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UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN

A story of violent faith.

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 15, 2003

Krakauer lays the portent on beautifully, building his tales carefully from the ground up until they irresistibly, spookily...

The jarring story of a double murder committed by fundamentalist Mormons, told with raw narrative force and tight focus.

Yet this is far more than just the retelling of a grisly murder, for Krakauer ( Into Thin Air , 1997) would like to know what was going on in the heads of the men, Dan and Ron Lafferty, when they killed Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month-old daughter Erica (who happened to be their sister-in-law and niece, respectively), and why Dan, in particular, could be so equi-poised when talking of the event as to display an utter lack of remorse. Finding out requires an extended journey through the world of Mormonism, its history and schisms, and by extension the history of its expansion over the western half of the country. Fundamentalist Mormons differ from mainstream Latter-day Saints in many ways, but their practice of polygamy, notions of blood atonement (revenge), and belief in the importance of personal revelation—their listening to that “still small voice” of God, once a hallmark of Joseph Smith’s religion, until he realized it would compromise his authority in matters of church doctrine—made them outlaws in the eyes of the establishment Mormons. Dan’s “yearning to return to the mythical order and perfection of the original church,” one that had been corrupted by the church hierarchy for years now, led him to fundamentalism, which in turn led him to believe his brother Ron’s revelations: that Brenda and Erica must die for the good of the Lord’s work (that Brenda encouraged Ron’s wife to leave him may have played, let’s say, a small role in the revelation). Krakauer worms deeply into the Mormon religious experience, its fractures, violence, and fight against the growing power of the central government. At the moment “when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination,” then “all bets are suddenly off.”

Pub Date: July 15, 2003

ISBN: 0-385-50951-0

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2003

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | TRUE CRIME

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

The osage murders and the birth of the fbi.

by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.

During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann ( The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession , 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.

Pub Date: April 18, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6

Page Count: 352

Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017

GENERAL HISTORY | TRUE CRIME | UNITED STATES | FIRST/NATIVE NATIONS | HISTORY

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by David Grann

IN COLD BLOOD

by Truman Capote ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 7, 1965

"There's got to be something wrong with somebody who'd do a thing like that." This is Perry Edward Smith, talking about himself. "Deal me out, baby...I'm a normal." This is Richard Eugene Hickock, talking about himself. They're as sick a pair as Leopold and Loeb and together they killed a mother, a father, a pretty 17-year-old and her brother, none of whom they'd seen before, in cold blood. A couple of days before they had bought a 100 foot rope to garrote them—enough for ten people if necessary. This small pogrom took place in Holcomb, Kansas, a lonesome town on a flat, limitless landscape: a depot, a store, a cafe, two filling stations, 270 inhabitants. The natives refer to it as "out there." It occurred in 1959 and Capote has spent five years, almost all of the time which has since elapsed, in following up this crime which made no sense, had no motive, left few clues—just a footprint and a remembered conversation. Capote's alternating dossier Shifts from the victims, the Clutter family, to the boy who had loved Nancy Clutter, and her best friend, to the neighbors, and to the recently paroled perpetrators: Perry, with a stunted child's legs and a changeling's face, and Dick, who had one squinting eye but a "smile that works." They had been cellmates at the Kansas State Penitentiary where another prisoner had told them about the Clutters—he'd hired out once on Mr. Clutter's farm and thought that Mr. Clutter was perhaps rich. And this is the lead which finally broke the case after Perry and Dick had drifted down to Mexico, back to the midwest, been seen in Kansas City, and were finally picked up in Las Vegas. The last, even more terrible chapters, deal with their confessions, the law man who wanted to see them hanged, back to back, the trial begun in 1960, the post-ponements of the execution, and finally the walk to "The Corner" and Perry's soft-spoken words—"It would be meaningless to apologize for what I did. Even inappropriate. But I do. I apologize." It's a magnificent job—this American tragedy—with the incomparable Capote touches throughout. There may never have been a perfect crime, but if there ever has been a perfect reconstruction of one, surely this must be it.

Pub Date: Jan. 7, 1965

ISBN: 0375507906

Page Count: 343

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1965

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by Truman Capote

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Reviews of Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

Summary | Excerpt | Reading Guide | Reviews | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

Under the Banner of Heaven

A Story of Violent Faith

by Jon Krakauer

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• History, Current Affairs and Religion
• Ariz. Nev. N.M. Utah
• 1980s & '90s
• Religious or Spiritual Themes

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Book Summary

A multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. This is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.

Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith , he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this "divinely inspired" crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, 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. Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five "plural wives," several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents. Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism’s violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.

Chapter One THE CITY OF THE SAINTS

For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth. --Deuteronomy 14:2 And it shall come to pass that I, the Lord God, will send one mighty and strong, holding the scepter of power in his hand, clothed with light for a covering, whose mouth shall utter words, eternal words; while his bowels shall be a fountain of truth, to set in order the house of God --The Doctrine and Covenants, Section 85 revealed to Joseph Smith on November 27, 1832

Balanced atop the highest spire of the Salt Lake Temple, gleaming in the Utah sun, a statue of the angel Moroni stands watch over downtown Salt Lake City with his golden trumpet raised. This massive granite edifice is the spiritual and temporal nexus of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), which presents itself as the world's only true religion. Temple Square is to ...

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Review: 'Under the Banner of Heaven' is a dramatic powerhouse

True-crime thrillers rarely hit as hard and with such redeeming spirit and soul as "Under the Banner of Heaven," a seven-part FX on Hulu streaming series that stars a superb Andrew Garfield as a Mormon detective investigating the 1984 Utah murder of a mother and her 15-month-old daughter that involves a secret fundamentalist sect within the church.

Adapted by Dustin Lance Black, an Oscar winner for "Milk," from the 2013 bestseller by Jon Krakauer, the series begins at the murder scene (not graphically shown) as senior officer Jeb Pyre (Garfield) launches an investigation that will lead him to question his own beliefs.

The Mormon-raised Black served as a writer on "Big Love," the HBO series about a polygamous Mormon family. He uses Jeb -- a fictional character not in the Krakauer book -- as an audience guide into the double murder and the origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as set down in 1830 by founder Joseph Smith and his successor Brigham Young.

Don't expect a dull history lesson or a biting satire on the order of the Broadway musical smash "The Book of Mormon." It's "blind" faith that Black and director David Mackenzie ("Hell or High Water"), who staged the first two episodes, have in their sights.

MORE: Review: 'Anatomy of a Scandal' features exhilirating performances

Through Jeb, a devout family man and father of two, we see a true believer whose convictions are shaken by dangerously authoritarian splinter groups within the church. Garfield is on a career roll ("Tick, Tick ... Boom," "Spider-Man: No Way Home," a Tony Award for "Angels in America") and his nuanced portrayal of Jeb places him among the best actors of his generation.

Jeb's chief suspect is Allen Lafferty (a strong, stinging Billy Howle), the husband of the slain Brenda Lafferty, a progressive Mormon played by Daisy Edgar-Jones ("Normal People") with such heat and heart that we root passionately for Jeb to find her killer.

It's always the husband, says Jeb's non-Mormon partner Bill Taba (the excellent Gil Birmingham) who cringes each time Jeb refers to Allen and other fellow Mormons as "brother" or "sister." He has a point.

Suspicion soon extends past Allen to the entire Lafferty family, so revered in the community that they're called "the Utah Kennedys." Dissension within the ranks is palpable when the family patriarch passes over his eldest son Ron (Sam Worthington) to place leadership duties on Dan (Wyatt Russell, blending charm and menace with spellbinding skill).

"Under the Banner of Heaven" builds to a crescendo of suspense. But the whodunit aspect of the series is secondary to the way it tries to separate faith from fanaticism. Is there anything OK about a Mormon father having sex with his two stepdaughters, ages 12 and 14, as a tenet of faith to save a once-persecuted religion from extinction?

MORE: Review: 'Gaslit' blazes its way into your head and heart

"Our faith breeds dangerous men," Jeb is told. And that loaded statement electrifies every scene in this series that uses the past to ask pertinent and unsettling questions about the rise of fundamentalism in a modern world where women need to be subjugated to their masters and "blood-atoned" for the sin of disobedience.

The uses and abuses of faith permeate this hypnotic and haunting series. Believe this: "Under the Banner of Heaven" is a dramatic powerhouse that will take a piece out of you.

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Review: 'Under the Banner of Heaven' is a dramatic powerhouse

True-crime thrillers rarely hit as hard as "Under the Banner of Heaven."

