Pilgrim's Wilderness: A True Story of Faith and Madness on the Alaska Frontier

(Paperback)

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Into the Wild meets Helter Skelter in this riveting true story of a modern-day homesteading family in the deepest reaches of the Alaskan wilderness - and of the chilling secrets of its maniacal, spellbinding patriarch. Into the WildmeetsHelter Skelterin this riveting true story of a modern-day homesteading family in the deepest reaches of the Alaskan wilderness-and of the chilling secrets of its maniacal, spellbinding patriarch. When Papa Pilgrim, his wife, and their fifteen childrenappeared in the Alaska frontier outpost of McCarthy,their new neighbors saw them as a shining example of the homespun Christian ideal. But behind the family's proud piety and beautiful old-timey music lay Pilgrim's dark past-his strangeconnection to the Kennedy assassination and a trail of chaos and anguish that followed him from Dallas and New Mexico.Pilgrim soon sparked a tense confrontation with the National Park Service fiercely dividing the community over where a citizen's rights end and the government's power begins. As the battle grew more intense, the turmoil in his brood made it increasingly difficult to tell whether his children were messianic followers or hostages in desperate need of rescue. In this powerful piece of Americana, written with uncommon grace and high drama, veteran Alaska journalist, Tom Kizzia uses his unparalleled access to capture an era-defining clash between environmentalists and pioneers ignited by a mesmerizing sociopath who held a town and a family captive.

Reviews

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
#5 on Amazon's Best 100 Books of the Year
A Mother Jones Best Book of the Year
An Outside Best Adventure Book of the Year

Extraordinary...Mr. Kizzia has done an outstanding job unpacking Pilgrim's story; the book is superbly researched, the writing clear and unflinching. Wall Street Journal

Pilgrim's Wilderness is measured, painstakingly reported and gripping, giving us a true look at an escapist nightmare in America's mythic and fading frontier. Los Angeles Times

Not since The Shining has family life off the grid seemed as terrifying as it does in Pilgrims Wilderness, by Tom Kizzia, but this time the chills come from nonfiction.
Arts Beat,New York Times

With even reporting and spare, lovely prose, Kizzia exposes the tyrannies of faith, and a familys desperate unraveling. It will make your skin crawl. The Daily Beast

For those awaiting the next Jon Krakauer-esque classic, look to an Alaskan writer named Tom Kizzia... A gripping nonfiction thriller told with masterful clarity...Im betting it will be the sleeper hit of the summer. Put it at the top of your stack. Outside Magazine

Reads like a bewitching, brilliant novel... Even in the hands of a mediocre writer, this story would be mesmerizing. But Kizzias gifts as a journalist and writer are such that it is a powerhouse of a book, destined to become a wilderness-tale classic like Jon Krakauers Into the Wild. On one level, its a brilliant exploration of the kinds of frontier issues that most of America put away more than 100 years agorugged individualism vs. community cooperation and compromise, and wilderness harnessers vs. preservationists. But most and best of all, it is the story of how a pack of illiterate, brainwashed children came to realize that the man they looked up to as a god was actually a tyrant, and how they found the courage to break free. Heres to them, and to Kizzia for telling their incredible story.
Minneapolis Star Tribune

Kizzia is a smart, tough reporter who knows a good story when he sees one and doesn't let go... [Pilgrims Wilderness] is a masterful book. One of its strengths is that by sticking to the story and not trying to do too much, it does just about everything. Another is the way Kizzia withholds information until the right moment, building suspense by staying with a linear narrative that gradually reveals the monster at the center. Portland Oregonian

Absorbing...The familys brutal unraveling is a shocking tale readers wont soon forget.Seattle Times

The central figure in this book crosses paths with an incredible constellation of the famous and notorious and becomes a sort of evil, Alaskan Forrest Gump...an irresistible page-turner. Dallas Morning News

The mixture of Texas weirdness with Alaska nativism provides for riveting reading...Kizzia expertly goes back and forth in time to reveal the details of Papa Pilgrim's journey from would-be messiah to pariah. Austin American Statesman

As the Pilgrims go from activists championed by Sarah Palin to musicians beloved by Portland hipsters to a horrifying fall from grace, Kizzias clear-eyed depiction never wavers. His even-handed and, at times, sympathetic treatment of the Pilgrims makes the full reveal of Hales monstrous behavior that much more appallingand the tale of redemption that ends the book that much more heart-wrenching. Metropulse

A riveting read. Texas Monthly

Sends readers on a roller-coaster ride that is as thrilling as it is shocking. Kizzias work is a testament to both the cruelty and resiliency of the human spirit, capturing the sort of life-and-death struggle that can only occur on the fringes of modern-day civilization. Publishers Weekly

