Amity and Sorrow is quite the unusual novel by Peggy Riley. It opens on the scene of a mother, Amaranth, driving her two daughters, Amity and Sorrow, down an Oklahoma country road. It quickly becomes evident that they are on the run from someone or something. Because the daughters are literally bound to one another via their arms in the backseat, and because the language is evocative of the south, I first assumed this was a story about an escape from slavery. Which it is, I suppose, but not in the traditional African slave trade context. Amity and Sorrow are the daughters of a polygamous cult leader and his first wife (among many many wives). They’ve escaped from the cult’s homesteading compound in Utah following a police raid. As the story slowly unravels we learn more about the destructive power of the cult and their father’s leadership. The family is in shambles emotionally and financially and their cultural identity and experiences are very different than those of the people they...
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