I'm almost finished with this book by Jon Krakauer. I saw many of you recommended it as well. I'm really seeing all of the historical connections that a lot of you point to in these postings!!

Another good book is; An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, by Grant Palmer.

The author lost credibility with me. Read the part about the Hill Cumorah and the pageant. The descriptions of the hill and of the audience members seem intended to put the worst possible light on the Church. Just the facts please.

You read a book that features a gruesome narrative of two LDS sorts who committed the cold-blooded murder of their sister-in-law and her infant daughter, and you're focusing on the description of a bit of LDS window dressing called the Hill Cumorah pageant?

Unbelievable...

For the rest, here's a rerun of a review of "Under the Banner of Heaven" I wrote sometime around 2003 when the book was published and the LDS smear machine tried to discredit it.

And as an addendum to this, I have a copy of an article Will Bagley sent me that he wrote where he says he doesn't believe that Major Powell's men were killed by Mormons in Southern Utah. That one should put the kibosh on any claims that Will engages in wholesale slams against the LDS church because of some agenda... Krakauer is hardly to blame, though, for reporting the story, which does trace back to faithful Saints in the area. Knowing as I do, that Major Powell didn't speak the Indians' language, and that his interpetor was none other than Jacob Hamblin, I find the cover-up story at least credible. Will, of course, is far better trained as a historian than I am however... I note, too, that my abilities as a prophet weren't working on this one; I expected Ron Lafferty would've been executed by now...

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 . . .