True-crime thrillers rarely hit as hard and with such redeeming spirit and soul as "Under the Banner of Heaven," a seven-part FX on Hulu streaming series that stars a superb Andrew Garfield as a Mormon detective investigating the 1984 Utah murder of a mother and her 15-month-old daughter that involves a secret fundamentalist sect within the church.

Adapted by Dustin Lance Black, an Oscar winner for "Milk," from the 2013 bestseller by Jon Krakauer, the series begins at the murder scene (not graphically shown) as senior officer Jeb Pyre (Garfield) launches an investigation that will lead him to question his own beliefs.

The Mormon-raised Black served as a writer on "Big Love," the HBO series about a polygamous Mormon family. He uses Jeb -- a fictional character not in the Krakauer book -- as an audience guide into the double murder and the origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as set down in 1830 by founder Joseph Smith and his successor Brigham Young.

Don't expect a dull history lesson or a biting satire on the order of the Broadway musical smash "The Book of Mormon." It's "blind" faith that Black and director David Mackenzie ("Hell or High Water"), who staged the first two episodes, have in their sights.

MORE: Review: 'Anatomy of a Scandal' features exhilirating performances

Through Jeb, a devout family man and father of two, we see a true believer whose convictions are shaken by dangerously authoritarian splinter groups within the church. Garfield is on a career roll ("Tick, Tick ... Boom," "Spider-Man: No Way Home," a Tony Award for "Angels in America") and his nuanced portrayal of Jeb places him among the best actors of his generation.

Jeb's chief suspect is Allen Lafferty (a strong, stinging Billy Howle), the husband of the slain Brenda Lafferty, a progressive Mormon played by Daisy Edgar-Jones ("Normal People") with such heat and heart that we root passionately for Jeb to find her killer.

It's always the husband, says Jeb's non-Mormon partner Bill Taba (the excellent Gil Birmingham) who cringes each time Jeb refers to Allen and other fellow Mormons as "brother" or "sister." He has a point.

Suspicion soon extends past Allen to the entire Lafferty family, so revered in the community that they're called "the Utah Kennedys." Dissension within the ranks is palpable when the family patriarch passes over his eldest son Ron (Sam Worthington) to place leadership duties on Dan (Wyatt Russell, blending charm and menace with spellbinding skill).

"Under the Banner of Heaven" builds to a crescendo of suspense. But the whodunit aspect of the series is secondary to the way it tries to separate faith from fanaticism. Is there anything OK about a Mormon father having sex with his two stepdaughters, ages 12 and 14, as a tenet of faith to save a once-persecuted religion from extinction?

MORE: Review: 'Gaslit' blazes its way into your head and heart

"Our faith breeds dangerous men," Jeb is told. And that loaded statement electrifies every scene in this series that uses the past to ask pertinent and unsettling questions about the rise of fundamentalism in a modern world where women need to be subjugated to their masters and "blood-atoned" for the sin of disobedience.

The uses and abuses of faith permeate this hypnotic and haunting series. Believe this: "Under the Banner of Heaven" is a dramatic powerhouse that will take a piece out of you.

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Under the Banner of Heaven  Scratches the  True Detective  Itch

Under the Banner of Heaven , the series adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s lauded 2003 nonfiction book premiering on FX on Hulu today, is primed to fit into well-worn grooves in your TV brain. It is a somewhat fictionalized true-crime story (check); it is about fundamentalist Mormonism and cult dynamics (check) tied to the roots of contemporary extremist politics (chagrined check); it is a show with a sad, grim, and determined primary detective (check) whose relationship to his partner, backgrounded by Utah’s rural wildness, has strong echoes of True Detective (ding ding ding, it’s a prestige-TV bingo!).

If “it often feels like True Detective ” makes your ears perk up or “murder among the Mormons” is a tagline that speaks to you, then Under the Banner of Heaven will get the job done. Better than that — it will fulfill those needs handily, even gracefully. In spite of its overfamiliar rhythms and fancy murder-show aesthetics, there are elements of Under the Banner that achieve something distinct and idiosyncratic. For the most part, though, it is one of those series superficially intended to alarm and overwhelm, a true-crime adaptation that should rattle us to our core and make us reexamine our assumptions about violence and masculinity, etc., etc., etc. In practice, I suspect much of its audience will watch for opposite reasons: the weird comfort of the dark murder show and the particular satisfaction of witnessing an unusually heinous crime in a remote, long-ago place and time.

The most significant adaptation choice is the role of Detective Jeb Pyre, played by Andrew Garfield. The original text explores a 1984 double murder in Utah and the long, twisting history that produced both mainstream Mormonism and its modern-day fundamentalist splinter organizations. Krakauer’s narrative comes from historical research and interviews with primary participants and fundamentalist believers; it is much less focused on law-enforcement figures and the mechanics of crime-solving. Garfield’s Pyre — clean-cut, family-focused, a devout Mormon who believes in American government and the rule of law — is a creation for TV and a one-man foil for the whole dark weight of fundamentalist Mormonism. He is at the center of the story and often acts as its implicit narrator. When the camera twists through a gruesome crime scene, it’s Pyre’s horror we’re meant to register. When secrets about early Mormon doctrine appear as facets of the investigation, we’re meant to feel Pyre’s alarm, to sympathize with the way he’s haunted by stories of early LDS pioneers.

Pyre may fit into the story too neatly. There’s a palpable mathematical precision to the way his wholesome earnestness stands in opposition to the unhinged Lafferty family, members of which are both victims and suspects. Pyre is specifically designed as a counterpoint for the eldest two brothers, Dan and Ron (Wyatt Russell and Sam Worthington); the balancing act between mainstream Mormonism and the fundamentalist fringe is perhaps too clean. But Pyre’s blunt fictional functionality is masked by Garfield’s almost flagrantly tender portrayal: He is so good, so very, very sweet, so sensitive to violence and yet so firm in his principles. The broader arc of his character fits roughly into all the hoary wounded detective tropes, yes, but beat to beat, Garfield gives Pyre a softness that makes his iteration fresher and more well-defined. And it makes his partnership with Detective Taba (Gil Birmingham) similarly appealing, a pairing that resists simple “good cop, bad cop” or “veteran, rookie” oppositions.

Let us now sing the praises of Gil Birmingham. In a show about a bloody, horrific crime within an insular community, a story rooted in Mormon ideology that ranges from clean-as-a-whistle family wholesomeness to self-righteous anti-government violence, there is Bill Taba. He is all the humor, all the incredulity, all the skepticism and wisdom. He has to play the outsider, of course, and Birmingham supplies ample side-eye, wisecracks, and frustration with the cloistered, close-knit Mormon communities. But Birmingham, perpetually the supporting-role character actor in big series like this, is far too skilled to let Taba function merely as a hard wall to Pyre’s softness. He brings an inquisitive, generous curiosity, and when the two warm up to one another, their relationship feels like friendship rather than cold story mechanics. Every scene is better with Birmingham in it.

The weakest part of the series, though, is the flashback story line relaying the history of the early Mormon pioneers. It’s a much more prominent element of Krakauer’s book, where it’s given enough time and care to shape the narrative in concert with the modern murder plot. Here, the flashbacks are either too much or not enough. All the energy and individuality of Pyre’s characterization are absent from the depiction of figures like Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. They are men with hats and collars, gesticulating angrily or falling to their knees in prayer. Whatever humanity or personality we are supposed to glean from them is entirely absent, and that’s even more true for the women. Yes, the flashbacks are pervasive enough that they weigh on the show like pedantic lesson plans. The 19th-century story needed to be either greatly reduced or forced to stand on its own two feet. As is, it’s an unwanted hitchhiker.

Nevertheless, I found myself sailing through the first five episodes (of seven total) provided to critics for all the reasons prestige crime dramas about terrible murders in narrow, far-off communities tend to appeal. There’s a perverse relief in insularity — as long as you can assure your own safety on the other side of the wall. That always entails some willful blindness to the darkness, extremism, and violence that lives much closer. But that’s also why Under the Banner of Heaven ’s Pyre is such a smart creation. He is so shocked and so upset. For a while, we get to share his naïve horror.

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, fx's under the banner of heaven is a shocking, fascinating investigation of faith.

Based on the novel by Jon Krakauer and created by Dustin Lance Black , the FX series “Under the Banner of Heaven” concerns a grisly murder in an unlikely place—a heavily Mormon community in Utah, where a cop like Jeb Pyre ( Andrew Garfield ) says that everyone leaves their doors unlocked. Pyre is one of many devout followers to the visions and whims of Mormonism founder Joseph Smith, which has since fostered tight-knit, wholesome, peaceful, but silencing places like Pyre’s. 

