col.chirac de la belette

NY Times, Books of The Times, July 17, 2003

"The Mormon Image, From Alien to Human"
By JANET MASLIN

On the Book:
PREDATORS, PREY AND OTHER KINFOLK
Growing Up in Polygamy
By Dorothy Allred Solomon

This is sure to be the most often repeated brutal detail from Jon
Krakauer's new book: that a Mormon Fundamentalist named Dan Lafferty
spoke briefly to his 15-month-old niece on July 24, 1984, just before
he killed her with a 10-inch boning knife. Mr. Lafferty explains to
the author from his permanent home in a Utah state prison, "I told
her: `I'm not sure what this is all about, but apparently it's God's
will that you leave this world. Perhaps we can talk about it later.' "

"Under the Banner of Heaven" wants to talk about it now. It wants to
link the double murder of Erica and her mother, Brenda Lafferty,
committed by two of her brothers-in-law, to a larger and no less
bloody tableau of Mormon extremism throughout American history. In
collecting evidence, Mr. Krakauer ventures out to a lunatic fringe of
polygamous self-appointed prophets, where the Mormons and the Martians
are almost interchangeable.

He is even able to connect them to the fanatics found on Mount Everest
in his enormously successful "Into Thin Air," a bravura display of his
nonfiction storytelling skills. While Mr. Krakauer is clearly
interested in obsessive, risk-taking mavericks (and described them so
well in the act of mountain-climbing), this book does not evolve
naturally from that one.

Long underwear is a common factor, even if it is worn less
understandably by devout polygamists in the desert than by freezing
mountaineers. But "Under the Banner of Heaven" understands this as
freakishness rather than fervor. Echoing Mark Twain's opinion that
"The Book of Mormon" is "chloroform in print," this book provides more
voyeuristic astonishment than curiosity or understanding.

For readers who know nothing of even the mainstream Mormon past, Mr.
Krakauer presents details that indeed sound stranger than fiction: how
the angel Moroni told Joseph Smith Jr. of 1,400-year-old solid gold
plates bearing scripture, buried in upstate New York; how the Mormons
fled from a place called Nauvoo (in Illinois, not on a planet far, far
away); how a "peep stone" can provide magical visions; how even the
deceased can be inducted into the fold.

This history is complex enough for the book to warrant many long
footnotes, enough to indicate organizational difficulties. It becomes
even more tangled in investigating fundamentalist sects and splinter
groups devoted to plural marriage as a holy principle and to the
abundance of dangerous self-proclaimed prophets like Dan and Ron
Lafferty. Ron, who once tried to kill Dan because God told him to,
also believes that God has said to him: "And surely I will fulfill all
my promises unto my servant Ron."

Shifting bumpily between chapters devoted to historical events and
present-day loose cannons, Mr. Krakauer has also shoehorned in a
chapter about the abduction of Elizabeth Smart at age 14 and a
covetous polygamist, Brian David Mitchell, the chief suspect in the
case. This section is more obligatory than revealing, but it
underscores the pattern of sexual abuse and incest that runs through
this material. Among many examples unearthed by Mr. Krakauer is that
of a man named Kenyon Blackmore. One of his daughters says she was
raped by him and says he means to "marry" her sisters when each one
turns 12.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Krakauer has ruffled feathers in the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which disavows such behavior. He
has also prompted what is sure to be renewed interest in Mormon life.
Sally Denton's "American Massacre" (Knopf, $26.95) overlaps with
"Under the Banner of Heaven" in investigating the 1857 Mountain
Meadows Massacre, which implicated Mormons in the killing of pioneers
from Arkansas.

Dorothy Allred Solomon, who comes from a prominent line of
polygamists, puts a more human face on this subject by describing her
own experience as the 28th of her father's 48 children. She was raised
by seven mothers and remembers a time "when Daddy went away to
college." This was actually when he served five years in prison for
illegal cohabitation.

If Ms. Solomon's story sometimes sounds like the stuff of daytime
television talk shows, it is. She regrets having been bumped from a
date on "Donahue" by Winnie Mandela and has appeared with Sally Jessy
Raphael. But it is a remarkable tale. She grew up with the knowledge
that the mere fact of her birth could mean more prison time for her
father, Dr. Rulon C. Allred (who is also mentioned by Mr. Krakauer).
She hid with her family to avoid government raids and tells how one
faction wound up in a remote spot, living on nothing but carrots.

And of course she witnessed the everyday reality of a polygamous
family. "You promised us you would marry only virgins," she says that
the mothers insisted, when Dr. Allred wondered whether it was his
spiritual duty to take more wives. (He did. He wound up with 16.) Dr.
Allred's assassination in 1977 by a rival fundamentalist group fits
into the bloody tradition that all these books describe.

Ms. Solomon is best when not being lyrical. ("The truth is cold, a
peach frozen in January.") And for the most part she is outspoken and
frank, free of the dissembling to avoid prosecution that she calls
"practicing Mormon logic." To Mr. Krakauer, this is "lying for the
Lord."


--------------------
Chirac De La Belette
Faute de mieux, j'ai regardé la télé.
*************************************
The 100 most important US papers, at:
http://www.geocities.com/el_cordove/Top_100.htm