The Last Days: A memoir of faith, desire and freedom

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I remember being a young girl at middle school and there being a family of girls who could never join in assembly when we sang hymns and could never join in making cards at Easter or Christmas. We knew they were Jehovah Witnesses but we didn’t have a clue what that meant. Later I learnt they couldn’t have blood if they were in hospital and needed it. But how could we understand, we were 10 years old. I think Ali Millar comes very close in this memoir, identifying the emotions many of us go through at different times, the absolute inner-turmoil of conflict that only ever fades but never goes away after leaving. And there is no one really to blame except the faceless organisation itself, since Witness sincerity is actually a thing, their self-delusion another. This is a lovely documentation of a woman discovering that the ideas she can grown up with could not and would not work for the life she longed to live while also contending with the loss of community and identity that would come with forging her own path. Millar's writing and rawness were a joy to read. While my own religious upbringing was very different and less fire and brimstone, I identified with some of Ali’s story, especially the freedom found in music and the struggle to forge your own identity, exemplified in this powerful line: "One day I'll have a house full of books I want to read and music I want to listen to." I don’t think people who didn’t have an upbringing like ours would really quite understand how important that is.

Growing up as a Jehovah's Witness and leaving the community when I was 14, I have struggled to find memoirs, if any, that portray the inside of the community as it really is. Most people view Witnesses as quiet but strange with their stances on refusing blood transfusions and not celebrating birthdays and Christmas, but not many people understand the abuse and trauma you can go through when you are a member as well as when you leave. I enjoyed how Millar structured her memoir. Because she took on the perspective of her younger self, I felt as if I was learning about the flaws and complications in her faith as she did. There were moments where I could see the real beauty of her childhood religious experiences while also coming to question the toxic and painful aspects of that culture. A nearly impossible new start … Vanessa Redgrave in the National Theatre adaptation of The Year Of Magical Thinking. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian That balance runs throughout the book. Later on, there are moments when the secular world seems about to take over: John Peel, Catcher in the Rye, the first fumblings of sex, parties with boys, Malibu and Newcastle Brown. But then, because a real, lived life is chaotic, messy and unpredictable, and rarely runs straight, those roads aren’t taken. Her student days – the time of maximum freedom for most people – lead to marriage to a would-be Witness elder and motherhood. There even are times when a future as a Watchtower-toting Stepford wife looks a distinct possibility. A lyrical and powerful memoir of leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses, from an exciting new literary talent.I do believe millions of JW’s have good and loving intentions however due to WHAT they hear and HOW information is shared to its devotees they are duped and as a consequence are so very unaware of the hurt and pain they unknowingly inflict on their once much loved family members. It’s just so very sad and Ali sees the hypocrisy of the organisation when she was quite young. Her sharing her truth is so very brave of her.

Wow. What a tremendous memoir. I’ll preface this review by saying my thoughts on JW as a religious organisation are not clear cut. I have friends who are JW and are really happy, my friend doesn’t appear oppressed by her husband and her children are bright, happy and just regular kids. As a CofE Christian myself there are a few things that my friends Kingdom Hall do that I really think we could learn from as our church slowly dwindles as it’s ageing population dies. BUT all that aside I have no doubt that Ali’s experience is genuine and that she and many hundreds or even thousands of other ex Witnesses have been traumatised by the very people and place that are supposed to provide you with comfort and safety. The fact that, like Mormonism the JW faith has been written and designed by ‘modern’ day white men in ivory towers in the USA is enough to make me suspicious of its true biblical purpose and reading how women are expected to be submissive to their parents, then church then husband it’s definitely something I couldn’t be a part of. Ali Millar pulls you heart first through an extraordinary life, somehow making sense of an experience that should make no sense at all. A sublime talent' David Whitehouse, author of About A SonAdditionally, as broadcast journalist she has interviewed numerous authors including Rachel Cusk, Amy Liptrot, Etgar Keret and Marina Warner. As event chair she has interviewed at Edinburgh International Book Festival, Camp Good Life and The Social. Millar is also talented as respecting individuals. With few exceptions, she insists on understanding where other people are coming from.

Yet when I read Millar’s memoir, I soon realised that the small similarities with my own childhood were drowned out by the howling differences. By the time I put it down, I was positively raging on her behalf at the way she was treated by the elders of her congregation, interrogated in her home about her sex life as if by seventeenth century witch hunters. Just as damnably, their religion has cut her off, perhaps forever, from her mother’s love – to which her book is a kind of memorial.Faith, desire, control, abuse of power… I devoured The Last Days, an incisive takedown of an exploitative, destructive organisation via a personal story.

But my experiences aren’t relevant here, Ali Millars’s are and she writes them so beautifully. It is incredible how she manages to capture the spirit of whatever age she is and imbue that into those chapters so that you’d be forgiven for thinking that she was copying from a childhood log book. Her growing maturity matches the maturity of the storytelling until by the end it is elegiac and fully grown. A true tale with names changed of girl Ali now a Lady who grew up with a Mum a sister and the JW's, I'm guessing not many of them will read this but we'll I will let you make your mind up. There is a truth with an honesty rarely seen in these sort of accounts our Heroine Ali makes no secret of her faults or are they her human nature. When searching for something you look everywhere if your honest and this feels very honest. I'm a Christian not a JW I hate religion and the way it destroyed lives. To love is divine fear of Man is not. So when it comes to being dragged along as a child to ultra-nonconformist worship, I’ve got form. I’ve seen too how it can give a purpose in life to decent people who have been let down by the world, who want help to cope with fear or pain and who aren’t given to questioning. The difference between Millar and me is that, as soon as I could think for myself, I was embarrassed by my parents’ very real and unswerving faith and – to their enormous credit – they didn’t stand in my way when, as a 12-year-old, I stopped being a Christian Scientist. Truth to tell, I was never much of one to begin with.

If anyone can understand where the author is coming from, it's me - I also grew up as a JW, finally leaving in my late teens. A lot of the things detailed are absolutely true; JWs do not celebrate birthdays or Christmas, you are encouraged to keep away from 'worldly people', women are definitely considered second class but it's wrapped up in the language of being a "complement" to man, & having a career/going to university is a no-no.. From my early teens I chafed against the expectations & I had questions about the teachings I was not allowed to ask, & upon leaving I felt exactly like Nicole Kidman looks in that photograph of her shortly after divorcing Tom Cruise - freedom.