The Sound of Gravel
Ruth Wariner's memoir of growing up as the 39th of her father's 42 children in a polygamist colony in Mexico, and her fight to escape a cycle of abuse.
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What you might want to know about The Sound of Gravel
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Ruth Wariner was the thirty-ninth of forty-two children in a polygamous Mormon fundamentalist family in the Colonia LeBaron settlement of northern Mexico. After her father is murdered and her mother remarries, the memoir tracks Ruth from age three to fifteen, when she takes her younger siblings out.
Yes. The Sound of Gravel is Ruth Wariner's 2015 memoir of growing up in a polygamous Mormon fundamentalist colony in Mexico in the 1970s and 1980s. Wariner left the community as a teenager.
Yes. Both memoirs document leaving high-control religious or family environments and reckoning with the world outside. The Sound of Gravel is set in a polygamous Mormon community; Educated covers a survivalist family in Idaho.
The Sound of Gravel was written by Ruth Wariner, published in 2016 by Flatiron Books.
The Sound of Gravel is 352 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Sound of Gravel takes most readers 5 to 8 hours to finish.
The Sound of Gravel is a standalone novel by Ruth Wariner, not part of a series.
The Sound of Gravel is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
