aligns herself with David; when she doesn’t, she fits in perfectly well. She talks about the guilt she feels, and it is really interesting to see how she deals with race within her very small world. However, they are both outsiders within their parent’s restrictive super-Christian life. You feel Julia die a little bit inside when she realizes that her mother loves the missionaries that she supports more than she loves her own daughter. You see how Julia, at age 17, doing what normal teenagers do, managed to land herself in jail, juvi and then reform school because she honestly believes that it is better than living with her parents, which is a pretty scary idea: things are so bad at home because of the parents, the child chooses to live in hellish situations just to escape parental wrath.

The second half of the book is pretty much everyone’s worst nightmare. The camp that first Julia and then David end up at is shocking in its abuse, despite the fact that in this day and age of memoirs and Oprah’s “heartwarming” stories, abuse stories are fed to us on a weekly basis with a happy, sunshiny, all warm and fuzzy inside ending to take away the memory of the abuse. Dave Pelzer is a perfect example. While what happened to him is by no means less severe than what happened to the Scheeres, his book didn’t make me as upset as this one did. I’m guessing it is because all of the abuse was done in the name of religion. The “love of Jesus Christ” doesn’t force or endorse the mental and physical humiliation and beatings that were doled out in every second of every day. It is a very interesting study of human culture that religious sects are the ones that carry out horrors like these. Also, because the school was in the Dominican Republic, there where no laws that would’ve allowed Julia and David to leave when they were 18 and legal adults. It was around then, when I’d already been reading for about 2 or 3 hours straight, that I realized I was not setting the book aside until I’d read to the very last page. I was committed to finding out whether or not they made it out okay.

I haven’t read a book that has captivated me this much in years. This is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in the ideas of how religion can adversely affect life (or even if you think it doesn’t, this might be a good book for you to read so that you can see that it does.) The book really hit home for me, quite possibly because of recent family feuding over a certain type of organized religion and my expelling of it from my life, but I think it would have resounded anyway, because of the book’s power and the ideas contained within it are ideas that I have struggled with for over 10 years. However, a word of warning: this book is intense, and you may cry if you are the crying sort (I’m not, so I didn’t, but I could see how someone would). If you are not the crying sort, you will probably just be rather torn up and upset about it (as I was/am.) On a side note, a good film to watch somewhat in conjunction with this book is the movie Saved! It deals with similar issues on the religion front, although it presents it in a much less frightening way, and shows how to overcome religious repression. And it is really, really funny.

Quite sincerely, I say that you absolutely should read this book, no matter who you are. Just make sure you have quite a few hours to devote to it without losing too much sleep.