Ron Hubbard - or LRH (Scientologists’ love of acronyms makes the military seem florid) - in the ’60s. Hill has deep roots in the church, her paternal grandfather having joined when he discovered the writings of L. Still, Karin Pouw, Church of Scientology International’s official spokesperson wrote to the Star that allegations in Miscavage Hill’s book about famous parishioners “are false and absurd,” and that if she had contacted Scientology they “would have been able to correct the many documented factual errors contained in it.” (For the full story on Scientology’s rebuttal of the books allegations, go to /books. Wright won the Pulitzer Prize for his acclaimed book on Al-Qaeda, The Looming Tower, and Miscavige Hill is the niece of Scientology leader David Miscavige (her co-writer is Lisa Pulitzer, a former New York Times correspondent who apparently won the name lottery). The church has accused past whistle-blowers of lacking credibility that will be a harder sell this time. Now comes a sober, well-written memoir by ex-Scientologist Jenna Miscavige Hill, Beyond Belief My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape, that dovetails, damningly, with Wright’s. In January, long-time New Yorker contributor Lawrence Wright published Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (the book’s release has been delayed in Canada pending a legal review by publisher Knopf but is available from ).

This hasn’t been a great year publicity-wise for the Church of Scientology.

Beyond belief miscavige