So Late, So Soon

"I found D'Arcy Fallon's story facinating, as will anyone who has ever wondered about the role women play in fundamental religious sects. What would draw an other-wise independent woman to a life of menial labor and subservience? Fallon's answer is this story, both an inside look at '70s commune life and a funny, irreverent, poignant coming of age."-Judy Blunt, author of "Breaking Clean"D'Arcy Fallon offers an irreverent, fly-on-the-wall view of the Lighthouse Ranch, a Christian commune she called home for three years in the early 1970s. More than just a memoir about living an isolated religious existence on California's slippery shoulder overlooking the Pacific, this book is about being 18 and alone and hitchhiking around the country and about getting taken in by Jesus people who loved the Lord and also made their own donuts. She writes of a series of harrowing and heartbreaking decisions that lead her away from the ranch and into her own life one step at a time.From So Late, So Soon"I lay in bed listening to the waves crashing on the beach, and the splat-splat-splat of rain spattering on the sidewalk outside. Clouds over the ocean. Wind in the twisted cypress. If I closed my eyes, I could hear mold growing. The ground was a humid sponge that never dried out but kept decomposing underfoot. The windowpanes by my bed sprouted hairline fractures of dark green. It was so moist, the linoleum sagged like mushy Rice Crispies. Even clean cotton sheets fresh from the dryer quickly assumed the sweet-sour fragrance of curdled milk. Nature was a magician; it caused wood to bend and glass to sweat."D'Arcy Fallon has been an award-winning journalist and columnist for nearly 20 years.She teaches English composition and creative nonfiction at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.