Twenty years in germination, I am finally ready to publish my memoir about my experiences in the Order, Ecumenical Institute, and Institute of Cultural Affairs: *IRON BOY: Searching for Freedom Inside a Family Religious Order*. It covers twelve years, starting when I was six years old in 1962 as my family joined a several other minister families in a big house in Evanston, Illinois, followed by the next five years on the Chicago West Side campus until the historical fires after MLK Jr’s death drove us out, and then six years of youth deployment in Iowa, New York City, Kuala Lumpur, Denver, and San Jose CA. Finally, a 40-year-old self weighs in. The story is told in my boy’s voice, with limited vocabulary and awareness at first, which matures as I become more knowledgeable and conscious in my teenage years and beyond. *Who is it for?* IRON BOY is primarily for former members of these three extraordinary organizations and their extended families. It is for the remaining “Order Adults” and “Order Kids,” but also for ICA folks who never lived the monastic Order life. It is for “Spirit Movement” people who never become interns and priors. It is for the Order Kids’ partners and their children, like my own two kids, who only heard about these revolutionary times second hand. It is for my cousin Randy, whom I visited every summer in Oklahoma in the 1960s during my brief respites from Order life, who recently told me, “The 'normal' of your childhood was always unfathomable to me.” In a broader sense, it is for anyone struggling with "group think" and "us vs. them." Long from now, it is for my children’s children. *What is it about?* Having spent 16 years in the book publishing business, we always asked prospective authors, “What’s the Big Idea of your book?” If they could not say it in a couple of sentences, we asked them to return to the drawing board. IRON BOY is about FREEDOM of the human spirit in the way we taught it in RS-1 on Saturday afternoon with the Freedom Lecture and the Bonhoeffer paper, followed by the *Requiem for a Heavyweight *movie that evening. It deconstructs my first RS-1 in the West Side chapel at eleven years old. But if you are looking for a black and white treatment of the Order, EI, and ICA, this book is not for you. It is neither a blanket indictment of these three organizations nor a love fest about them. In my opinion, it is a nuanced view that may make some readers cheer and others recoil. But it is an honest portrayal of a boy’s rite of passage from darkness to spirit freedom. *When and where can I read it?* It will be published on June 15, 2025 on Amazon. You can pre-order the e-book now <https://www.amazon.com/IRON-BOY-Search-Freedom-Religious-ebook/dp/B0F3Y36V86/>, but you must wait until the publication date to order the paperback (Amazon’s rules, not mine). The e-book costs U.S. $9.99 and the paperback costs U.S. $19.99. For those of you who are my Facebook friends, or follow me on other social media sites, I have been doing a 10-week countdown every Sunday starting earlier this month. I usually share several photos and something about the book. You can see the weekly countdown on my Marshall Books blog <https://marshallbooks.wordpress.com/>. David Marshall, Moraga, California Link: Iron Boy Pre-Order: https://www.amazon.com/IRON-BOY-Search-Freedom-Religious-ebook/dp/B0F3Y36V86... Link: 10-Week Book Launch Countdown: https://marshallbooks.wordpress.com/ -- www.marshallbooks.net