When the World Didn't End

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In this immersive memoir, an acclaimed screenwriter recounts her childhood within the infamous Lyman Family cult and the complex pain of leaving her only home. On January 5, 1975, seven-year-old Guinevere Turner awaited salvation in the form of a spaceship to Venus, as instructed by the cult's leader. Unaware of her family's true nature, she spent her days on a Kansas compound with other children, working in sorghum fields and roaming the pastures. However, this idyllic life had a dark side: girls were "given" to older men as wives in training when they reached puberty. The Lyman Family, led by Mel Lyman, sought isolation from a world he deemed corrupt. Guinevere's status rose when she caught the attention of Jessie, the so-called queen, leading her to travel between communities in Los Angeles, Boston, and Martha's Vineyard. But her world shattered when her mother, who had been absent since Guinevere was three, left the Family with a disgraced member, forcing Guinevere and her younger sister to follow. Thrust into public school for the first time, Guinevere faced a bewildering new reality, struggling with social norms and her homemade clothes. Drawing from her diaries, this memoir offers an intimate chronicle of a childhood marked by extraordinary beauty and profound ugliness, revealing the longing for a lost home and the painful realization of its true nature.