AWAKE

A marital crisis causes a road-away-from-Damascus transformation.

Hatmaker opens with the impetus for her life change: a dead-of-night call her husband is making, aloud and in bed, to his girlfriend. “So this is what it looks like when a life unravels in real time,” she writes, adding, “It is quieter than I expected.” To compound the matter, her marriage of 26 years was to a minister, and she herself was a well-known faith leader of conservative bent. That moment of betrayal opens the author to an examination of her beliefs. Raised in a pious household, she writes of being indoctrinated in blame-the-victim and submissive views: “Girls’ bodies are a problem and need to be heavily policed.” “Southern Baptist theology dictates that only men lead.” “If it feels right, it is wrong.” No sooner is the word out that she and her husband have split up than do pious tongues start wagging, with one journalist writing an exposé that “discredits my leadership as a Christian.” Her teenage son had this “subtle response” for the reporter, who had gone so far as to message the author’s children: “Fuck all the way off.” Hatmaker steps over to the progressive side of the faith, allowing that her previous brand had been made toxic by white supremacy, racism, sexism, greed, and ugly secrets. “Imagine my surprise when I began discussing white supremacy, and tons of my Christian followers lost their shit,” she writes brightly. (There’s not a lot of blue language here, but when it comes, it’s just right.) The author goes on to write of middle-age dating, “purity culture,” body shaming, and a careful kind of forgiveness while proclaiming a hard-won feminism: “Women are the eighth wonders of the world. May we love this little life with exposed beating hearts, tender regardless, despite it all.”

Honest, engaging, and enjoyable as we watch the author stepping out from the shadows and reclaiming her life.