Right or wrong, for many people the word Waco has become shorthand for massacre. In April 1993, an FBI assault on the Branch Davidian residence in Waco, Texas, resulted in a fire that took 76 lives (nearly half of them children). Doyle, this book’s primary author, is a survivor of the events at Waco—the fire was the final incident in nearly two months of conflict between the Branch Davidians and the FBI—but the book isn’t, as many might expect, a condemnation of the FBI and the American government. Of course, there is criticism and a certain amount of finger-pointing, but, mainly, this is the author’s personal story—a story of his faith, his chosen way of life, and his relationship with David Koresh, the community’s charismatic and controversial leader. The events at Waco, even though they took place two decades ago, haven’t faded into memory yet, and the book should see immediate interest from readers seeking a better understanding of what happened and why.

Booklist

This gem of a book helps us understand a nightmare. It keeps alive painful memories that we might wish to forget, but that we would forget out our peril. . . .This carefully constructed work is a must-read work for students of the Branch Davidians.

Nova Religio: The Journal Of Alternative And Emergent Religions

Clive Doyle’s description of the events during the 51-day siege in Waco and its aftermath is both gripping and tragic. Catherine Wessinger fills in the facts of the story with scrupulous notes, while Matthew Wittmer brings Mount Carmel vividly to life with graphic reconstructions of the site. Yet it is Doyle’s unassuming voice that carries the story through, from his youth in Australia, to his participation in the Branch Davidians, to his actions on the final day.

Rebecca Moore, emerita, San Diego State University

The federal assault on the Branch Davidian community will forever remain an ignominious moment in American religious history. This book offers a personal account of Branch Davidian life and the tragic demise of the Branch Davidian community by one of its important surviving members. Clive Doyle's witness, as told to Catherine Wessinger and Matthew Wittmer, is a welcome and necessary corrective to official legitimations of those fateful events.

David G. Bromley, Virginia Commonwealth University

The Branch Davidians have been demonized in the popular mind as dangerous, or at least deluded, fanatics. Clive Doyle now shows us just how wrong that view is. Telling his story, he shows just how human and normal his fellow members were, and how they were victimized by overly zealous law-enforcement agents.

Timothy Miller, University of Kansas

As one of the few remaining survivors of the catastrophic federal siege of the Branch Davidian sect in 1993, Clive Doyle provides us with a humanizing and sometimes humorous biographical narrative, as well as a deeply compelling story of those who lived and died at Mt. Carmel. Catherine Wessinger and Matthew Wittmer are to be commended for giving voice to a key figure in this tragic incident. It provides a starkly different portrait of the Branch Davidians than the self-serving version offered up by government officials in the days and weeks after the worst federal law enforcement disaster in U.S. history.

Stuart A. Wright, Lamar University