The Memoir · Out Now
From Cult
to Country.
An Asthmatic's Journey to Find More Air. The story of growing up inside a cult that refused medicine — and the hard, holy work of leaving it behind.
Hardcover · Paperback · Audiobook
A story about breath.
In From Cult to Country, Michael Rix tells, for the first time, the full story of the secluded farm, the brother who was lost, the asthma that nearly took him, and the long road from a silenced child to a Black banjo player out front of country music.
- Pages
- 312
- Published
- 2024
- Read by
- Rix
An excerpt — Chapter I
More Air.
The first thing I remember is the wheeze. Before I had words for it, I had the sound of it — high and thin, like a tin whistle, the one I made every time I tried to fall asleep on my back. My mother said it was a test of faith. My father said it was a test of will. Either way, the air would not come.
In the house, there was no inhaler. No nebulizer. There was a wood stove and a Bible and the long, narrow hallway between them. When the asthma came at night, my father told me to pray harder. He said the devil lived in the medicine cabinet. He said God lived in the lungs. I believed him. I had no other information.
The day my baby brother stopped breathing, the house went quiet in a way I had never heard before. The wood stove cracked. The wind moved against the window. My father knelt down in the doorway and said, this is the Lord's doing. And I knew, as clearly as I had ever known anything, that I was going to leave one day, and that I was going to find more air.
From From Cult to Country — © Michael Rix, 2024
Inside the book
Seven chapters.
- I
More Air
On growing up gasping — and what it meant to be told prayer was the only medicine.
- II
The Farm
How the family disappeared from the world. The labor, the silence, the hand-pumped well.
- III
The Brother
A loss that should never have happened. The night that set everything in motion.
- IV
The Door
Stepping out on faith. What it costs to leave, and what it costs to stay.
- V
The Banjo
A pawn-shop instrument and the long road from the back of the band to the front of the stage.
- VI
Nashville
Quizzical looks at the songwriters' round, and the friends who became family.
- VII
Free Man
A meditation on faith, freedom, and the long, slow work of breathing on your own.
What they're saying
Reviews from the press.
“A revelation. Rix writes like he plays — direct, fearless, and full of grace.”
“One of the most affecting memoirs of the year. You finish it and want to call your mother.”
“Equal parts horror story and hymn. A book about freedom in the truest American sense.”