Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith / Jon Krakauer

RATINGS

Overall: 5/ 5 stars

Text Level: Hard

Entertainment: High

Self-Help: Low

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime

Page Count: 400

Is this book right for me and my inmate?

This book would appeal to fans of in-depth investigative journalism and those who want to learn more about mormonism.

Buy on: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Review By: Cheeto (Inmate)

Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. He now shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our borders, taking readers inside isolated American Communities where some 40,000 Mormon Fundamentalists still practice polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the renegade leaders of these Taliban-like theocracies are zealots who answer only to God.

At the core of Krakauer’s book are brothers Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a commandment from God to kill a blameless woman and her baby girl. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this appalling double murder, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, polygamy, savage violence, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest-growing religion and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief. Powerfully illuminating, almost every section of the book is fascinating in its own right, and together the chapters make a rich picture, an arresting portrait of depravity. Fantastic book, must-read.

Book Quotes

“As his sixth wife, Debby became a stepmother to Blackmore’s thirty-one kids, most of whom were older than she was. And because he happened to be the father of Debbie’s own stepmother, Mem, she unwittingly became a stepmother to her stepmother, and thus a stepgrandmother to herself.”