The message of Joseph Smith has different meaning to the members of the Lafferty family, whose story turns Black’s series into much more than an in-depth murder investigation, but an American saga of faith, gender roles, and radicalism. Known locally as the Kennedys of Utah, the Laffertys are initially shown as a high-energy, eclectic bunch under the imposing patriarch Ammon ( Christopher Heyerdahl ), who leads his sons with a tight fist that sometimes has a whipping belt: Ron ( Sam Worthington ), Dan ( Wyatt Russell ), Jacob (Taylor St. Pierre), Allen ( Billy Howle ), Robin (Seth Numrich), and Samuel ( Rory Culkin ). That masculine intensity is only masked so much when we first meet them, through the eyes of Brenda ( Daisy Edgar-Jones ), who married into the family via Allen. She is not too ready for the submissive roles that the Lafferty women (played by the likes of Britt Irvin, Chloe Pirrie , Megan Leitch, Michele Wienecke , Denise Gough ) have more or less accepted. It’s a calm, outdoor lunch, and the pleasant setting contrasts with how uncomfortable it becomes: the harmonious nature of the Laffertys turns disquieting, and that's before one brother tells Brenda’s future husband Allen to “mind [his] property.”  

In a gripping pilot episode, the present part of the timeline in the early 1980s is chaos. After showing up with blood all over his clothes at the crime scene where his wife Brenda and their 15-month-old baby have been brutally murdered, Allen is quickly taken into police custody. Allen becomes one of many messengers who clues us into the progressively sinister ways of the Laffertys, which started with espousing rebellious anti-government ideals to later preaching about polygamy and embracing fundamentalism. The roads within “Under the Banner of Heaven” are windy and ominous, and learning about former Mormon traditions like a “blood atonement” is just a piece of its shocking true story. 

As much as the series concerns the Lafferty family history, charting how their already conservative ways became even more toxic, much of it hinges on Garfield’s performance. He plays one of the most gentle, wholesome cops to have been in a true crime story—perhaps too soft, why is he in this business? But he’s able to talk the quiet talk, with Garfield’s soft voice given a great showcase as he learns more about other family men of his church. As more information comes to light, about the Laffertys but also the history of fundamental Mormonism, the story becomes all the more about him seeing the makings of his whole world perspective. It’s a personal case, with the show’s unique stakes being that of his belief in an institution he seems to have never questioned.  

Garfield’s gentle nature brings us into this from the very beginning—the series’ handheld cinematography initially presents him playing with his two daughters on a sunny day. But then he’s called into work. With Jeff Ament’s building score prodding at the moment, we follow Pyre through a gruesome crime scene, noticing shot by shot the blood that has been scattered. Garfield's face and stillness give us a visceral sense of his dread, of having to approach a point of no return. He doesn’t want to know what horrifying sight is behind a bloodied door to a nursery, but he must confront it head on.  

Using its nuanced emphasis on faith, “Under the Banner of Heaven” gradually depicts in extensive flashback how their ways became so monstrous. The performances, however, are sometimes too overzealous in their manic nature—like how Culkin transforms into complete mania and guttural scripture-spewing. (It doesn’t help that by design we don’t see until later the connective tissue of how these changes came to be until into later episodes.) And while Worthington is especially stiff in a role that also calls for him to be gradually monstrous, Wyatt Russell gives the standout performance here. He uses his salesman-ready warmth and sometimes cracking voice to illustrate the growth of thinking, from why he shouldn’t have to pay taxes, to why he should have multiple wives. Like his father, he can readily claim a challenge from Heavenly Father as just more fuel for his destructive fire.  

“Under the Banner of Heaven” moves about its expansive story of toxic faith with the rhythm of a true-crime page-turner, thanks to its growing list of witnesses who provide more and more background, and its select moments of action. Courtney Hunt (“ Frozen River ”) has an assured touch for tense standoffs that end in revealing conversations, and David Mackenzie (“ Hell or High Water ”) adds fire to scenes that are largely built from police questioning, while creating a robust buddy cop chemistry between Garfield and Birmingham’s unamused, non-religious outsider Bill Taba. Meanwhile the plotting stays tight, motivated by a mystery about the possible suspects seen at Brenda and Allen’s home, along with the uncertainty of where certain Lafferty brothers have vanished to in the modern timeline.  

The series is so expansive that it even takes time to recount the history of Joseph Smith, his wife Emma, and the competing prophet Brigham Young, which is told in sizable snippets throughout. Used to complement what the Laffertys have come to believe, these reflections can feel more sinister and eyeopening than the regular History Channel-ready passages they resemble in production value. It’s more that the editing can be overzealous in flashing back between them, as if overemphasizing how these stories all overlap, but disorienting the viewer in the process. It’s easy to imagine “Under the Banner of Heaven” without these moments, or in so much detail. But they prove part of the show’s own wrestling with Mormonism, and its intricate albeit often horrific reckoning with messengers who use the message to serve themselves.  

In the midst of this story is Edgar-Jones' Brenda, sometimes forgotten about in the story’s emotional scope, but a vital voice. Her story, told by Allen in jail, has a more welcome type of radicalism: she went to Brigham Young University with hopes of becoming a TV journalist, she outsmarted creepy professors who then told her only men could read the news, she became a voice of vital reason while the Lafferty men were starting to lose their minds to the gods in their head. Edgar-Jones creates a rich, spirited performance out of a tragedy for how fruitful a progressive mind can be, and similarly how conservative ideals can so readily eat people alive. 

“Under the Banner of Heaven” is a mighty busy show, sometimes to the detriment of its many ideas, its many stories, and all those Laffertys. But it is held together by its fascinating, unique way of presenting faith—it’s not as reverential as stories so deep in these communities can be, and it’s also more empathetic to earnest believers like Brenda and Jeb. The show is a gripping investigation in many ways, especially as it preaches the clarity that comes in not being afraid to ask questions.

Five episodes screened for review. "Under the Banner of Heaven" premieres today on FX on Hulu.

Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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If this new TV show outrages the Mormon church, ‘they have themselves to blame’

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Dustin Lance Black first picked up a copy of “Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith” nearly two decades ago. For someone who was raised in a conservative Mormon household and had since left the faith, it felt dangerous.

“The [Latter-day Saints] church I grew up in encourages members not to dig into the past, to doubt one’s doubts, to put your questions on a shelf,” said Black. Jon Krakauer’s propulsive nonfiction bestseller uses a horrific double murder committed by fundamentalist Mormon brothers in 1984 to explore the turbulent history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its renunciation of plural marriage in 1890 and the origins of radical polygamist sects in which child sexual abuse is widespread.

When “Under the Banner of Heaven” was published in 2003, the Mormon Church issued a full-throated denunciation of the book , calling it “not only a slap in the face of modern Latter-day Saints, but also a misunderstanding of religion in general.”

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But to Black, it was a revelation: “I was sometimes angry that so much about my own faith had been withheld from me, but I was also heartened that I wasn’t insane, that my doubts were legitimate,” says the Oscar-winning “Milk” screenwriter, who grew alienated from the church as a teenager because of how it handled his mother’s physically abusive marriage. “I didn’t understand why it should be life-and-death to believe.”

Similar themes animate Black’s TV adaptation of “Under the Banner of Heaven,” now streaming on Hulu, which reimagines Krakauer’s book as a gripping detective story that asks provocative questions about the nature of faith and the dark side of religious fervor. Though largely sympathetic in its portrayal of mainstream Mormons, it is also unflinching in depicting the church’s bloody legacy.

Krakauer, credited as a consultant on the series, expects it will rattle an organization that has been reluctant to reckon with its controversial — and relatively recent — past .

“They think they’re justified in censoring their history, that all history should be faith-affirming,” Krakauer says. “They hated my book, and I think they’re gonna go crazy about this.”

The long-gestating series — produced by FX and originally planned as a feature to be directed by Ron Howard — follows police officers Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield) and Bill Taba (Gil Birmingham) as they investigate the ritualistic murder of a young Mormon mother, Brenda Lafferty (Daisy Edgar-Jones), and her infant daughter, Erica, in a sleepy corner of suburban Utah. The detectives initially suspect Brenda’s husband, Allen (Billy Howle), of the crime, but soon learn that his brothers Dan and Ron (Wyatt Russell and Sam Worthington), once exemplary mainstream Mormons, have descended into bellicose fundamentalism.

As they uncover the truth behind the gruesome slaying, the series flashes back to violent moments in LDS history, including the murder of founder Joseph Smith in 1844, inviting viewers to draw connections between the timelines.

