Faith is a touchy subject. People believe in all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. Myself, I don't believe in any kind of deity or organised religion. I believe in other things that other people might consider equally questionable: I believe in pretty much all of Savage Garden's lyrics to Affirmation. I believe Oswald didn't act alone. I believe humankind is on its best way to destroy itself and the planet it inhabits. At the same time, I believe in the general goodness of humanity. See? I even somewhat contradics my own beliefs. Still I believe that I'm a rather easy going person who doesn't come across as some lunatic weirdo (that also goes for my offline persona, you'll just have to take my word for this).

Now, the Lafferty brothers, the main culprits in this book, are a special kind of believer. They are the kind of fundamentalist that try to force their belief on you - if you're lucky. If you're not, they'll kill you. Because God told them so. Aha, you might say, I know this kind of "reasoning" - weren't those 9/11 terrorists on a similiar "godly" mission? That's right, they were, says Dan Lafferty, on of the killer brothers: "I have to admit, the terrorists were following their prophet. They were willing to do essentially what I did. I see the parallel. But the difference between those guys and me is, they were following a false prophet, and I'm not." End of argument.

The religion the Lafferty brothers so fevereshly follow is an extremely fundamental branch of Mormonism. To explain this really, uh, special mindset members of this religious splinter cell live in, Krakauer digs deep into the history of Mormonism itself. I've seen some reviews saying "but this isn't a true crime book at all" - well, I do think it is, but it's a very throurough one, for it explains, in details, how Ron and Dan Lafferty became what they are because of their religion an its history from day one. Literally. Krakauer takes us back to the founding fathers, the first settlements, the long journey of the young new faith until they eventually made camp in Utah. It's a long, historical backstory, but it all adds to the picture of why and how such an extreme murder could be reasoned away by those who commited it. Because the reason for the crime lies buried deep in the past, for the fundamentalist branch the Laffertys followed is much closer to the religion's early years than to its current state.

Polygamy - plural marriage - is another huge topic. The church condemned it ages ago, yet many fundamentalists still practice it. Krakauer spends many pages on some of those close knit communities where plural marriage is pretty much your ticket to enter - and his report reads like a horror story to me. See, I know, 2019 and all, and I also think that monogamy isn't the answer to everything. Also, it's like with faith - live and let live (as long as you really let the other live, that is). But the problem with these plural marriages are two things: First, the offer is valid for men only - women don't get to chose a second ot more hubbies to have their way with - hey, it's men who have a hard time being faithful (to their wife), and if God created so many other tempting women, surely plural marriage must be his plan, right? Oh wow, where to begin - I'll just leave that be.

Second big issue: Women are becoming plural wives at a way too early age (14 is totally ripe), plus, they often marry within the family. If a man takes a woman as his second (or whatever) wife, he'll also become stepfather of her children from a previous marriage - but that doesn't stop him to later marry one (or more) of his stepdaugthers. And maybe have children with her - the children's grandmother would then also be their stepmother. And if the "mother"-wife had another child, its sister would also be his stepmother. And so on (I've recently watched Dark, otherwise, my mind would be spinning right now).

Wow, this has gotten way too long and rambly already, but the gist is this: This is yet another very detailed yet very readable Krakauer book that made me shake my head ever so often. Not because of style or writing, but because of content: Sometimes, I wish certain people would just stop believing.

The tragic story of extreme and untreated mental illness; a polygamous cult called the "School of Prophets" which was a fundamentalist group of the Mormon Church and the failure of society to stop the killing of two innocent people in 1984. It is also the history of the Mormon Church and its place in American religion and culture. The killers (one who just recently died in 2019) were a pair of brothers who decided that their sister-in-law and her 15 month old baby girl were responsible for the breakup of the oldest brother's marriage. They decided to murder them as well as two other people. When they were arrested months later, they showed zero remorse for what they had done. It is a bone chilling murder case and covers the religious fanaticism and violent upbringing of the two brothers. Four stars.

