Chicago, Illinois May 28, 2025 (Issuewire.com) - On June 15, 2025, bestselling author David Marshall will release his most personal and powerful work to date: IRON BOY: Searching for Freedom Inside a Family Religious Order, a riveting memoir chronicling his twelve-year escape from a childhood inside an oppressive religious commune.
In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, IRON BOY dives deep into a story few have heard—an insider’s look at a radical “Family Order” founded by the World Council of Churches during the upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s. The author grew up in Chicago’s West Side, one of 250 adults and children living in “family-style monasticism,” a community famously cited by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 bestseller “Future Shock.”
From ages six to eighteen, Marshall lived under strict communal rule in what was known to insiders as The Order. While his parents fought for progressive Christian reform, young David fought to preserve his identity, freedom, and sanity amid indoctrination, displacement, and racial conflict. Sent on missionary journeys across the globe—from Iowa to Malaysia—he endured trauma, violence, and emotional abandonment. Yet through it all, he found glimmers of joy, adventure, and eventually, spiritual strength and forgiveness that would shape the man he became.
“This book is about freedom—even when the world is stacked against you,” Marshall says.
IRON BOY will be available in paperback ($19.95) and e-book ($9.99) formats on Amazon. The e-book is available now for pre-order.
About the Author:
David Marshall is a bestselling author and editor whose books include The Book of Myself (with his grandfather Carl Marshall), My Life Map, and What I Love About You. A preacher’s kid born in Texas and raised in Chicago, he has lived and worked on four continents. He and his wife Kate live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they continue to publish journals that help families tell their stories and grow closer together.
For interviews, review copies, or speaking inquiries, please contact the author at davidpaulmarshall1956@gmail.com.
Media Contact
Marshall Books davidpaulmarshall1956@gmail.com http://www.marshallbooks.net
