Worthless Boy - Orva Schlock

We read about the Amish Lifestyles in Fiction novels and we read about the Good all the time , but ever wondered about what life is really like for an Amish lad ?

Find out in this memoir "Worthless Boy" by Orva Schrock.

Synopsis: Worthless Boy - Orva Schrock - September 2011

This is the unusual and succinct memoir of a man born and raised Amish. His childhood was often physically brutal and emotionally harrowing. His Amish preacher father was short-tempered and demanding and very frequently reprimanding and punishing. The author shares many details of childhood [and adult] abuse, confusion, hard won insights, and eventual turbulent entry into the mainstream of American "worldly" life. It is ultimately a story of triumph over tyranny and a sharp critique of abusive parenting practices and crazy-making religious indoctrination.

Orva's new book will startle you. You may even start to think, "Man, I though I had it rough. My upbringing was easy by comparison." I was outraged when I read the story. Were I to have walked in Orva's shoes, it's quite likely I would have done something very, very bad, either to myself or to my tormentor. One thing that I've taken away from the read is that there are people out there who are extremely warped in their notion of right and wrong, yet call themselves pious and righteous. (Well, I've long known that, but Orva's father took it to the extreme.) I think the first part of the book hammers home just how bad this can get given certain fundamentalist ideas. I never before knew that it ran quite so deep.. Through chapter after chapter, Orva tells horrible and haunting stories of years of abuse at the hands of his father, a devoutly religious Amish preacher.