Is This the Way Home?

Abducted at eleven. Forced into "marriage" with rebel commanders. Fifteen years of brutality, captivity, and survival in the bush. But when Adong Agnes finally escapes the Lord's Resistance Army with her two young daughters, the homecoming she longed for is not the one she receives.

Branded a "Kony whore," beaten, and cast out by the very people she dreamed of returning to, Agnes is left to rebuild her life from nothing. Her own father attempts to exorcise her past. Her sons, left behind when she fled, refuse to speak to her. In the eyes of her village, she is tainted-no longer a daughter, no longer a sister, no longer welcome. But Agnes refuses to be erased.

Fighting to carve out a future, she builds a life from nothing: securing a job, finding allies in unlikely places, and shielding her daughters from the very traumas she has endured. When a near-tragedy brings her face-to-face with her past, she begins a journey of healing-one that will take her from the streets of Gulu to the Mormon temple in Johannesburg, and eventually, to the very heart of her captivity in the Congo. Her journey is one of reclamation, agency, and radical survival.

Written by an aid worker and professor who spent years working with Uganda's "child mothers," Is This the Way Home? is an unflinching yet deeply human novel that bridges one woman's story with the thousands who endured-and continue to endure-the lasting wounds of war. A powerful testament to resilience, healing, and the unstoppable force of a mother determined to rise.