2 Year Anniversary for Breakout by David Tchappat
Two years ago this week, Australian David Tchappat launched his autobiographical Breakout: How I escaped from the Exclusive Brethren – and last weekend David married Rachel – they are currently on honeymoon.
A Double Congratulation is therefore due to a brave young man who managed to escape the clutches of the Exclusive Brethren, wrote the most recent story of what life was like in the secretive cult, used his media power to launch the book following his appearance in Australia’s ‘Big Brother’ TV show and doggedly rebuilt his life.
peebs.net has reached agreement with David and the publishers of Breakout to serialize a portion of his book. We are hoping that the limited serialization will raise interest in David’s story and help spread the truth regarding the Exclusive Brethren.
As part of the peebs.net coverage of this 2 year anniversary, we hope to arrange a live Webinar where David will answer questions over a live Internet video feed about his life in the cult, his escape and subsequent new life. The Webinar is yet to be scheduled – it will be recorded and made available from this website for those who miss the live event. We will be providing members of the public an opportunity to submit questions for David Tchappat prior to the event.
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Breakout – David Tchappat’s escape from the Exclusive Brethren
June 1st, 2009
David has written an unique autobiography in that it represents the first published story of life in the Exclusive Brethren during the last 30 years. There have been a number of books written regarding life in the 1950′s and 1960′s, but David Tchappat was born after the Aberdeen Incident of 1970 and grew up in a brethren family in Australia under the iron-fisted rule of Neche, ND pig farmer James Symington and following his death, John Hales who is the father of Bruce Hales, the current Exclusive Brethren leader.
It is very much an Australian book – Aussie slang terms pepper the pages – non-Aussie readers will need to know the meaning of such words as ‘stoked‘, ‘bloke‘ and the visually effective ‘ropeable‘.
Written over a 5 year period, the autobiography covers the author’s upbringing in the Exclusive Brethren cult and his eventual departure as a 19 year old in the mid-1990′s. It is an important publication in that it is the most contemporary book detailing life within the EB.
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