Twenty years on, I’m homesick for the Christian cult I left

When I was 21, I lived with a cult for a year. It was a commune really, a tight-knit group of Christians, but I’ll call it a cult because it was in Texas and for special occasions we all wore white. There were other cult markers, too: we had a charismatic leader; the younger kids were home-schooled; and, to my great excitement, one (now ex) member wrote a book after she left: I Can’t Hear God Anymore: Life in a Dallas Cult.

That I ended up there is a testament to the dangers of showing off. All those endless questions after finals, all those inquiring adults: ‘And what are you going to do now? What’s your plan?’ Well, I had no plan. Every pathetic half-plan faded before it formed, lost against the black enormity of the future, so I took to telling everyone I was off to America. ‘To write a book,’ I said airily, ‘about religious cults.’