Book review - Under the Banner of Heaven

While I'm waiting for the results of the KS 6A Cross Country races being run at the legendary Rim Rock Farms near Lawrence, KS, I thought that I would share a review of Jon Krakauer's book, Under the Banner of Heaven. I write reviews for books on Goodreads every now and then. I rarely, if ever, share them on this blog. I thought I'd try it out. If I ever do post a review, I promise it will only be for a book I like. I don't see a lot of point in telling you about a book I don't think anyone should read - although movies are a different story (someday I'll post a list of movies I despise - watch out James Cameron, you have at least 2 on the list;-).


Under the Banner of Heaven is a very disturbing book. It is less upsetting in its coverage of the crime, around which the book is centered, than it is when discussing the founding and history of the religion to which the murderers adhered. To be fair, mainstream Mormons would certainly distinguish their beliefs from those of the Fundmentalist LDS of which Krakauer writes. Still, in looking at the founding of any religion (ie: Judaism, Christianity, or Islam), the backstory isn't usually a light-hearted walk in the park. And the founding of the Mormon religion, as Krakauer relates it, follows suit - and in some ways is much more upsetting because the events didn't occur in biblical times, but only 130-160 years ago.

The book is well-written and a gripping (if uneasy) read. It is hard to put down and stays with you once you finish it. In reading Under the Banner of Heaven, I was struck by how much I felt it reminded me (on a gut-check level) of Mao: The Unknown Story, by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. While the books cover very different subject matter, they left me with the same queasy feeling - in fact, I could not get through the Mao book as much as I wanted to do so. The creation of a religion (not just Mormonism) seems to have a lot in common with the creation of a political movement. And violence, some of it on a barely comprehensible scale, is a trait both share.

Other than being a tale of murder and a historical work, Under the Banner of Heaven has a lot to offer in the way it looks at faith and how it changes during the course of people's lives. In some cases, faith grows stronger. In others, it lessens or adapts to accommodate changes in the world around the believer. Questions around faith are not uncommon in Krakauer's works. The way one of the people living in Colorado City loses faith in the course of the book (and ultimately professes atheism), mirrors the abrupt way in which Ron Franz stops believing in God after Chris McCandless dies in Krakauer's more famous work, Into the Wild.

In the end, Under the Banner of Heaven has a lot to offer. A reader will learn a lot - some of which s/he might not want to know. But the reader will come away with a better understanding of a truly American religion, and have quite a bit to think about in terms of the limits of religious faith and how it affects our personal and public lives.