The Sound of Gravel

Ruth Wariner’s The Sound of Gravel is a 2016 memoir about the author’s experiences growing up in a polygamous Mormon cult. She describes the abuse that she and her mother experienced in their family, the atmosphere of fear and paranoia they lived in, and her ultimate triumphant escape from that world. Wariner is a high school Spanish teacher and an international speaker on her story of survival.

Ruth Wariner is her mother’s fourth child and her father’s thirty-ninth. That father, Joel LeBaron, is murdered when Ruth is only three months old, killed by his own brother Ervil. Joel had been the leader of his own polygamist cult, the Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness of Times. Ervil, the leader of a different polygamous sect, plotted to have him killed out of rivalry. His brother is only one of many religious rivals he ordered his henchmen to kill over the years.

Young Ruth grows up in fear that her uncle might order the deaths of her surviving family members. She has never met him, but the shadowy figure of her uncle remains a constant threat in the back of her mind. Her father, meanwhile, is lionized: the cult now sees him as a martyr who sacrificed his life for his church. He is seen as a prophet whom Ruth and her siblings literally worship long after his death.



Ruth’s mother marries again, and the family grows. They live a nomadic existence, shifting from place to place between Mexico and the U.S. Ruth and her many siblings suffer from neglect and malnutrition. Her sister Audrey is severely autistic, but remains undiagnosed and does not receive treatment or services of any kind for her condition. Ruth’s younger sister, Meri, suffers from hydrocephalus as an infant. In this condition, fluid accumulates in the brain and can cause brain damage over time. Unfortunately, Meri does not survive infancy. Ruth’s brother, Luke, is also mentally disabled due to malnutrition at birth and during infancy.

Though Ruth’s mother suffers abuse, she is a true believer in the church, even when the rest of her family abandons the cult and resumes living in the outside world. She was only a teenager when Joel LeBaron made her one of his brides and felt special for being selected as a wife. When times become hard, she clings to those memories and that feeling of being selected.

And times become very hard. Ruth’s stepfather, Lane, makes for a poor head of household, literally and figuratively. He does not earn enough to pay the bills for his large family. Because Ruth’s mother, Kathy, is his second wife, the marriage is not legally recognized, meaning she is a single mother in the eyes of the law and eligible for welfare. That money is stretched thin to provide (or not) for the children. The book’s title refers to the long walk Ruth’s mother and the children would make once a month to pick up their welfare check, crunching the gravel along the roadside with their footsteps.



They live in a house that is falling apart. It does not have indoor plumbing or electricity. Ruth describes scorpions that dwell in the walls and the practice of shaking mouse droppings out of her clothes. She sleeps next to the disabled Audrey, who wets the bed every night.

Her mother is constantly pregnant or recovering from pregnancy, so she is often too exhausted to devote much time or attention to the older children. They, in turn, are often tasked with the care of the younger ones. Lane makes for an abusive husband and father—often threatening his wife and children and beating or whipping them. He is an absolute monarch over the household, and no one can dare question his authority. This is normalized within the cult: husbands are expected to mete out “discipline” to women who do not submit to their authority.

When Ruth is eight years old, the abuse takes a darker turn. Lane begins to molest her. She tells her mother, but her mother’s response is simply to forgive him. This does nothing to curb the abuse, which continues for years, stirring shame and guilt for Ruth. She goes to her mother again when she finds out she is not Lane’s only victim. Word eventually gets out. Many in the community support or don’t care about Lane’s abuse, but in time, he is put before a tribunal for his actions and ousted from the community. Later, he is allowed back in.



When Ruth is fourteen, she is pulled out of school to help care for her many younger siblings. She had already missed many months of school at a time to help with childcare before, so leaving her education behind came as a relief—it was easier than trying to play catch-up on so many subjects.

But through this time, Ruth becomes aware that there is another way of living. On visits to her maternal grandparents in California, she sees how differently and how peacefully they live. She sees how happy people outside the cult live their lives. Eventually, this glimpse of life outside the polygamist community becomes the key to her escape.

Ruth is left the sole caretaker for her family and disabled siblings when her mother dies in a freak electrical accident. She is just fifteen years old. With her mother gone, Ruth refuses to submit to Lane’s authority. For a time, Ruth and the other children are passed around the community, with wife after wife assuming their care. But when Ruth realizes Lane has continued to sexually abuse her female relatives, it’s the final straw.



Another of Lane’s wives also wants to leave the cult, and she agrees to help Ruth by calling her maternal grandmother in secret. Two of Ruth’s brothers, Matt and Aaron, already live in California with her mother’s side of the family, and Matt drives down to rescue Ruth, her brother Luke, and her younger sisters Leah, Elena, and Holly. The book ends as they make their way to California, family, and safety.

The Sound of Gravel became a New York Times bestseller. The Publisher’s Weekly review called the book “hard to put down and hard to forget.” Ruth Wariner continues to speak out about her life in the polygamist cult and to spread her story of escape.