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This memoir of a former member of the Unification Church is an account of a young man's process of joining and working for the group in the 1980s. In his early twenties and recently separated from the armed service, McKeon was disconnected from a sense of purpose. Living with his sister, he was adrift from work, friends, and a feeling of much self-worth. One of the situations that the author mentions is the guilt that he carried from a failed relationship that had resulted in a child's birth. Although the author expresses positive feelings about some of his experiences, he also mentions aspects of the situation, including the behavior of his "superiors" in the organization, that were not.
McKeon is intelligent and honest in his appraisal of his stages of assuming membership in the Unification Church and his welcoming of a deep feeling of personal religious conviction. The text has extensive, multiple examples of McKeon's experiences. However, it is the author’s intellect and the sense of personal responsibility that he acknowledges that win the reader's attention and respect.
This memoir is especially compelling since it illustrates in "bare-knuckled" ways the danger that people who feel alienated from their lives and people with whom they want to live, befriend, and work can journey into. "Was I brainwashed?" McKeon asks about his early training. Again, there is an implied comparison between faith and the socio-political aspects of religion. The narrative is, in essence, an intelligent statement about the importance of human feelings valued in ways that are healthy and the potential minefields of power.