“The Serpent’s Tail” is a beautifully narrated memoir-in-verse that manages to be both heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. Told with unflinching honesty, childlike innocence, and with a deep desire to heal unconscionable wounds, Thibodeau’s story glows with resilience and determination. ”—John Sibley Williams, author of As One Fire Consumes Another and Skin Memory

“In the many decades that I have been researching the psychology of evil, the most inhumane cruelty is that of cult masters who order parents to abuse their own children, as “God’s will”. We can now more fully understand how these evil men operate from an insider’s personal perspective. The Serpent’s Tail is Deborah Daulton Thibodeau’s masterfully composed expose of how she survived physical and psychologic abuse growing up in such a misguided cult community.” —Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Psychology, Stanford University, author of The Lucifer Effect

“An absolutely brilliant way to describe a most horrific situation. Each and every phrase paints a thousand pictures, giving the reader a personal glimpse into the thoughts and emotions of the author. The result is a guided tour, a once-in-a-lifetime journey to experience the dark hidden secrets of a destructive cult from early childhood development through coming of age and escape.” —John Andrew Collins, Author and Founder, William Branham Historical Research, author of Preacher Behind the White Hats



After being born into an evangelical religious cult that evolved into an abusive communal life, Deborah and her twin sister Esther experienced vastly different outcomes. Control issues for one, impulsivity for the other. Both attempted to self-heal by healing others. Deb spent thirty-four years in emergency nursing, Esther, sixteen years as an ER Tech. Esther’s lifelong struggle with her own PTSD, eventual alcoholism, and subsequent death in 2013, led Deb to write The Serpent’s Tail, a memoir-in-verse detailing their first fourteen years in the cult and the devastating aftermath. She left Emergency to work with Veterans in recovery. Deb still lives in the Prescott Quad Cities.



Title: The Serpent's Tail: A memoir
Author: Deb Daulton Thibodeau
Publisher: Adelaide Books
Publisher Website: https://adelaidebooks.org/
Publisher Email: [email protected]
ISBN: 978-1956635904
Price: $27.10
Page Count: 722 pages
Format: Paperback

Description of the company: ADELAIDE BOOKS LLC is a New York based independent company dedicated to publishing literary fiction and creative nonfiction. It was founded in July 2017 as an imprint of the Adelaide Literary Magazine, with the aim to facilitate publishing of novels, memoirs, and collections of short stories, poems, and essays by contributing authors of our magazine and other qualified writers.We believe that in doing so, we best fulfill the mission outlined in Adelaide Magazine – “to promote writers we publish, helping both new and emerging, and established authors reaching a wider literary audience.”

Our motto is: We don’t publish classics, we make classics.