Told in engaging, personable style by mother and daughter, Jeanette and Lauren Manning’s Walking Away from Hate is a powerful, un-put-down-able account of a teenager being drawn into criminality, violence and extreme white supremacy through an online recruiter. In Jeanette’s words, “this is the story of Lauren’s journey from ordinary kid into the world of hate and white supremacist ideology, but it’s also the story of a newly-widowed single parent who had to learn the most difficult lesson of all - how to keep the door open”.
Indeed, one of this memoir’s defining, pervasive powers is the dual mother-daughter narrative that relates how Lauren was drawn into this appalling ideology and situation, how her family struggled with it, and how - ultimately - she came back from the brink. It’s a brave book, suffused in unwavering honesty.
Walking Away from Hate: Our Journey through Extremism Synopsis
As a troubled teen, Lauren Manning sought refuge online in the angry world of black metal music. When she met a recruiter who offered her the acceptance she craved, the doctrine of white supremacy supplanted the values of her middle-class upbringing, and Lauren traded suburbia for a life of violence and criminality on the streets of Toronto.
Told from the perspective of both mother and daughter, Walking Away from Hate chronicles Lauren's descent into extremism, her life within the movement and her ultimate reconnection with the family she once denounced and the mother who refused to give up on her.
Jeanette Manning is active in the writer’s community of Durham region and was the recipient of a 2019 Writescape scholarship. She now volunteers with Life After Hate, a non-profit organization helping people escape extremism.
Lauren Manning works as an outreach specialist with Life After Hate. She welcomes opportunities to share her story and has been interviewed by researchers and media across North America. Both mother and daughter live in Whitby, Ontario.