Meticulously researched, Pilgrims Wilderness is an absorbing and substantive education on Americas Last Frontier encased in a blood-pumping, nightmarish family drama as brutal as the wilderness itself. Kizzia writes of Alaska with the affection and steadiness of a weathered travel guidethe kind who knows the best route in. And the best route out. Kirkus Reviews

Strong work of reportage... [Papa Pilgrim's] intriguing past crumbles in comparison to his excruciating cruelty and to the inspiring grace and strength of his children.
Booklist

The riveting story of a megalomaniacal sociopath who left a trail of woe from Texas to the Great White North, Pilgrims Wilderness lends credence to the maxim that the unadulterated truth, when conveyed with sufficient skill, is not only more illuminating than fiction, but also more entertaining. Tom Kizzia has written an uncommonly insightful book about post-frontier Alaska, an ambitious literary work disguised as a page-turner, very much in the tradition of Edward Hoaglands Notes From the Century Before and John McPhees Coming into the Country. Jon Krakauer, author of Into the Wild and Under the Banner of Heaven

This is a riveting, mesmerizing story, stunning and eloquent all at the same time. I simply couldn't put it down. Ken Burns, filmmaker, The Civil War and The National Parks: America's Best Idea

Tom Kizzia'ssuperb bookisstartling, unpredictable,haunting, clear-eyed,unrelenting, sad, and beautiful. Pilgrim's Wilderness, in other words, is like Alaska itself, a subject the authorunderstandsdeeply and evokes with uncommon skill.David Maraniss, author of When Pride Still Mattered and They Marched into Sunlight

What an epic storysociopathy and crazy ideology hits the final frontier. Jon Krakauer couldnt have done it any better. Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth and Deep Economy

Pilgrims Wilderness is a fine book, methodically narrating a tale of libertarianism gone haywire on a genuine frontier. Edward Hoagland, author of Children Are Diamonds

Pilgrims Wilderness is a terrifying masterpiece,elegantly written, painstakingly researched, and impossible to put down. Tom Kizzia has created a classic American Gothic, chilling, irresistible and wise. Blaine Harden, author of Escape from Camp 14

Tom Kizzias Pilgrims Wilderness is a bizarre and twisted Alaska saga of mythic proportions. This nonfiction gem has Hollywood hit written all over it. Once you start reading, you wont be able to put it down. Douglas Brinkley, author of The Quiet World

There isn't a bad sentence in Pilgrims Wilderness, not a dull page or sour note. A masterpiece of reporting and storytelling. Zev Chafets, author of Cooperstown Confidential and A Match Made in Heaven

The bizarre and tragic true story that unfolds in the pages of this extraordinary book is like nothing else I have ever read. Through prodigious research, blending compassion with investigative skill, Tom Kizzia has woven a mythic tale out of that most mythic of American landscapes Alaska. David Roberts, author of Alone on the Ice

Tom Kizzia hasn't just observed and written about Alaska for three-plus decades, he's lived it. Pilgrim's Wildernessis a story that needed to be told by the only man who could tell it. Tom Bodett, author of Williwaw! and The End of the Road

Alaska as a land of self-invention and frontier contradictions has never been better captured than in Pilgrims Wilderness. Tom Kizzia, Neighbor Tom to the enigmatic figure at the center of this riveting story, combines an insiders view with thorough and compassionate investigative reporting. This fascinating, harrowing, ultimately redemptive, and beautifully written account is sure to become a classic. Nancy Lord, former Alaska Writer Laureate and author of Fish Camp, Beluga Days and Early Warming

In Pilgrim's Wilderness Tom Kizzia uncovers the tragic confrontation between America's frontier past and its settled future. 'The Last Frontier' is the hot bed and Alaskans probably the most divided and conflicted of all. Mix this with the attraction that frontiers have for the unstable, darker forces in the human personality and we get the startling case of Papa Pilgrim and his family, as well as a hell of a yarn. Carl Pope, former executive director of The Sierra Club andauthor of Strategic Ignorance

A stunning and downright scary tale by one of Alaska's most knowledgeable journalists. Tom Kizzia's investigative talents and his love of America's frontier state come through clearly in this true story that reads like a novel. James Risser, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting

Pilgrims Wilderness is not a bookits a powerful magnet, and once you begin you will not be able to pull yourself away. This spellbinding, shocking, and, yes, inspirational story of a familys journey into the heart of darkness delivers the raw power and revelatory truth of a Scorcese film. Except better, because every word is true.
Daniel Coyle,author of The Secret Race and The Talent Code.

Author Bio

TOM KIZZIA has traveled widely in rural Alaska for theAnchorage Daily News, and his work has appeared inthe Washington Postand been featured on CNN. His first book,The Wake of the Unseen Object, was named one of the best all-time nonfiction books about Alaska by the state's historical society. He lives in Homer, Alaska.