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Aside from the detectives — fictional characters Black devised to tie together the disparate strands of the book — the showrunner made a concerted effort to stick to the facts. He spent years doing his own research: corroborating the information in Krakauer’s book, reading up on Mormon history and enlisting consultants to ensure the authenticity of details as minute as the correct regional pronunciation of Zion. (Rhymes with “lion.”) The finished series sheds light on closely guarded aspects of the faith, including sacred temple ceremonies rarely witnessed by outsiders, as well as more mundane traditions, such as Family Home Evening and CTR rings .

This research took Black to Idaho, where he met with surviving members of Brenda’s family, who shared journals and letters that shed new light on the events preceding her death. It took him to Utah, where he interviewed one of Brenda’s unrepentant killers, Dan Lafferty, in prison and visited with other members of the Lafferty family because, he says, “I wanted to understand, in a very detailed way, what went on in this home that created these sons.” And it took him to the Arizona-Utah border, where he toured the fundamentalist community known as Short Creek.

Black, who has family members and friends who remain active Mormons, even met with church officials in Salt Lake City, urging them to reach out if there was anything he should know about the subjects explored in the book. (He says they didn’t take him up on the offer.)

“If the Mormon church is unhappy with me for doing this, they have themselves to blame,” Black says. “The Mormon Church taught me if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. Put your shoulder to the wheel . And I have worked really hard to get it right.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not respond to The Times’ requests for comment.

Krakauer, who’d seen his book “Into Thin Air” made into “a really bad TV movie,” was initially wary of allowing anyone to option “Under the Banner of Heaven.” But his niece, filmmaker Shannon Costello, urged him to return the numerous phone calls he’d received from Imagine Entertainment.

Executive producer Brian Grazer says he was drawn to the book because it was at once a “riveting thriller and a cautionary tale about the dangers of fundamentalism.” He and Howard considered just one writer for the adaptation: Black, who had worked with Grazer on the biopic “J. Edgar” and written for “Big Love,” the HBO drama about a polygamist family in Salt Lake City. Krakauer too was won over by Black’s vision, and agreed to sell the rights to his book.

“I didn’t want it to just be a true-crime, grisly murder thing. The larger issues about fundamentalist faith — and the hazards thereof — are really important to me,” Krakauer says.

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But by his own account, Black struggled to capture the sweeping scope of the book in a two-hour feature. He wrote countless drafts that swelled to hundreds of pages in length. The project went dormant for a few years, then the team at Imagine decided to revisit it as a limited series — a medium that has rescued many a tricky book from development hell.

“Long-form was the right way to crack a fascinating, tragic family story,” says Howard, an executive producer on the series.

A breakthrough came when Black devised the fictional detectives who serve as audience proxies and lend the story an element of suspense. “Without the investigative tool, it felt academic,” he says. “And I didn’t want it to feel academic.” (Black met with actual investigators on the original case who, though helpful, asked not to be depicted in the series, which is also why the murder takes place in the fictional East Rockwell.)

Bill Taba is a member of the Paiute tribe, which lived in Utah well before the arrival of LDS pilgrims in the 19th century, making him “local yet an outsider,” says Black. Jeb Pyre, meanwhile, is a rank-and-file Mormon and family man who finds he is no longer able to “keep his questions on a shelf,” to use an adage repeated throughout the series, as he tries to understand what drove the Lafferty brothers to commit an act of “blood atonement.”

“Because of the simple fact that he needs to do his job, he has to face all of the deeper truths about his faith, and it’s really incredibly painful,” says Garfield, who was intrigued by the specific challenges of being a Mormon detective: “How do you interrogate someone when you’re conditioned to be patient, kind and gentle all the time? How do you interrogate a fellow Mormon, a person that you see as a part of your extended family?”

The publication of “Under the Banner of Heaven” kicked off a period of pop culture fascination with Mormonism and its offshoots. Yet unlike the messy polygamists of “ Sister Wives ,” the drama-prone “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” or the comically naive missionaries in “ The Book of Mormon ,” Jeb is never portrayed as ridiculous.

Garfield leaned heavily on Black to field his spiritual questions and found “there was a strange kind of love there for the faith,” he says.

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To prep key cast and crew, Black created a massive Dropbox folder filled with photos, videos and documents. He gave books like “No Man Knows My History,” Fawn Brodie’s influential scholarly biography of Joseph Smith, to the actors playing historical figures.

And he sent Garfield and other cast members to Utah before production started last year because, he says, “There’s no book that’s going to take the place of meeting Mormons.” (In a nod to financial reality over geographical accuracy, the series was filmed in Alberta, Canada.)

Black officially employed two consultants with expertise in LDS history and tradition: Lindsay Hansen Park, a feminist writer and executive director of the Sunstone Education Foundation, a nonprofit supporting Mormon studies; and Troy Williams, a formerly devout Mormon who now runs Equality Utah, an LGBTQ rights group, and has been described as Utah’s answer to Harvey Milk .

Production designer Renee Read and costume designer Joseph La Corte also spent months buried in research in order to visually build the world of the Mormons over two centuries. Among many other tasks, Read re-created a massive mural inside the Salt Lake Temple, while La Corte fashioned period-appropriate temple garments for actors to wear beneath their costumes.

“I’m sure the Mormon Church will still find fault here and there. That is their job. But I wanted to make that job very difficult for them,” Black says. “I stand behind the show in terms of how it depicts Mormonism — and not just Mormonism but, frankly, Christianity in America.”

And though he believes he has adequately distinguished between fundamentalist Mormons and mainstream Mormons, Black adds, “I also have been honest about the fact that they share a lot in common, and that many of the things they share in common are misogynistic, dangerous and potentially deadly.”

‘Under the Banner of Heaven’

Where: Hulu When: Anytime Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)

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Meredith Blake is an entertainment reporter for the Los Angeles Times based out of New York City, where she primarily covers television. A native of Bethlehem, Pa., she graduated from Georgetown University and holds a master’s degree from New York University.

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Gil Birmingham Took the Road Less Traveled

A star of “Under the Banner of Heaven” and “Yellowstone,” he started performing when there wasn’t much room for Indigenous actors. His persistence is paying off.

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By Chris Vognar

Early in “Under the Banner of Heaven,” FX’s limited Hulu series based on the true story of two grisly murders in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Detective Bill Taba makes his stand. His partner (Andrew Garfield) on a small-town Utah police force, a church member, is getting territorial and pulling rank. Taba, a Paiute Indian played by Gil Birmingham, isn’t having it.

“I’m well aware that my skin is darker than most in this valley,” Taba, who comes from Las Vegas, tells his younger partner. “And I’m very well aware that’s not smiled upon in a 99 percent L.D.S. town. But I know cases like this a hell of a lot better than you do.”

It’s the kind of moment, with a Native character taking charge and claiming authority, that was rarely found on TV until recently. The kind of moment that excites Birmingham. Best known for playing the tribal chairman Thomas Rainwater on the hit western “Yellowstone,” Birmingham, who is of Comanche heritage, has become one of the most visible Native actors on television. That means he’s not just doing it for himself.

“I think there’s a responsibility to represent all of our people truthfully,” Birmingham said from Los Angeles a few weeks before the series finale of “Banner,” which comes to Hulu on Thursday.

“Generally speaking, you might be the only Native on a set,” he added. “So you really have to have some integrity about the nature of the portrayal of the character.”

Birmingham, a tall, muscular and youthful 68, has been at this for a while, even if you’ve only noticed him recently. He’s one of those overnight success stories that took a few decades to tell.

A military brat raised around the country — San Antonio, Kentucky, San Francisco, Alaska — he trained to be a petrochemical engineer. His one-word assessment of his first career: “boring.” He preferred singing, playing guitar and body building. Then, one day in the early ’80s, a music video producer approached him as he worked out in a Los Angeles gym and offered him his first acting job, for the 1982 Diana Ross video “Muscles.” Go to YouTube and there’s a young, shirtless Birmingham, laughing and flexing.

Tell him you’ve seen the video, and you’ll get a characteristically dry response: “Well, my apologies.”

“He’s got a wicked sense of humor, but you don’t know it at first,” said Dustin Lance Black , the creator of “Under the Banner of Heaven,” from his London home. (The show is based on the 2003 investigative book by Jon Krakauer.)

“I think sly is a good way to put it,” Black continued. “You’ll be sitting there, and he’ll be very quiet, and you realize he’s listening because he’ll just slip in a little barb that shows just how closely he’s observing. And that humor, it’s like a scalpel. It cuts right down into the truth.”

