Coming March 2025
The dramatic rise, disappearance, and near-fall of Aimee Semple McPherson, America’s most famous woman evangelist.
On a spring day in 1926, Aimee Semple McPherson wandered into the Pacific Ocean and vanished. Weeks later she reappeared in the desert, claiming to have been kidnapped. A national media frenzy and months of investigation ensued. Who was this woman?
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SAINTLY SISTER, OR SINNER?
America’s most famous evangelist, McPherson was a sophisticated marketer who used spectacle, storytelling, and the newest technology—including her own radio station—to bring God’s message to the masses. Her innovations brought Pentecostalism into the mainstream, paved the way for televangelists, and shaped the future of American Christianity. Her Angelus Temple in Echo Park, Los Angeles, can be called the first megachurch. Her Foursquare Church continues, with more than eight million faithful around the world.
But after her disappearance, as crowds gathered at the water’s edge, people asked: Was McPherson everybody’s saintly sister, or a con-artist sinner? The story of what happened next—sex scandals, religious persecution, legal shenanigans, the seemingly unshakable faith of thousands of followers, and the race to cover it all—runs through the center of Claire Hoffman’s thrilling Sister, Sinner.
A riveting journey into the rise of popular religion in America and life in early Hollywood, and told with the flavor of the period's noir mysteries, this is an unforgettable story of an iconic woman, largely overlooked, who changed the world.
COMING MARCH 2025
“From the instant that Claire Hoffman casts Aimee Semple McPherson into the sea in an emerald-green swimsuit, she sets us on an extraordinary journey into the makings of a modern prophet who continues to dominate the American religious landscape. Knowing McPherson's story is essential to understanding the Pentecostal movement. With rigor, grace, and moxie, Hoffman renders its complicated founder in technicolor.”
“Claire Hoffman is a master storyteller. In this riveting tale, she evokes the noir style of its LA setting and revives one of the paragons of twentieth-century Christianity, Aimee Semple McPherson. The result is not only a page-turner about one of the most fascinating and mysterious lives of the era, but also a cautionary tale about the complicated, even dangerous interplay between faith and fame, messengers and the media frenzy that can ensnare them. Hoffman’s Sister, Sinner has all the elements of a suspenseful thriller and brilliant character-study.”
“Sister, Sinner is a wild ride of a biography, part mystery story and part scandal—but also a penetrating examination of the rise of evangelical religion in America. Along the way, Claire Hoffman explains much about popular culture in America today.”
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About the Author
Claire Hoffman works as a journalist and author, reporting for national magazines, covering culture, religion, celebrity, business and whatever else seems interesting. She was formerly a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone.
She is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz, and has a masters degree in religion from the University of Chicago, a masters degree in journalism from Columbia University and an MFA from NYU. She serves on the board of her family foundation, the Goldhirsh Foundation, as well as the Columbia Journalism School and ProPublica.
Her first book, a memoir, Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood, was published in 2016 by Harper Collins. She is at work on a historical biography of Aimee Semple McPherson which is forthcoming from FSG in 2025. She lives in California with her family.