If you, like me, went to Catholic school as a child, you may remember the story of how God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Issac. But just as soon as Abraham got little Issac up to the top of the mountain and was standing over him with a dagger, God said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "LMFAO... you were really going to do it, weren't you?"

While I admittedly can't remember exactly how my teachers framed this story, I don't think they wanted us to take it as a warning about walking off to a remote location with your father when he alludes cryptically to a "sacrifice" but strangely neglects to slaughter a goat. Nor should you run like hell, I'm pretty sure my teachers would have said, when you ask "father, why haven't we slaughtered a goat?" and your father just disconsolately stares off into the gathering fog without responding. I'm certain, rather, that the moral as my teachers saw it had to do with the supposed virtues of obedience and unquestioning faith.

This is a strange book for a couple of reasons. One is that the thesis, if there is one, is mostly implicit and never quite stated; I can't really tell if this is because Krakauer is not entirely clear about the point he's trying to make, or because he is squeamish about making it baldly. If you go by the precis, this is a true crime story- the unpleasant tale of the Lafferty brothers, Ron and Dan, two Mormon fundamentalists who come to believe that God has commanded them to kill the woman Ron blames for persuading his wife to divorce him (because he was descending into fundamentalism and sort of losing his mind...or was it the other way around?), as well as her infant child.

The question of insanity takes up a long stretch of the Laffertys' trial. Yes, it sounds a bit loony when you claim that God commanded you to kill, but what if you believe that God told you to play a certain lottery number? What about an athlete or politician, interviewed after a victory, who attributes that victory to God's will? Well, a psychologist testifying for the prosecution suggests (maybe having a little joke at the expense of his own profession) that its the recognizably communal nature of the Laffertys' beliefs- i.e., the fact that while their interpretation of Mormon fundamentalism is certainly idiosyncratic, the essential aspects (that God communicates directly with human beings, for example, with no intermediary required) are in line with those taught by the LDS church- that demonstrates their sanity, whereas insanity would be characterized by a complete break with communal reality.

But it's on this point- on the possible culpability of the LDS church for the Laffertys' murders- that Krakauer isn't quite clear, although the context in which he places them (more on this in a second) makes the implicit suggestion. There is an alternative interpretation, though. It seems that it would be much easier to murder someone you hate if you could convince yourself that God were ordering you to do it. Perhaps neither Ron nor Dan could acknowledge to themselves what they wanted to do, and their upbringing offered them the excuse of deifying (and therefore justifying, to themselves) their impulses. Dan seems to have received the communication from God first, obviating Ron's sense of responsibility for what he wanted to do all along. Later, in prison, when Ron hears the voice of God now commanding him to kill his brother, that also makes psychological sense. Dan, after all, seems to have enabled Ron's capacity for violence and landed Ron in jail for life, and on some level Ron understands this; but better to let God take the responsibly for a desire as repellent as murder.

It seems to me, in any case, that if you are going to blame Mormonism for offering the Laffertys a way of deifying their murderous impulses, you also have to live with the same potential in every red-blooded American who watches football on Sundays and believes a touchdown can be divinely ordained, or that the country itself is uniquely blessed.

It isn't shocking to me that Dan, years later, doesn't express remorse or doubt about his actions. It makes sense that the more adversity you face, and the worse your situation in life (life in prison or the possibility of execution at some future date, in Dan's case), the more incentive you have to believe in the fiction you've created for yourself, in which you'd only served as a divine instrument. Otherwise you'd have to acknowledge that...well...

What about Osama's underlings, the holy warriors who sacrificed their lives for Allah by flying jumbo jets into the World Trade Center? Surely their faith and conviction were every bit as powerful as Dan's. Does he think the sincerity of their belief justified the act? And if not, how can Dan know that what he did isn't every bit as misguided as what bin Laden's followers did on September 11, despite the obvious sincerity of his own faith?

As he pauses to consider this possibility, there comes a moment when a shadow of doubt...and then it's gone. "I have to admit, the terrorists were following their prophet", Dan says. "They were willing to do essentially what I did. I see the parallel. But the difference between those guys and me is, they were following a false prophet, and I'm not."