After “Muscles,” his physique continued to serve him. He spent several years playing Conan the Barbarian at the Universal Studios of Hollywood theme park, using his free time to go on auditions. “There’s a whole journey of sacrifices that you’re making in your life to keep following that road and be diligent with it and be persistent,” Birmingham said. “I didn’t have the same appreciation for it in the beginning as I did later.

“Then the very first pop culture exposure was with ‘Twilight.’ And I think that’s where most people came to know me.”

An actor’s big break is rarely high art. It’s usually something with a wide enough following to cement a face in the public consciousness. That’s what Birmingham got with the role of Billy Black, father of the hunky werewolf kid Jacob, in the five-movie “Twilight” franchise (2008-2012).

More cotton candy than balanced meal, the movies, based on the megaselling vampire romance novels by Stephenie Meyer, made careers, including those of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. They also gave Birmingham his steadiest gig to that point.

Most important to Birmingham, it made people happy.

“Those movies give a lot of joy to a lot of people,” he said. “I know there’s some debate about whether the books are real literature. But if it speaks to people and it speaks to their heart and if it gives them some kind of joy or maybe escapism, then gosh, I think that’s such a great gift for any artist to give their audience.”

Fast forward a few years. Birmingham is reading a script so good he can barely believe it. The writer has no shortage of confidence. The role is a droll Native American Texas Ranger named Alberto Parker, on the trail of a couple of bank robbers with his partner.

The director, David Mackenzie, fights for Birmingham, and he gets the part, playing alongside Jeff Bridges in “Hell or High Water” (2016). The screenwriter, Taylor Sheridan, is floored.

“‘I didn’t know who you were before,’” Birmingham recalled Sheridan saying. “‘But after seeing your work, you’ll never have to audition for me again.’” (Sheridan was unavailable to comment for this article.) And Sheridan was already cooking up a pet project, a TV series about a stubborn Montana rancher fighting to defend his land from encroaching modernity.

That’s how Birmingham got the role of Thomas Rainwater on “Yellowstone,” the most watched show on cable . Ivy League educated, schooled in realpolitik, Rainwater is a thoroughly modern Indigenous character. He is also the savviest adversary of Kevin Costner’s rancher, John Dutton. Even as they do battle, they share a grudging, mutual respect.

“They share a real love for the land, and an intent to keep the land the way it is,” said Birmingham, who when we spoke was preparing to fly to Montana to shoot Season 5. The way Rainwater sees it, he is just trying to take back what was stolen from his people.

Birmingham considers himself fortunate to have Sheridan, who also cast the actor in the film “Wind River,” in his corner. He is an ally when it comes to casting Native actors, Birmingham said. On top of that, he added, he’s just a great writer.

“His work is unpredictable, and it’s so soulful,” Birmingham said. “It speaks in such a poetic language to the hearts of the characters.”

“I’ll ride with whatever he writes,” he added.

Birmingham is old enough to remember watching the likes of “Bonanza” and “Rawhide” during their first television runs in the ’60s. “They had horrible portrayals of Native people, with a lot of red facing,” he said, using a term for when white actors colored their skin to played minstrel versions of Native characters. He remembered his pleasant surprise at seeing “Dances With Wolves” in 1990, which brought dignity and several speaking roles to Native peoples. (And he appreciated the humor in its having starred and been directed by Costner, his “Yellowstone” adversary).

Now Birmingham looks around a sees a different, fuller landscape. There’s “Yellowstone,” and there’s “Under the Banner of Heaven.” There’s the FX comedy “Reservation Dogs,” about four Native teens growing up an Oklahoma reservation, and there’s “Dark Winds,” the upcoming AMC series about two Navajo police detectives, starring Zahn McClarnon and created by Graham Roland, whose is of Native heritage.

“Now we have projects and productions that are telling our story,” Birmingham said. “I think that’s the thing we’ve been waiting for, this opportunity to be able to tell our own stories from our own point of view.”

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Under The Banner Of Heaven Review: Andrew Garfield's Stunning Crisis Of Faith Steadies An Uneven Murder Mystery

With true crime continuing its media takeover and murder mysteries leading the prestige drama charge, the idea of a series kicking off with a dead body has become a given. Sure enough, "Under The Banner of Heaven" touts all the trappings we've become used to: a small-town community shaken to its core, a grizzly murder based in real life, brooding landscapes with the sun peeking just over the horizon and at the center of it all, one man caught in a crisis state. But rather than following all this familiarity down its expected rabbit hole — a headfirst dive into the mysterious possibilities — the search for the killer is merely a jumping-off point in this story.

An adaptation of Jon Krakauer's best-selling nonfiction book of the same name, "Under The Banner of Heaven" is first and foremost a blistering look at family and faith, delving into the fundamentalist Mormon orthodoxy that fueled the murder of Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month old baby, Erica. Surface-level questions take a backseat to the existential dread caused by the tragedy: what could spur such sickening actions? How could anyone possibly justify such horrors? And where does faith fit into it? If it's a quick-moving crime thriller you're looking for, then take a moment to adjust those expectations. "Under The Banner of Heaven" has a murder to solve, but its primary mystery is the Lafferty family, their troubling connection to the case, and how exactly faith can spiral into savage fanaticism.

A story of violent faith

Like Krakauer's book, "Under The Banner of Heaven" is rooted in true events — and not just the grisly double murder. The two also blend in the origin and evolution of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), arguing that one story could not exist without the other — after all, the very same beliefs that are core to the Church's establishment will later spur the actions of killers who claim a revelation from God as their motive. Not stopping there, this adaptation adds a third element to ground us in something more tangible — this is where Andrew Garfield comes in. After a single episode, you might think his Jeb Pyre is an intrinsic part of this story simply because it's hard to imagine it without him. But the devout Mormon detective investigating the crime is an invention for the show to shepherd us through the story. It's through his investigation that answers begin to unspool and while it's a pleasure to have him stitched into the story, the seams are certainly visible.

Jeb is joined on his hunt for answers by his partner, a Native American non-Mormon named Bill Taba (Gil Birmingham), and together, they are our twin anchors. Bill offers an outside perspective — new to the community and this particulate force, but well-versed in the horrors of humanity after years as a detective. But Jeb is our gateway to the community. He's brushed shoulders with the Laffertys, remembers the days when they were well-respected and like the rest of the community, and is thoroughly rocked by the details of the case. The Lafferty story plays out entirely without him — retold in flashbacks, along with the establishment of the church — but when we return to him, Garfield is the story's emotional core. From the onset, when Jeb first steps into the crime scene to find Brenda and her baby girl with slashed throats, his response is visceral. TV has certainly made it easy to brush off such horrors — how many murder mysteries can you binge before coming completely desensitized? — but "Under The Banner of Heaven" has no interest in sensationalizing the deaths nor brushing them aside. Jeb himself, experienced detective be damned, is weighed down by the tragedy from the second he sees it. He wells up and despite some open tears, never quite finds relief as he digs in deeper.

Firing on (most) fronts

It won't surprise you to learn that recent Oscar-nominee Andrew Garfield is impeccable as ever. We've seen Garfield in much flashier roles before (see: "Tick, Tick... BOOM!") and Jeb is comparatively understated — but still, emotions ripple across Garfield's face to breathtaking effect. Jeb is in the midst of a crisis that strikes deep and his invention here, removed from the book, pays off well for the series.

Garfield certainly isn't the only one delivering. Daisy Edgar Jones, as the deceased Brenda Lafferty, appears to us in flashback scenes that flesh out the buildup to her murder. In her occasional moments onscreen she's absolutely magnetic, which is fitting for the ambitious Brenda, who captures the attention of a young Lafferty son but doesn't quite mesh with the family values. Wyatt Russell makes a meal of being despicable as Dan Lafferty, the aspiring patriarch of the family whose ego overtakes his faith. And Bill Birmingham, though often in the backseat, is another steadying force. Across the board, the performances land powerfully — but not everything falls into place so easily.

The struggle of "Under The Banner" is weaving its pieces together — the moody crime saga, the faith-based exploration, the historical context, and its complex moral themes. You might think leaping between the timelines would keep things moving but the slow-burn pacing dips into sluggish at times, as we inch towards developments. In rare moments you can forgive the clunkiness when it briefly attains its ambitious goals: Dustin Lance Black's characters reveal themselves in stunning monologues and hostile confrontations. Or in small moments when the rigid patriarchal structures are exposed, tearing at Brenda and her fellow Lafferty sisters-in-law. 

