Holy shit. I read this book many years ago when I was TBM, and I miraculously managed to compartmentalizations it all and finish the book. I'm reading it again and I'm amazed at just how brainwashed I was that this book didn't change any of my views. I just thought, "wow, these polygs are crazy!"

Anyone else read this book when. They were still believers?

I started reading it but put it down because it was "anti". Cringing.

I have read it several times and I am selling it on Ebay now.

I can look back now at my reactions, noting that my teenage daughter was a toddler then, and having her in my life contributed to the horror I experienced reading about the murder of Brenda Lafferty and her baby.

A couple of other points: a) Krakauer and I were both wrong in predicting the state of Utah would execute Ron Lafferty in the near future; that one is still winding through the appeals system.

b) On the subject of the possible murder of John Wesley Powell's men, Will Bagley has written that he doesn't believe Mormons were responsible. I'll defer to his judgment, provisionally, even though Jacob Hamblin was the interpreter. Powell may well have been familiar enough with the Paiute language he couldn't be misled. That does remain an open debate question, however.

c) Krakauer deserves high praise for his continuing efforts on behalf of the "lost boys of polygamy" who were evicted from the polygamist sects so they wouldn't compete with the leaders for young wives. At the time, most of them were unskilled and wound up homeless on the streets of Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.

d) "Under the Banner of Heaven" received a lot of attention and scorching reviews from LDS media outlets. This followed, of course, on the heels of Bagley's "Blood of the Prophets," which faced equal umbrage, and sales of both volumes were brisk as a result. The corporation seems to have learned from that outcome, and now they tend to ignore "anti-Mormon" writings, no matter how lucid or threatening.

My apologies for the length of this post, but it couldn't be helped.

subj: Krakauer Review

I just finished this book and only read it because my mother happened to pick up a copy (I've got plenty already to make me livid about the Mormon Church without adding another helping to my plate), and I also knew reading it would afford me entrance into discussions on this bulletin board . . .

There was very little in the book that was new information to me, but then I've read most of the original sources except Michael Quinn's. If you want a thumbnail history of many of the national headline issues that have come out of Utah in the last century-and-a-half, then this book offers it.

The one allegation that was new to me was the alleged murder by Southern Utah Mormons of the three members who left John Wesley Powell's Colorado River expedition. The original story--which I first saw in a movie and which Powell went to his deathbed believing--was they were killed by Indians. Krakauer goes into substantial detail about this, and the witnesses he cites are credible Mormons who had no axe to grind against the church.

My issues with the book are largely editorial ones; I thought it was particularly gruesome, and if it hadn't been written so quickly, perhaps this quality could have been mitigated slightly. We visit the murder of Brenda Wright Lafferty at least three times, and I'm enough of a wuss to think once might've been enough. The piece on Elizabeth Smart's rape was also equally chilling . . . Others may find this a palatable part of their reading diet, but I don't have much appetite for it . . . I recognize that the writer's goal is to somehow make the unthinkable understandable to the reader, and it is perhaps intrinsic to this kind of storytelling that sane people don't react well to insanity . . .

I think Krakauer grew substantially in understanding in writing this book.

I do find it interesting that neither Krakauer nor church historian Turley seized on what was obvious to me, that the "middle step" between Mormonism and the Laffertys' homicidal fanaticism occured with the abuse of the Lafferty children in their upbringing . . . They were regularly beaten and witnessed their mother being beaten as well; additionally, there's a narrative describing the brothers engaging in a "pissing party," and perhaps only an insider can understand the internalizing of shame and mixed messages about our bodies and our sexuality that occurs in the Mormon culture.

I want to particularly compliment Krakauer on his presentations of the psychological material from the Lafferty trial. As one who has had firsthand contact with the University of Utah's pool of psychiatrists and psychologists, I found the explorations and presentations on the subject of narcissism and narcissistic disorders particularly lucid and well-grounded. The cerebral explorations at least afforded some distance from the emotional blood-and-guts of so much actual physical violence. . .

Krakauer, as a conclusion to this study on the sanity vs. insanity argument, notes that it's very likely the State of Utah will execute Ron Lafferty in the fairly near future. What he doesn't say--and I'm not sure he realizes it--is the reason this execution will occur is because the citizens of Utah won't allow him to live as a reminder of their own unresolved darkside issues . . .

They already hate Dan Lafferty--and by extension, his cellmate, Mark Hofmann--for these crimes-beyond-murder, and the prospect of yet another is likely to be unbearable. And of course, they see Krakauer as an accomplice to this travesty . . .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2015 07:58AM by SL Cabbie.