Jon Krakauer: Under the Banner of Heaven (2013)

On July 24, 1984, Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month-old daughter were brutally murdered in their Utah home by Berta's brothers-in-law, Dan and Ron Lafferty. The sequence of events that led to the tragic death of Brenda and Erica was set in motion in 1829 in Palmyra, when a man named Joseph Smith, avowedly inspired by an angel of the Lord, set off to write his own book of revelations. Nine months later the Book of Mormon rolled off the printing press for the first time.

The machine hasn't taken a break since. Almost doubling its worldwide membership in the last 20 years, Mormonism is the fastest-growing religion in the world. It went from a persecuted sect to a respected state-religion in a mere hundred and fifty years. The Church of Latter-Day Saints has lost some of its messianic fervor and reluctantly renounced its most unfashionable ideas, but in return, it has become part of the establishment. In 1890, under the impending crackdown from the Federal government, the then prophet received a revelation from the Creator that polygamy is no longer a virtue. In 1978 another well-timed revelation lifted the restrictions placed on black people. Not every believer went along with the changes, and even some people raised in the mainstream form of Mormonism found and still find the old ways appealing. This book is about them.

Colorado City is ruled by a 92-year-old accountant turned prophet, "Uncle Rulon". Many of the inhabitants think Rulon will live forever. Television, alcohol, tobacco, coffee are banned but for a man having multiple wives is almost mandatory. Borderline pedophilia is commended; incest is merely tolerated. Those who defy the prophet face eternal damnation. This is the world most people in the town were born into and they accept as the norm. They view the outside America the land of Satan, which doesn't stop them from accepting $6m welfare funding per year. Colorado City is the center of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS).

Krakauer fuses the genres of true crime and history by weaving three stories together into a flow of constantly diverging narrative. The infamous Lafferty-murders, the history of Mormonism and the FLDS of today. The plot leaps and bounces between time periods and places. The view is relentlessly zooming in and out, alternately showing the big picture spanning over 150 years and diving deep in the microworld of flesh and bone human beings.

The Lafferty-storyline starts with what is a culmination of a multi-year long process, the grisly murders commanded by God. It tells the story of ordinary family men, raised in mainstream Mormonism in Utah, strongly embedded in their community, who got under the influence of fundamentalist ideas. As the scope widens, through a string of personal connections, Karakuer leads the reader into the world of fundamentalist polygamist communities. Although the documentary tone tampers their eeriness, many characters and scenes could come from a Stephen King novel.

The present-day storyline is intertwined with the historical account of Mormonism. Despite its troubled history with the rest of the United States, Mormonism is a quintessentially American story. Its past is violent and adventurous, full of twists and dramatic turns and characters fit for a Hollywood movie. The Mormons have been and still are characterized by an extremely strong work-ethos, community spirit, optimism and unshakable belief in their own exceptionalism - a very American self-fulfilling illusion. The religious teachings are so ridiculous they absolutely confirm the stereotype of their credulous countrymen. Golden plates with Egyptian text and magical stones to translate them, the lost tribe of Israel settling down in America, Jesus's visit, the dark complexion of blacks and Indians as the mark of Cain, ... no self-respecting fantasy writer would produce such a story today. If the real-world story of The Church of The Latter Days Saints is A-category, the religion itself is a robust, unashamed C.

Based on countless interviews (many with the Lafferty-brothers themselves) and probably many hours spent over history books, Krakauer's book is an as educative as shocking trip to some dark places of America that most of us think exist only in fiction. But the bizarre, Old Testament style cults are presented in a wider, more positive context. The long hardships and eventual triumph of Mormonism, and the character many of its followers have shown evokes sympathy and even admiration the author couldn't escape. True crime fans and history buffs will both be satisfied.