Director David Mackenzie guides us from a visual perspective, pushing us to ruminate on the darkness of the otherwise serene Salt Lake Valley community and emphasizing Pyre's internal conflict. All the ingredients are present, but never quite mesh together. "Under The Banner of Heaven" is grappling with so much and clearly has a handle on the insights this story offers, but at least in the first five episodes made available to critics, the pacing is a fatal flaw. This is the true existential crisis — how can such a well-made show get so much right and elude the necessary element of keeping its audience engaged? Much of its winning qualities end up overshadowed by the rest of the series, which seems to drone endlessly and lose itself (or perhaps just its viewers) along the way.

"Under The Banner of Heaven" debuts on Hulu on April 28, 2022.

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Under the Banner of Heaven (Krakauer)

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith Jon Krakauer, 2003 Knopf Doubleday 400 pp. ISBN-13: 9781400032808

In Brief 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 own 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 multi-layered, 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. ( From the publisher .)

Author Bio • Birth—April 2, 1954 • Where—Brookline, Massachusetts, USA • Reared—Corvalis, Oregon • Education—B.S., Hampshire College (Massachusetts) • Awards—American Academy of Arts and Letters, 1999 • Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington

Krakauer was born as the third of five children. He competed in tennis at Corvallis High School and graduated in 1972. He went on to study at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where in 1976 he received his degree in Environmental Studies. In 1977, he met former climber Linda Mariam Moore; they married in 1980 and now live in Seattle, Washington.

More In 1974, Krakauer was part of a group of seven friends pioneering the Arrigetch Peaks of the Brooks Range in Alaska and was invited by American Alpine Journal to write about those experiences. Though he neither expected nor received a fee, he was excited when the Journal published his article. A year later, he and two others made the second ascent of The Moose's Tooth, a highly technical peak in the Alaska Range.

One year after graduating from college (1977), he spent three weeks by himself in the wilderness of the Stikine Icecap region of Alaska and climbed a new route on the Devils Thumb, an experience he described in Eiger Dreams and in Into the Wild .

Much of Krakauer's early popularity as a writer came from being a journalist for Outside magazine. In 1983, he was able to abandon part-time work as a fisherman and a carpenter to become a full-time writer. His freelance writing appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Magazine, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Architectural Digest .

Into the Wild was published in 1996 and secured Krakauer's reputation as an outstanding adventure writer, spending more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list, which was adapted for film (director Sean Penn) and released in 2007.

In 2003, Under the Banner of Heaven became Krakauer's third non-fiction bestseller. The book examines extremes of religious belief, particularly fundamentalist offshoots of Mormonism. The book inspired the documentary, Damned to Heaven .

2010 saw the publication of Where Men Win Glory , about former NFL football player Pat Tillman, who became a US Army Ranger after 9/11. Tillman was eventually killed in action under suspicious circumstances in Afghanistan. ( Adapated from Wikipedia .)

Book Reviews In collecting evidence, Mr. Krakauer ventures out to a lunatic fringe of polygamous self-appointed prophets, where the Mormons and the Martians are almost interchangeable. Janet Maslin - New York Times

Dan and Ron Lafferty saw their quest for security and stature frustrated and then found someone to blame—a description that, in one sense or another, applies to Mohamed Atta, Timothy McVeigh and the Columbine killers. Under the Banner of Heaven is an arresting portrait of depravity that may have broader relevance than the author intended. Robert Wright - New York Times Book Review

Under the Banner of Heaven is not likely to be popular in Utah or other LDS sanctuaries. Perhaps it will inspire backlash books highlighting the violent and tawdry details of Gentile (non-Mormon) faiths. None has a pristine history. This is a chilling book, slowed occasionally by the sheer number of names to recall and relationships to connect, and the somewhat awkward juxtaposition of current events and remote history—not a beach book but rather a tour de force that must be read carefully and savored. Ann Rule - Washington Post

The split between the Fundamentalists and the official Mormon church is the backdrop for Jon Krakauer's new book, Under the Banner of Heaven , in which he explores the fanatical fringe of Mormonism and the nexus between extremist faith and predatory violence through the story of a bone-chilling double murder committed in 1984 in the heart of Mormon country. Emily Bazelon - Los Angeles Times

Using as a focal point the chilling story of offshoot Mormon fundamentalist brothers Dan and Ron Lafferty, who in 1984 brutally butchered their sister-in-law and 15-month-old niece in the name of a divine revelation, Krakauer explores what he sees as the nature of radical Mormon sects with Svengali-like leaders. Using mostly secondary historical texts and some contemporary primary sources, Krakauer compellingly details the history of the Mormon church from its early 19th-century creation by Joseph Smith (whom Krakauer describes as a convicted con man) to its violent journey from upstate New York to the Midwest and finally Utah, where, after the 1890 renunciation of the church's holy doctrine sanctioning multiple marriages, it transformed itself into one of the world's fastest-growing religions. Through interviews with family members and an unremorseful Dan Lafferty (who is currently serving a life sentence), Krakauer chronologically tracks what led to the double murder, from the brothers' theological misgivings about the Mormon church to starting their own fundamentalist sect that relies on their direct communications with God to guide their actions. According to Dan's chilling step-by-step account, when their new religion led to Ron's divorce and both men's excommunication from the Mormon church, the brothers followed divine revelations and sought to kill, starting with their sister-in-law, those who stood in the way of their new beliefs. Relying on his strong journalistic and storytelling skills, Krakauer peppers the book with an array of disturbing firsthand accounts and news stories (such as the recent kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart) of physical and sexual brutality, which he sees as an outgrowth of some fundamentalists' belief in polygamy and the notion that every male speaks to God and can do God's bidding. While Krakauer demonstrates that most nonfundamentalist Mormons are community oriented, industrious and law-abiding, he poses some striking questions about the closed-minded, closed-door policies of the religion-and many religions in general. Publishers Weekly

In 1984, Brenda Lafferty and her baby daughter Erica were found murdered in their Utah home, victims of a "removal revelation" that her Mormon brother-in-law had supposedly received from God. Krakauer ( Into Thin Air ) aims to explain why and how this crime happened by recounting the history of Mormonism from its conception by Joseph Smith in the 19th century and tracing the origins of its extremist sects through to the present day. Using current examples, Krakauer reveals that there are fundamentalist communities throughout North America and that although these sects are not recognized by the accepted Latter-day Saints (LDS) church (mainly because they still practice polygamy), they are able to exist unchecked by both the church and the U.S. government. The author's chronicle of the Mormon religion and its extremist offshoot is tempered by the very real and tangible story of Lafferty and her baby, whose lives were, in effect, taken by a fundamentalist faith. Krakauer, admittedly just trying to get to the heart of religious extremism, remains as impartial as possible toward his elusive and controversial subject, but the result is still unnerving. A thoroughly engrossing and ultimately startling comment on all fundamentalist ideas; for public libraries. — Rachel Collins. Library Journal

The jarring story of a double murder committed by fundamentalist Mormons, told with raw narrative force and tight focus. Yet this is far more than just the retelling of a grisly murder, for Krakauer ( Into Thin Air , 1997) would like to know what was going on in the heads of the men, Dan and Ron Lafferty, when they killed Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month-old daughter Erica (who happened to be their sister-in-law and niece, respectively), and why Dan, in particular, could be so equi-poised when talking of the event as to display an utter lack of remorse. Finding out requires an extended journey through the world of Mormonism, its history and schisms, and by extension the history of its expansion over the western half of the country. Fundamentalist Mormons differ from mainstream Latter-day Saints in many ways, but their practice of polygamy, notions of blood atonement (revenge), and belief in the importance of personal revelation-their listening to that "still small voice" of God, once a hallmark of Joseph Smith's religion, until he realized it would compromise his authority in matters of church doctrine-made them outlaws in the eyes of the establishment Mormons. Dan's "yearning to return to the mythical order and perfection of the original church," one that had been corrupted by the church hierarchy for years now, led him to fundamentalism, which in turn led him to believe his brother Ron's revelations: that Brenda and Erica must die for the good of the Lord's work (that Brenda encouraged Ron's wife to leave him may have played, let's say, a small role in the revelation). Krakauer worms deeply into the Mormon religious experience, its fractures, violence, and fight against the growing power of the central government. At the moment "when religious fanaticism supplants ratiocination," then "all bets are suddenly off." Krakauer lays the portent on beautifully, building his tales carefully from the ground up until they irresistibly, spookily combust. Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions 1. In his prologue, Jon Krakauer writes that the aim of his book is to "cast some light on Lafferty and his ilk," which he concedes is a daunting but useful task for what it may tell us "about the roots of brutality, perhaps, but even more for what might be learned about the nature of faith" [p. XXIII]. What does the book reveal about fanatics such as Ron and Dan Lafferty? What does it reveal about brutality and faith and the connections between them?

