Pamela Jones – författare

In the first full-length biography of one of Canada''s most gifted and influential composers, Pamela Jones draws from extensive interviews with composers, performers, students, friends, and family members. She offers an analysis of lanza''s key compositions and discusses his musical development in a vivid portrayal of the social, cultural, and political milieus in which he worked - from the difficulties of composing under a repressive government in 1950s Argentina to the "anything goes" atmosphere of New York in the 1960s, the post-war cultural revival in Berlin, and the multicultural diversity of Montreal.

In the first full-length biography of one of Canada''s most gifted and influential composers, Pamela Jones draws from extensive interviews with composers, performers, students, friends, and family members. She offers an analysis of lanza''s key compositions and discusses his musical development in a vivid portrayal of the social, cultural, and political milieus in which he worked - from the difficulties of composing under a repressive government in 1950s Argentina to the "anything goes" atmosphere of New York in the 1960s, the post-war cultural revival in Berlin, and the multicultural diversity of Montreal.

Pamela Jones had sixty-one siblings, five sister wives, nine children, and one carefully concealed hidden dream: to escape the violent, misogynistic, fundamentalist Mormon cult that kept her perpetually pregnant, broken, and brutalized. Now, in a deeply moving and unflinching memoir, she shares her story for the first time. Growing up, Pamela was told her only purpose in life was to be her husband's handmaid and bear him as many children as possible. She endured fear, poverty, abuse, and deprivation as her family constantly moved between rural desert compounds in the US and Mexico, one step ahead of the law and one step ahead of Ervil LeBaron, aka 'The Mormon Charles Manson' - the cult's psychopathic leader whose brutal blood atonements left a trail of bodies in his wake. Newly married at fifteen, Pamela's husband forbade her any contact with outsiders, including her own family, and she'd been raised to believe that her throat would be slit and her blood sprinkled on the soil if she ever tried to escape. In 2000, by the age of thirty-four, she knew one thing for certain: if she and her children didn't escape, they would die. And so they made a desperate escape across the Mexican border with only the clothes on their backs, two vehicles, two tanks of gas, a five-dollar bill, and two credit cards her husband had secretly taken out in her name. Eventually finding her way to Minnesota, Pamela struggled to support her children with less than a fifth-grade education. But with a mother's resilience and grit, she built an independent life for herself and her children, all while exploring the life and liberties that had been denied to her for so long. The Dirt Beneath Our Door is an epic and harrowing tale of finding freedom, believing in yourself, and achieving the American Dream.