Harrison Hill '19 has recently published his debut work of nonfiction, The Oracle’s Daughter: The Rise and Fall of an American Cult with Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.
The book follows Sarah Green, who in 1999 at twenty-six-years-old escaped the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps (ACMTC), a religious cult in the desert of New Mexico. The book traces the ACMTC’s radical conspiratorial beliefs in exorcism, kidnapping, and abusive punishments. In addition to Sarah, the book also gives accounts of Deborah—Sarah’s mother and the group’s leader—and one of the group's first members, Maura.
Publisher’s Weekly has described the book as a "hair raising debut" and commented, "readers will be haunted."
In an interview with People Magazine, Hill said "I’m so excited to bring readers into the world that has consumed me these past five and a half years, not just because I find the story so compelling, but because of what it reveals about America, America’s religious history and human nature itself—how all of us are surprisingly vulnerable to the call of extremism."
Hill grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia, and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He received his MFA in Nonfiction from Columbia University, where he also taught undergraduate writing. His journalism and essays have appeared in The Cut, GQ, Vogue, Travel + Leisure, AFAR, The Threepenny Review, and other outlets.
