Under the Banner of Heaven touts itself as "a story of violent faith." In a sense, I suppose that's true. But really, it is two stories. One is about violence; one is about faith. Sometimes they intertwine. Krakauer's interpretation, however, would have you believe that one motivates the other. The central study of the book is the case of the Lafferty murders, in which two brothers killed a third brother's wife and child because...well, why? Krakauer and I disagree, probably because if I'm right then there is no excuse for him to write Under the Banner of Heaven.
I'll tell you why those two men committed those murders: because they were insane, that's why. But Krakauer, for almost the entire book, takes the murderers' explanation of "God told me to" at face value and runs with it. Instead of the thesis of "people do bad things in the name of religion," we are presented with the alternative of "religion makes people do bad things" and expected to swallow it. As a religious person, it made me gag.
It isn't until the very end of the book that Krakauer delves into the complicated maneuvering by both the defending and prosecuting attorneys of the Lafferty brothers to prove (defense) or disprove (prosecution) the murderers' insanity, and resulting innocence (defense) or guilt (prosecution). And still, the germane question is never answered, nor even raised, by Krakauer or, admittedly, the court itself: isn't it possible that they were both insane and guilty? It's a shame that our legal system apparently does not allow for such a circumstance.
The other issue at hand in Under the Banner of Heaven is the author's rampant disingenuousness. I am not a historian, so I can't comment on his research methods or presentation of disputed sources. But to present Mormonism in such a callous, sloppy manner is an insult to his (presumed) intelligence as well as to all of us members of the faith who don't turn into fundamentalist wackos. I just feel lucky that I was able to see through the sweeping generalizations he made; others who aren't familiar with Mormonism or, worse, who are relying on this book to inform them will not be so lucky. Because Krakauer says things in the book that he must know (from his copious, thorough research, I presume) are misleading, but he allows the reader to infer the obvious anyway.
Here's a small, mostly harmless example involving Brigham Young University. First, he describes it as "Mormondom's flagship institution of higher learning, owned and tightly controlled by the LDS Church." The latter part of that sentence I will not argue with. However, when "owned and tightly controlled by the LDS Church" is coupled with "Mormondom's flagship institution of higher learning," what kind of a picture does that paint? To me, it insinuates a two-bit joke of a college run by religious crazies rather than a legitimate university, one of the largest private universities in the United States, and certainly a respected one.
It gets laughably worse. Krakauer apparently spent at least a few minutes on campus because he is able to describe it in this manner:
"Each of the young Mormons one encounters is astonishingly well groomed and neatly dressed. [...] Heeding the dictum 'Cougars don't cut corners,' students keep to the sidewalks as they hurry to make it to class on time; nobody would think of attempting to shave a few precious seconds by treading on the manicured grass. Everyone is cheerful, friendly, and unfailingly polite" (page 81).
Well groomed and neatly dressed - well, probably, at least in comparison to a lot of other universities. Cheerful, friendly, and unfailingly polite? Thanks, Mr. Krakauer, I'll take it, even if it's not entirely true, at least not of everybody and not all the time.
But please. Everyone knows the running joke about "Cougars don't cut corners." The grounds crew put signs saying so on the edges of the grass all over campus and some wise guy went around cutting the corners off of all of them. Let alone the fact that most of us did, in fact, think about cutting across the grass all the time and actually did so only slightly less often. I guess we're going straight to hell.
More harmful are the conclusions we are left to draw when he describes the Lafferty family in their early days as normal, faithful, mainstream Mormons - representative of all members of their faith, apparently, if the author is to be believed. But a few pages later, when he describes how Mr. Lafferty regularly beat up Mrs. Lafferty in front of the kids, where is the disclaimer, or parenthetical aside, or something to tell us that contrary to what he said before, this is not normal behavior for a Mormon in good standing with the church? By his silence, Krakauer allows us to erroneously draw the conclusion that wife-beating is part and parcel of the Mormon religion.
Which, finally, leads to that most tragic of oft-committed journalistic errors regarding the LDS Church: the failure to distinguish adequately between Mormons and Mormon Fundamentalists. It is a mistake that has so often been addressed, so often fruitlessly, by the LDS Church that I was almost too bored to get angry about it when I encountered it in droves in Under the Banner of Heaven.
I was left unable to appreciate the book as a work of historical research. Instead, I was left thinking - "If Krakauer can't even get that right, why should I accept him as an authority on all things Mormon history?" He left the door wide open for anyone and everyone to question everything else he says in the book.
So, Mr. Krakauer - continue writing about Mt. Everest and other outdoor adventures. But unless you're going to do it in earnest, leave my religion (and my university) alone.