Memoir

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Excerpts of Reviews of Why I Left the Amish:

If the PBS documentary intrigued you, then you're likely to want to meet Saloma in the pages of her new memoir. While this may sound like a disturbing book, given some of the violent incidents described in the memoir, readers are likely to find themselves astonished at Saloma's graceful way of trying to make some spiritual sense of her family, their culture and her own life in both Amish and outside worlds — David Crumm, ReadtheSpirit

Furlong made her first break with the Amish in 1977, when she was 20. Without telling anyone in her family, she enlisted the help of a non-Amish couple whose house she cleaned…. With their help, she boarded a train and headed to Burlington, Vt., a place she knew only from what she'd learned in school and from pictures she'd seen in a magazine. — Suzanne Wilson, Amherst Bulletin, Hampshire Daily Gazette, Greenfield Recorder

Leaving was difficult. She had to rethink what she had been taught since she could understand the concept – that because she was born Amish, God wanted her to stay Amish, and therefore, if she ever decided to leave, all hope of salvation would be lost. — Cori Urban, Springfield Republican

The first time Saloma Furlong left her Amish community in Geauga County, Ohio, her family and her bishop tracked her to Burlington, Vt., and convinced her to return. — Bob Dunn, Greenfield Recorder

Beginning with this Amish metaphor “…as the grains join to make the bread they give up their individuality, so must we give up our individuality to become part of the community,” Saloma chronicles practices “English” rejected with slavery, child abuse and oppression of women. — Debbie Salomon, Burlington Free Press

By “hardships,” Furlong doesn’t just mean living without electricity, or conforming to the dictates of a strict religious community. In her new memoir, Why I Left the Amish, she describes growing up with a father who was mentally ill and a mother who worked furiously to feed her seven children. — Margot Harrison, Seven Days

Even though her experience growing up Amish was unique, Furlong said she felt there were enough elements in the story that people could relate to as a coming of age story about overcoming adversity in a dysfunctional family. — Laraine Weschler, Citizen’s News

Furlong’s father suffered from mental illness that made him violent, unpredictable and unable to support his family. In a community where women have no voice, her mother had to work extra hard to support Furlong and her six siblings, and turned a blind eye when Furlong’s brother, Joe, molested her at the age of 11. She does not senstationalize those events in her memoir, but she does not ignore them either. Laurie Higgins, The Cape Codder

Readers thirsty for a primer on Amish life will enjoy the detail, description, and insider knowledge. Yet lurking behind customs and practices outsiders label quaint and admire for supposed simplicity are powerful forces of control, chauvinism, and cruel constraint exposed by Furlong. — Lisa Romeo, ForeWord Reviews

Saloma Miller Furlong has an amazing story. The little Amish girl on the cover of her memoir and the Smith College graduate on the back cover represent two worlds. These two photos illustrate a life journey that has covered, so far, a relatively short distance in time and space, but a huge one in world view. — Shirley Showalter, 100memoirs.com.

Saloma Furlong's memoir is a finely-written, harrowing study of the circumstances that brought her to leave everything she knew and set out for parts unknown with a suitcase in hand. — Rosslyn Elliott

Every facet of the author’s life as a young Amish woman was training for subservient community life with no concern for individual pursuits. As her anger at her situation grew, so did her desire to create a life of her own. — Lynn Kimmerle

The memoir is told in the alternating narratives that recount both her return to the community after her father's death, and her years growing up into adulthood with a mentally ill father and cruel brother, in a community indifferent to the needs of the neediest among them. Yet, her family's dysfunction and parent's shortcomings are overridden with a wave of love. In every descriptive nuance, I could feel Saloma's love and respect for her Mem and Daed in all their imperfection. If an Amish parent's wish would be to raise children filled with love and forgiveness, Saloma's parents would have succeeded. — Monica Orr, the Mennobrarian

Saloma Miller's life may have looked idyllic from the outside, but in reality, it was not. You might say that her family was dysfunctional and then some. Many people probably think that Amish society is mostly hard work, sunshine, and a peaceful existence. Not always true. They have their problems, perhaps even more so since they've chosen a different and separate lifestyle. — Karen Lange, WriteNow.com