A review by pmhandley
Off the Deep End: Jerry and Becki Falwell and the Collapse of an Evangelical Dynasty by Mark Ebner, Giancarlo Granda

dark reflective tense fast-paced

3.5

Definitely revelatory. The organization of the book was confusing, because it's not exactly chronological, and the way it jumps around makes it difficult throughout the book to put events in order. Sometimes occurrences that happened years later are sandwiched in the middle of an otherwise chronological story without it being immediately clear that it happened at a different time period. I do hope it was freeing for Granda to tell his story and escape the abuse and control of the Falwells. The gut punch, for me, is something that goes unsaid. Describing his interaction with Becki and Jerry when he drove them home, it certainly sounds like Granda was sexually assaulted by Becki. I don't now if Granda sees it that way, and no one can tell him how to view his own experiences. But it doesn't sound like anything he consented to, and he throws out the self-blaming points any survivor of sexual assault would recognize about how he didn't stop it and he didn't say no and even views it as infidelity to his then-girlfriend. It is terrible and heartbreaking to read. 
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