----------------

The aforementioned context in which Krakauer places the murders, by the way, is the violent history of Mormonism and settlement of Utah. Krakauer tells this history in chapters that alternate with the Lafferty case, and I can understand a Mormon reading this and feeling a little annoyed at the implication that Krakauer never quite states. Is bringing children up 'in' Mormonism any more antithetical to critical thought than bringing them up 'in' any other religion? Krakauer never really convinced me. Yes, Joseph Smith was a charlatan and it sounds like maybe a pedophile, but I assume most Mormons experience Mormonism as a cultural identity, and don't spend a lot of time picking apart the falsities of its origins. Having just read Eric Hoffer's The True Believer, I'm reminded of his suggestion that most mass movements are about cohesion, unity, tribalism. The validity or lack thereof of the movement's beliefs, Hoffer says, are often secondary to the sense of community and purpose. In this sense, it's hard for me to see how Mormonism is different from many other religions and/or mass movements. Furthermore, it's not a surprise to read that a religion that migrated to the American west in the 19th century was forged in violence- schisms, crises of succession, distasteful fundamentalist branches, divine visitations, orgies of bloodletting...frankly, it all sounds par for the course.

Perhaps more than any other state within the contiguous 48, Utah has a claim to being a country within a country. I stayed in Salt Lake City for a few days this summer, and at one point while walking downtown I suddenly looked up at a statue of Brigham Young surrounded by pioneers and felt that I should've had a visa or at least my passport on me; these were another people's idols, I was a foreigner (I was even drinking coffee), and I felt I should've been ready to explain my presence in their land. But then again almost half the population of Salt Lake City, Krakauer tells us, is Gentile (in the Mormon sense of the word), and it is apparently thought of by most serious Mormons the way most Louisianans think of New Orleans- morally compromised. Nearby Utah County, on the other hand, which includes Provo and Brigham Young University (BYU), Gary Gilmore country, is "the most Republican county in the most Republican state in the union." The Republican ethos of state's rights resonates strongly with Utah's origins- opposition to the federal government, almost a de facto kingdom until Washington clamped down- and continue to play a strong role in its modern-day politics, considering that Lyndon Johnson, in 1964, was the last Democratic candidate to win Utah's electoral votes. Near the end of the book, Krakauer quotes a sociologist who claims that by the year 2080, given the Mormons' tendency to proselytize, we can estimate that there will be 265 million of them on the planet. The implication being...well, what exactly? Krakauer then quotes Harold Bloom, who believes that within sixty or so years, governing the United States will become "impossible without Mormon cooperation", and that perhaps polygamy, supposedly abolished in the modern LDS church, will become the law of the land. At this point I worried that Krakauer was about to veer into the territory of my conservative Christian cousins, who spent the Obama administration genuinely worried about the imposition of Sharia law; but to his credit, he allows that "if Bloom's forecast is alarming, it also seems far-fetched."

How far away are we really though, you may find yourself wondering while lying awake at night, from that dystopian future? Bloom's prediction could have come true in 2012, when Mitt Romney ran for president, but I would say we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, assuming human civilization lasts that long. A slightly more pressing matter might be governing the US without Russian cooperation. A Mormon candidate ran for president in 2016 as well, with slightly less attention paid to him; this was Evan McMullin, a graduate of BYU and former CIA officer. McMullin ran as an Independent, and was said in the months leading up to the election to be mounting a serious challenge to Donald Trump in solid red Utah. Mormons, or so I read, apparently did not appreciate Trump's brand of uncouth New York straight-talk, and it was suggested that McMullin could win the state's 6 electoral votes (conceivably crucial) or siphon enough support from Trump to hand the state to Hillary Clinton, or even to Gary Johnson. But of course Trump prevailed, both overall and in Utah, and Bloom's chilling prophecy remains unfulfilled...for now. Considering the rise of emboldened alt-right groups across the country since Nov. 8, however, and the general assault on the rule of law, it's hard for me to work up much hysteria at the thought of emboldened Mormons, who, as far as I can tell, would do nothing more than aggressively pick up our cigarette butts from the ground behind us and argue even more persuasively while proselytizing at our doors.

