Higher Ground

A riveting memoir of one woman's immersion into fundamentalist faith, and her decision twenty years later to leave it all behind. Beautifully written and powerfully told, this memoir is a fascinating look at the nature of faith, and the inspiring story of one woman's struggle to find her place in the world. Originally published as This Dark World, this book has been adapted into the screenplay Higher Ground, now a film directed by and starring Vera Farmiga.

Carolyn Briggs grew up with modest means in the Iowa Heartland. Pregnant at seventeen and married to her musician boyfriend, by the age of eighteen she found herself with little hope for the future. Until an unexpected encounter with the Divine.

Soon she had immersed herself into a close-knit and patriarchal New Testament church. But as Carolyn began to realize that her religion left little room for what she wanted out of life-as a mother, as a wife, as an intellectually curious woman-cracks began to appear in her all-encompassing sense of faith, and slowly she began to question the religion that had given her hope.