2. Why does Krakauer move back and forth between Mormon history and contemporary events? What are the connections between the beliefs and practices of Joseph Smith and his followers in the nineteenth century and the behavior of people like Dan and Ron Lafferty, Brian David Mitchell, and others in the twentieth?

3. Prosecutor David Leavitt argued that "People in the state of Utah simply do not understand, and have not understood for fifty years, the devastating effect that the practice of polygamy has on young girls in our society" [p. 24]. How does polygamy affect young girls? Is it, as Leavitt claims, pedophilia plain and simple?

4. Joseph Smith claimed that the doctrine of polygamy was divinely inspired. What earthly reasons might also explain Smith's attraction to having plural wives?

5. When Krakauer asks Dan Lafferty if he has considered the parallels between himself and Osama bin Laden, Dan asserts that bin Laden is a "child of the Devil" and that the hijackers were "following a false prophet," whereas he is following a true prophet [p. 321]. No doubt, bin Laden would say much the same of Lafferty. How are Dan Lafferty and Osama bin Laden alike? In what ways are all religious fundamentalists alike?

6. Krakauer asks: "if Ron Lafferty were deemed mentally ill because he obeyed the voice of God, isn't everyone who believes in God and seeks guidance through prayer mentally ill as well?" [p. 297] Given the nature of, and motive for, the murders of Brenda Lafferty and her child, should Ron Lafferty be considered mentally ill? If so, should all others who "talk to God" or receive revelations--a central tenant of Mormonism—also be considered mentally ill? What would the legal ramifications be of such a shift in thought?

7. Krakauer begins part III with a quote from Bertrand Russell, who asserts that "every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world" [p. 191]. Is this a fair and accurate statement? What historical examples support it? What improvements in humane feeling and social justice has the Mormon church opposed?

8. How are mainstream and fundamentalist Mormons likely to react to Krakauer's book?

9. Much of Under the Banner of Heaven explores the tensions between freedom of religion and governmental authority. How should these tensions be resolved? How can the state allow religious freedom to those who place obedience to God's will above obedience to secular laws?

10. Joseph Smith called himself "a second Mohammed," and Krakauer quotes George Arbaugh who suggests that Mormonism's "aggressive theocratic claims, political aspirations, and use of force, make it akin to Islam" [p. 102]. What other similarities exist between the Mormon and Islamic faiths?

11. How should Joseph Smith be understood: as a delusional narcissist, a con man, or "an authentic religious genius" [p. 55], as Harold Bloom claims?

12. Krakauer suggests that much of John Wesley Powell's book, The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, particularly his account of his dealings with the Shivwit Indians, should be regarded with a "healthy dose of skepticism," and that it embellishes and omits important facts [p. 245]. Is Krakauer himself a trustworthy guide to the events he describes in Under the Banner of Heaven ? Are his writing and his judgments fair and reasonable? What makes them so?

13. What patterns emerge from looking at Mormon history? What do events like the Mountain Meadow massacre and the violence between Mormons and gentiles in Missouri and Illinois suggest about the nature of Mormonism? Have Mormons been more often the perpetrators or the victims of violence?

14. At the very end of the book, former Mormon fundamentalist DeLoy Bateman says that while the Mormon fundamentalists who live within Colorado City may be happier than those who live outside it, he believes that "some things in life are more important than being happy. Like being free to think for yourself" [p. 334]. Why does Krakauer end the book this way? In what ways are Mormons not free to think for themselves? Is such freedom more important than happiness? ( Questions provided by publisher .) top of page <br >

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The ambitious, sprawling Under The Banner Of Heaven can’t quite live up to its source material

The cast and writing tackle weighty issues with aplomb, but fx on hulu’s true-crime show is bogged down by sluggish pacing.

Jon Krakauer’s 2003 book Under The Banner Of Heaven is a shocking read, one that begins with the gruesome real-life murders of Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month-old daughter in 1984. The engrossing volume quickly establishes that it’s not so much a “whodunit” but a “whydunit” as it traces centuries of detailed Mormon history in an attempt to answer what might’ve led to their deaths. Adapting this complicated source material is no easy feat, but creator Dustin Lance Black ( Milk ) translates Krakauer’s work into an emotionally striking TV drama, in part due to his own upbringing in a Mormon household.

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The show’s grand scope lies in its quietly sharp prodding of the divisions between fundamentalist Mormons and mainstream Latter-Day Saints, who reject older tenets of the religion, like polygamy and other harsher practices. (The phrase “blood atonement” gets mentioned a few times). UTBOH spans time to examine the origins of these issues, and how many decades later, they crucially impacted the lives of Brenda (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and her in-laws. To put it simply: It’s a ton of information that the book presents quite vividly. But the big difference in how it’s filtered on screen is the addition of fictional Detective Jeb Pyre (Andrew Garfield), a devout Mormon himself.

Jeb’s gradual push-and-pull with his church becomes central to UTBOH as he delves further into Brenda and her toddler Erica’s slayings . It’s a risky move to layer in his internal crisis as a manufactured subplot when the show is already weaving in multiple timelines: the actual investigation itself, a backstory of Brenda’s dynamic with her new family, and the relationship between the various Lafferty brothers over the years. The show also revisits the early 1800s when Joseph Smith (Andrew Burnap) founded Mormonism. Luckily, Jeb and his non-Mormon partner, Bill Taba (a sublime Gil Birmingham), wisely end up as the audience’s lens into UTBOH ’s many threads.

Their initial prime suspect is Brenda’s husband, Allen (Billy Howle), who found his wife and child dead in their home in American Fork, Utah. Allen and Jeb scrutinize their perspectives on Mormonism through endless interrogations. It also becomes clear that darker forces are at play here, casting suspicion on two of Allen’s brothers, Dan (Wyatt Russell) and Ron (Sam Worthington), instead. Ruled under the thumb of a strict father, Ammon (Christopher Heyerdahl), both of them believed they were the chosen ones, born to rule as the next prophet, and anyone who opposed them had to pay a heavy price. Brenda, a more forward-thinking Mormon from Idaho, falls under that umbrella.

Jeb’s conversation with Allen helps lift a veil for him. He never had a reason to doubt his faith before. After all, Jeb leads a pious and happy life with his spouse, Rebecca (Adelaide Clemens), and their two young girls, while also caring for his aging mother. No wonder this heinous crime affects him deeply. But UTBOH takes care not to turn his overall religion into the v illain; it’s the men who believe they can wield it for their own power. An enigmatic Garfield delivers a subdued performance as he tackles the crushing toll this case takes on Jeb, a soft-hearted man. Garfield’s work is loaded with si lent, nuanced expressions that counteract nicely with the provocative flair of Howle, Russell, Worthington, and Rory Culkin, who plays another Lafferty brother, Samuel.

To the series’ credit, the writing is incredibly thorough as it covers the immense Mormon background going back to the 1820s. But a drawback of the intricacy is that the dialogue often borders on exposition. Jeb’s conversations with Allen, especially in the early outings, are far too repetitive, slowing down the pace of UTBOH . Don’t get us wrong: Howle and Garfield manage to keep their characters’ discourse riveting and never boring (for the most part), but it’s certainly much lengthier than needed. Each episode clocks in at just over an hour, and none of them are judicious with how to best occupy that 60-minute plus runtime. Sluggish pacing aside, the show also can’t make its Joseph Smith flashbacks nearly as interesting as the present-day murder case.

Despite part of the show feeling like a knowledge dump, UTBOH still stands out as one of the more sympathetic true-crime dramas in recent times. Even in the opening scene, as Jeb enters Brenda and Allen’s house, the audience doesn’t get a glimpse of the bloody gore. Once again, Jeb is the lens here. His quivering face as he explores the area is enough to understand how barbaric the crime scene is. Similarly, the show spends time fleshing out Brenda as the woman she once was; she’s not just a victim. Edgar-Jones radiates on-screen, bringing vitality and depth to her character.

More than anything, UTBOH is a thoughtful and evocative display of reckoning with one’s faith. It doesn’t match up to Krakauer’s sprawling volume, but it’s still an earnest effort from the whole cast and crew, and deserving of its own spotlight.

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Under The Banner of Heaven, review: Murder meets Mormonism in Andrew Garfield’s grisly true crime drama

Dustin lance black’s true-crime drama has nuance, but doesn’t hit the suspenseful beats like genre-loving audiences have grown accustomed to, article bookmarked.