Leave it to me to avoid a bandwagon (see: "Arrested Development") and finally opt to read this heralded book about Mormon killers while on vacation. Shew.

And by Mormon killers I do mean both people who kill Mormons and Mormons who kill (kill "Gentiles" [anyone not Mormon, including Jews] and kill their own). The book is timely in that Mormon fundamentalists recently sprang into the news again, though hardly by their own desire, with the Texas polygamist colony fiasco in which lachrymose children were stripped from their prairie-dress–wearing mothers and placed with protective services. That intrusion's since been ruled unlawful, and the children were even returned to the compound, to their families.

It surely bears noting that this book centers on the killing of a mainline Mormon mother and her infant daughter by fundie Mormons, her estranged husband and brother-in-law. In adopting this thread throughout the book, Krakauer (the uber-successful magazine scribe of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air fame) frames it much like In Cold Blood, Capote's groundbreaking, timeless work. Indeed, it appears more and more as the book progresses that, when he's not content to simply play a prof of Mormon history for a chapter or two, Krakauer's eager to make this read his best go at copping Capote.

He largely succeeds. The book's a bit long at 360ish pages but shorter than, say, Devil in the White City, a book I kinda wanted to lump it in with. It's engrossing, immensely readable. The beliefs (of mainline Mormons and their fundie brethren, whether they acknowledge them or not), the histories (grislier than you could imagine, with the prophet Joseph Smith going out in an OK Corral-styled bloodbath in a jailhouse), and the personalities (of Smith, of Brigham Young, and of the everyday Mormons and splinter-group leaders encountered) are all larger than life. Even Elizabeth Smart and her kidnapper make it into the mix, though it seems a distracting digression every time Krakauer drums it up. (We can only assume he bothers due to the CNN familiarity factor.)

If this is in fact "the one true entirely American religion," it's a fascinating one. Among the lighter beliefs is that Mormons don't drink coffee or take in caffeine. Then there's the timeline for the permissibility of polygamy (or "spiritual wifery," or "celestial marriage," or whatEVER), which is entirely debatable, depending on who you talk to. I grew so very angry at Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, particularly the former, for the obvious con men, hypocrites, and oft-deplorable husbands and human beings they were, this despite their undeniable charms and ways with words and movement building. (Sound like anyone in today's America?) That someone (Smith) can decry polygamy while at the same time ravishing 20- or even 15-year-old brides himself (up to 45 of them in all) is just something to mourn. (Question: How does someone even maintain 45 relationships at once? Probably because they're not relationships.)

What's more, a lot of the family trees depicted here have inbred branches growing out of inbred branches. I can't emphasize enough how supremely screwed up it is, stepdaughters being taken by their stepfathers and so on. (But to be fair, this was also the century of stateside slavery perped by us Gentiles, although so many wives in this Mormon era could also be deemed slaves.) It's also a chore to follow some of Krakauer's pedigree delineations, reminds one of trying to keep straight all the real-life political characters in Woodward and Bernstein's riveting-and-then-dull All The President's Men.

The story begins and ends with the tragic, disgusting deaths of a smart, strong-willed young woman and her daughter. The details of the murders are recounted in such a way that In Cold Blood didn't chill me, in ways that the sexual assault and killing of the girl Susie Salmon in The Lovely Bones' first chapter didn't get to me. I could barely read the relevant sections of this book, wondered why Krakauer included them and wished he'd pull up the reins. But he was and is relentless with all that he does, and writes, and that will not change.

A lot about even mainline Mormonism doesn't make sense to me, and seems hushed up so "Gentiles" won't trip over it, but the fact remains that, when you meet and know Mormons, you realize they are quite wonderful people. They do much for communities and are largely successful, driven, faithful people. (I mean, look at Mitt Romney.) It just so happens that most of the Mormons - mainliners and fundies both - met in this book are horrendous people, particularly Ron and Dan Lafferty. God bless Brenda and Erica Lafferty, their lives cut far too short by the most senseless reasoning.