Little Soldiers by Kate Gale

In this provocative memoir, Kate Gale, founder of the award-winning independent publisher Red Hen Press, shares the harrowing story of her upbringing in an “intentional community”—a religious cult in which she faced abusive living conditions until her escape at age eighteen.

When Kate Gale was four years old, her mother gave her to an “intentional community” in rural New Hampshire where a group of three hundred people built unseaworthy boats to ride out the Rapture. She would spend the next fourteen years of her life there, trapped amongst monsters and followers, where the kids were often starved, beaten, and forced to do “joy jobs” instead of schoolwork. While Kate mimicked the religiosity of those around her to earn each meal, she secretly stashed away books from the confiscated belongings of new members. Reading became her salvation and her only link to the outside world—creating a haven for herself within her own mind. That was enough to spark a dream in Kate of life beyond the confines of the cult.

Told through visceral flashes and shards of memory, Little Soldiers recounts Gale's journey from her earliest memories at the Farm to building her own publishing company—breaking free from the tethers of her past and creating possibilities for other writers. Through deeply emotional and intimate recollections, Gale sheds light on the trauma, abuse, and censorship she faced, as well as her journey to assimilate into modern society in her early twenties. With crackling wit and stunning prose this is her story of survival, escape, and, ultimately, forging herself anew through literature.