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scoopscallahan 's review for:
Under the Banner of Heaven
by Jon Krakauer
While the hook of the story is a gruesome double murder carried out by Mormon fundamentalists claiming they were divinely commanded to commit the crime, the book is really more an historical overview of the Mormon church and its fundamentalist offshoots. The narrative jumps between the modern era, talking about the increasing prominence of the Mormon church, and its distant and more recent history, including oppression of the Mormons by early settlers and some instances of violence in the church's history that it would probably soon rather forget.
Not knowing a lot about the Mormon church--the first major "American religion"--I found it to be both informative and interesting, thanks to Krakauer's investigative reporting skills. Maybe the most impressive part was Krakauer's ability to navigate and explain in readable terms extremely complex family trees (including a young teen who, through a plural marriage to her stepmother's father, becomes her own step-grandmother). Some of these parts of the book were difficult to follow because of the complexities of the relationships, and difficult to read because of the descriptions of atrocities committed by some of the fundamentalist polygamists in the book, but it was still a compelling read that had a good mix of history and narrative structure.
Not knowing a lot about the Mormon church--the first major "American religion"--I found it to be both informative and interesting, thanks to Krakauer's investigative reporting skills. Maybe the most impressive part was Krakauer's ability to navigate and explain in readable terms extremely complex family trees (including a young teen who, through a plural marriage to her stepmother's father, becomes her own step-grandmother). Some of these parts of the book were difficult to follow because of the complexities of the relationships, and difficult to read because of the descriptions of atrocities committed by some of the fundamentalist polygamists in the book, but it was still a compelling read that had a good mix of history and narrative structure.