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Police interrogations look different in certain parts of Utah. We’ve seen TV cops ingratiate themselves with suspects before, but on Under the Banner of Heaven , faith is as important as the facts. As one detective proudly avows, “I’m a Mormon before I’m a cop.”

This startling true-crime series tells the story of the 1984 murder of a 24-year-old Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints woman, Brenda Lafferty ( Daisy Edgar-Jones ), and her 15-month-old daughter in the small town of American Fork. The hunt for their killer forces Detective Jeb Pyre – the show’s fictional protagonist – into a reckoning with the violent fringes of the religion he’s practised all his life.

Based on the 2003 book from Jon Krakauer ( Into the Wild , Into Thin Air ), the series finds Jeb ( Andrew Garfield , using only his softest, tenderest tones) still investigating the grisly crime scene when Brenda’s husband is taken into custody. Most of the officers immediately recognise his name, Allen Lafferty (Billy Howie), and from sunny flashbacks set in the years leading up to the double homicide, we quickly begin to understand why.

The Laffertys are an important family around Salt Lake City. In a helpful aside, Brenda, originally from Idaho, likens them to the sprawling Kennedy clan, which is part of Allen’s appeal. She’s moved to Utah in pursuit of two things: a career in broadcast news and a pious community to help her thrive.

But Idaho’s saint is Utah’s sinner. Edgar-Jones is effortfully cutesy as Brenda, and there’s charm in how hard she tries to get the Laffertys to like her back. She mostly wins over the wives of Allen’s many brothers, but the Lafferty men don’t trust a woman with her own ambitions. The formidable patriarch (Christopher Heyerdahl) is a tyrant, and his eldest son, played by Sam Worthington, is eager to inherit the mantle. Tense family scenes are leavened only by Scottish actor Chloe Pirrie’s coltish turn as Matilda, another of the Lafferty wives.

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Mormonism isn’t simply a fact of these characters’ inner lives; it’s the series’ craggy landscape. Under the Banner of Heaven ’s biggest challenge is to convey the finer details of the religion without getting lost in them. In early episodes especially, this excavation happens in the interrogation room, where Jeb and Allen, who claims he’s innocent, engrossingly debate the faith’s core values. These speeches are sometimes accompanied by historical reenactments that wouldn’t look out of place on the History Channel and which some – myself included – may find hokey.

But it’s the sifting of what separates Mormonism from the fundamentalist religions practised in its name that distinguishes Under the Banner of Heaven from the glut of true crime offerings on TV right now. It’s rare for Mormonism to get such subtle treatment in popular culture, with Broadway juggernaut The Book of Mormon and TLC’s reality series Sister Wives offering more scurrilous takes on the religion.

It’s when Jeb experiences a crisis of faith that the show’s pacing falters. The dialogue can be clunky and affected. “Oh, this case. What if it’s not just a husband whose heart turned against his wife?” Jeb asks his wife in what has to be TV’s least sexy shower scene ever. “What if tonight is just the first edge of a bone that’s finally worked its way out of our own desert’s floor?” His wife embraces him; what else is there for a wife to do?

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Who killed Brenda and her baby becomes apparent pretty quickly. In this sense, Under the Banner of Heaven doesn’t hit the suspenseful beats we’ve come to expect from crime drama, but it has nuance the genre often lacks. What’s more interesting than how Jeb’s faith helps him crack the case is how often it gets in his way. ‘

Under the Banner of Heaven’ is an FX production available on Hulu in the US and on Disney+ in the UK.

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Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

By Jon Krakauer

“Scrupulously reported and written with Krakauer’s usual exacting flair,  Under the Banner of Heaven  is both illuminating and thrilling. It is also the creepiest book anyone has written in a long time—and that’s meant as the highest possible praise.” — Newsweek

“Riveting. . . . Intriguing. . . . Breezy, smooth and vigorously written, this ambitious book is entertaining and informative. . . . Krakauer reconstructs the Lafferty brothers’ descent into fatal fanaticism magnificently, interweaving their story throughout the book and giving this wide-ranging work narrative coherence and emotional resonance. . . . [He is] a superb storyteller.” — The News & Observer

“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.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Engrossing. . . . Incisive. . . . [Krakauer is] a very careful reporter. . . . His clear-headed, unbiased examination of the church—leavened with genuine respect—and his conclusions . . . are hard to argue with.” — Boulder Daily Camera

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Under the Banner of Heaven review – Andrew Garfield shows off his spidey skills in this gritty detective drama

The actor’s hot on the heels of a murderer in an absorbing drama set in Mormon-heavy Utah – featuring Daisy Edgar-Jones in her most animated, nuanced role yet

W e need to talk about beards. In Under the Banner of Heaven (Disney+), witnesses report that four suspicious men leaving the scene of a double murder are all bearded. If this were Portland or Shoreditch, where beards are not just lavish but artisanal, that would make all men suspects, but this is Mormon-heavy Utah, where searching for bearded men is less like looking for needles in haystacks and more like trying to find ZZ Top at an Osmonds gig.

Andrew Garfield as Detective Jeb Pyre is an ideal Mormon. He is clean-shaven, soberly suited, eschews coffee and when his partner, newly arrived from the Sodom and Gomorrah that is Las Vegas, offers him some curly fries, he snaffles them furtively under the desk. When the latter cusses, Pyre gently reproves him. He’s soft-spoken and soft-skinned, most likely moisturising more rigorously than Mormon orthodoxy recommends.

The pair form a double act as improbable as Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours. Pyre is unworldly, yet knows just what makes a Mormon tick, while Detective Bill Taba (Gil Birmingham, Jacqueline Vorhees’ Native American dad in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) is a Paiute, so a non-white non-Mormon, doubly sceptical about the saintliness of the suspects’ innocence.

We first see Pyre playing with his daughter, lassoing her with the lawnmower cable – good to see that Garfield’s spidey skills are still intact. But this sunny idyll is broken with a phone call: a woman, Brenda Lafferty (Daisy Edgar-Jones), and her 15-month-old baby have been found with their throats cut. We’re suddenly plunged into the darkling world of the crime procedural, where on no account must a detective turn on the lights at a crime scene for fear of killing the mood (which makes it all the more surprising the murder clear-up rate on TV is higher than in real life). Like the first episode of Twin Peaks, this murder will devastate a small town where murders hardly ever happen, especially when it becomes clear that it is not corrupt outsiders but Latter Day Saints (LDS) who are responsible.

What about the beards, though? Are the killers wearing false ones to confound the hated cops, or are they a splinter group of fundamentalist Mormons who want to revert to ye olden bearded days of yore? I’m looking forward to finding out at the end of this six-part series.

When Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven was published in 2003, it juxtaposed this true crime with the early history of the Mormon church in the US, from the moment in 1823 when an angel directed Joseph Smith to a buried set of golden plates , which he translated into English – a text he never dreamed would be adapted as a hit musical, namely the Book of Mormon.

This dramatisation punches up the Mormons’ historic sense of persecution, from the days when they were a religious minority driven out of Ohio and Missouri until 1984, when the Lafferty family, businesses failing and tax bills mounting, take succour in century-old Mormon teachings about rejecting a purportedly overweening state’s taxation policies and polygamy.

The book is adapted by means of flashbacks, both to the early Mormons’ travails as they strike out to set up Zion, as well as the events that led to the murders. We see Brenda as an interloper in the Lafferty family, a Mormon from out of state who yearns not to supply endless babies to her new husband, but to become a TV newsreader – an ambition that, to the Lafferty men, is an affront to patriarchal Mormon norms.

The role gives Edgar-Jones the chance to be more animated than as the glumly ardent lover of Sally Rooney’s Normal People and less vexing than her turn as what Peter Bradshaw calls “Manic Pixie Dream Girl Murder Suspect” in his review of the new adaptation of Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing . She must, and does, suggest something more nuanced – a strait-laced woman uppity enough to refuse to bend the knee to the polygamous patriarchy. That said, I could have done without the script informing us repeatedly that Brenda is pretty. Show, don’t tell, people.

It’s an elegant and even topical adaptation that dares to ask big questions. What in this fallen world can make a believer doubt their faith? Should the godly render unto Caesar? Or should they hole up in a log cabin to do battle against his diabolical forces?

No wonder some Mormons have been critical of this adaptation: it shows their church as including murderous rebels using a perversion of LDS theology to justify their crimes. But we need not see it that way. It is emblematic too of a certain kind of American, emboldened by Trump, who sees the state as the enemy and tooled-up resistance to it as noble.

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