The Dirt Beneath Our Door

“Jones’ remarkable story is impossible to put down." —Booklist
"Shocking, sad and hopeful." —The Minneapolis Star Tribune
“This gripping story of survival, resilience, and hope is one I will not soon forget.” —Ruth Wariner, New York Times Bestselling Author, The Sound of Gravel
For fans of Educated and The Sound of Gravel, The Dirt Beneath Our Door tells the remarkable and inspirational story of how a mother escaped a fundamentalist Mormon cult with her eight youngest children, only to struggle with newfound freedom in an America she barely knew.
Sixty-one siblings. Five sister wives. Nine children. And one carefully hidden dream: To escape the violent, misogynistic, fundamentalist Mormon cult that kept Pamela Jones perpetually pregnant, broken, and brutalized.
Today, Pamela Jones is a self-made millionaire and successful CEO. But growing up, she never could have imagined her life would turn out that way. From a young age, she was told her only purpose in life was to be her husband’s handmaid and bear him as many children as possible. While she endured fear, poverty, deprivation, and abuse, her family constantly moved between rural desert compounds in the United States and Mexico, one step ahead of the law and one step ahead of Ervil LeBaron, aka “The Mormon Charles Manson”—the cult’s frightening leader whose brutal blood atonements left a trail of bodies in his wake.
By the time she was newly married at fifteen, Pamela’s husband forbade her any contact with outsiders, including her own family. She’d been raised to believe that her throat would be slit and her blood sprinkled on the soil if she ever tried to escape. But in 2000 at age thirty-four, she knew that if she and her children didn’t escape, they would die.
The Dirt Beneath the Door follows their desperate flight across the Mexican border with only the clothes on their backs, two vehicles and two tanks of gas, a five-dollar bill, and two credit cards her husband had secretly taken out in her name. Once settling in Minnesota, Pamela must use her own resilience and grit as a mother to support her children and build an independent life for her family with less than a fifth-grade education–all while exploring the life and liberties that had been denied to her for so long.
An unforgettable testament to the power of hope and resilience, The Dirt Beneath Our Door is an epic and harrowing tale of finding freedom, believing in yourself, and achieving the American Dream.

Born and raised in a polygamous Mormon cult in Mexico, Pamela Jones escaped at age 34 with nothing but her children, the clothes on her back, and less than a fifth-grade education. After settling in Minnesota, she began cleaning houses with her youngest daughter strapped to her back. At the time of her escape, Pamela had only signed her name nine times: on each of her children’s birth certificates. Fast-forward to today and as the CEO of My Girls Cleaning, LLC, the multi-million-dollar company she founded in 2001, Pamela routinely signs dozens of checks every month as part of her thirty-five employees’ monthly payroll. Pamela lives in the Twin Cities with her husband, Rick, and where she’s a proud mom of nine and grandmother of 36.
Elizabeth Ridley is the author of five novels, most recently Searching for Celia, and coauthor of four memoirs, including Waging the War Within, Incredibull Stella, and Saving Sadie. A two-time writing fellowship recipient, she has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in creative writing from The University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, where she studied under former British Poet Laureate Sir Andrew Motion.