Behind Blue Curtains
by Lizzy Hershberger, M. Maeve Eagan
Why You'll Love This
Lizzy Hershberger spent decades building a new life before turning back to face the man who stole her childhood — and the Amish community that protected him.
- Great if you want: survivor-led true crime with rare insider access to Amish life
- The experience: raw and unsettling, with a slow build toward hard-won justice
- The writing: Hershberger's voice is direct and unsparing — no self-pity, no performance
- Skip if: detailed accounts of repeated sexual abuse are too difficult to read
About This Book
Behind the plain clothes and quiet farmland of Swartzentruber Amish life, Lizzy Hershberger endured years of predatory abuse at the hands of a man her community considered a spiritual leader. This memoir follows Lizzy from a childhood stripped of choices—her education ending at eighth grade, her labor given away, her voice systematically silenced—through the harrowing decision to leave everything she had ever known and, decades later, to seek justice. The stakes are as real as they get: not just survival, but the cost of speaking a truth that an insular community has every incentive to bury.
What makes this book distinctive is Lizzy's unflinching, ground-level perspective on a world rarely examined from the inside. Written with collaborator Molly Eagan, the prose stays close to lived experience rather than sensationalizing it, which makes the horror land harder, not softer. At 174 pages, it moves with urgency and restraint, never padding the pain for dramatic effect. Readers drawn to true crime will find something more layered here—a reckoning with faith, belonging, and what justice actually looks like when institutions refuse to deliver it.