Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty

Author:
Michael W. Cuneo

Publisher:
Doubleday

Date of Publication:
2001

ISBN:
0385501765

Rating:
10

Summary:
American Exorcism details the sudden rise in exorcisms taking place in the U.S. starting in the mid 1970s. As the author illustrates, exorcism is a booming business in the U.S., even though it operates under the radar. Tens of thousands of people in the U.S. have received and continue to receive exorcisms (a.k.a. deliverance), many of them white and middle-class.

The book explains that exorcism was almost non-existent prior to the 1970s. So, what happened? “…it isn’t much of an exaggeration to say that exorcism today is actually the invention of the popular entertainment industry-the product, above all else, of Hollywood hype and Madison Avenue hucksterism. To most Americans, exorcism without the Blatty-Friedkin movie [The Exorcist] or Hostage to the Devil would be just as unimaginable as rock-and-roll without Elvis, top-forty radio, or MTV” (p. 70). The prevalence of exorcisms in the U.S. today are the result of a pop culture creation in the early 1970s started by Peter Blatty, the author of The Exorcist book and screenwriter of the movie.

Building on the momentum of the movies and books, Pentecostal and charismatic ministries came online to meet the demand – especially since the Catholic Church wasn’t stepping up to fulfill the role it was supposed to have in the movies and books. Until the mid 1990s, in fact, the Catholic Church in the U.S. wanted almost nothing to do with exorcisms. This was the case, despite the fact Catholic priests were the heroes in the 1970s movie and books.

But was it really just a fad or was there something else going on? Well, it was and is a fad, but it is also coupled with a broader cultural shift toward pop-psychology, “Whatever one’s personal problem-depression, anxiety, substance addiction, or even a runaway sexual appetite-there are exorcism ministries available today that will happily claim expertise for dealing with it. With the significant bonus, moreover, that one is not, for the most part, held personally responsible for the problem. Indwelling demons are mainly to blame, and getting rid of them is the key to moral and psychological redemption. Personal engineering through demon-expulsion: a bit messy perhaps, but relatively fast and cheap, and morally exculpatory. A thoroughly American arrangement” (p. xii). Exorcism was recast as a means of ridding oneself of negative behaviors and attributing those behaviors not to poor decisions or even social-structural factors but to demons that were beyond an individuals control. Only in the U.S…

The book, drawing on historical sources and interviews with numerous exorcists, including some of the original authors of these books, paints the above picture. It also describes a number of exorcisms the author observed over the course of several years in an effort to peek inside the hidden culture of exorcism and demoniazation in the U.S.

Review:
I really can’t think of any thing negative to say about this book. Not only is the explanation the author provides compelling, but the book is extremely well-written and engaging. No doubt some of the appeal of the book comes from the subject matter, but that’s just icing on the cake…

The author makes a number of additional points, besides explaining the growth of the exorcism industry, that I found particularly noteworthy. I think I liked this first one because it clearly falls in line with my worldview – the author debunks just about everything having to do with exorcism. He begins by illustrating that some of the early writers who claimed to be documenting actual exorcisms have been shown to be frauds, “In virtually all of his writings since the publication of Hostage in 1976, Martin has demonstrated a remarkable talent for fabrication and embellishment-for converting, by literary sleight-of-hand, half-truths and innuendo into immutable facts of history” (p. 17). This quote is in reference to Malachi Martin, the author of an early book on exorcism that convinced a number of people exorcisms, as depicted in The Exorcist movie, were real. As the author illustrates, Mr. Martin made a lot of stuff up, including the cases he allegedly “documented” in his book. If you haven’t caught on yet, The Exorcist movie is fiction, regardless of its claims that it was based on a real story. There is no such thing as demonic possession…

Several other aspects the author debunks are fascinating. It turns out a lot of people undergoing exorcisms try to act just like the possessed person in The Exorcist, believing that is how possessed people act. But some of the prominent exorcists in practice today recognize that for what it is, “When Father McAlear and myself really got into the ministry in a big way, we couldn’t believe all the nonsense that was going on… The screaming, the swearing, the spitting and vomiting. You name it. We thought that this was ridiculous and unedifying and completely unnecessary. All of these manifestations are pure Hollywood stuff. It’s like people saw The Exorcist and figured this was how they were supposed to carry on if they were truly demonized” (p. 135). Keep in mind this quote isn’t from the author or some skeptic, but from a woman who claims to be able to discern evil spirits and assists a Catholic Priest who performs exorcisms. Even the people doing it recognize it is all made up.

And why do they do it? Two reasons. The first, of course, is money. This is easy money, at least for some people, “Does it ever happen that someone will come to you for intergenerational deliverance and you and your team will say, “No, this isn’t your problem”? …”Very rarely,” Dr. K says. “I can think of just one example where this happened”" (p. 153). This is a doctor who claims to treat people suffering from intergenerational demonic influences. She doesn’t turn people away because, well, people pay.

The second reason: Because the practitioners believe it’s real, too, “And here’s the thing: While priest-exorcists as a rule don’t actively seek out demonic fireworks, they can’t live indefinitely without them. They need them the same way a pathologist needs disease or a coroner homicide – as a validation of purpose, a confirmation of actually being in the game. They’re an occupational necessity… Without the occasional hell-blasting, even the most stalwart exorcist can begin to doubt the relevance of his work” (p. 249). In short, for the immoral religious opportunists, this is easy money. And for those with misguided faith, this is an affirmation of their beliefs and energies. What a sad state of affairs…

At the end of the book the author notes that he sat in on over 50 exorcisms while researching this book and never once witnessed something supernatural. “When I asked why these effects always seemed to occur at exorcisms I had just missed or was prevented from attending, but never at ones where I was present, my informants answered in one of two ways. Some said it was probably just the luck of the draw. Others suggested it was because Satan, knowing I was a writer and not wanting to blow his cover, was deliberately keeping me in the dark about his very real powers to possess people” (pp. 264-265). The author finds no proof that demonic possessions occur, but people continue to believe. I should note, however, that the author makes a good point: his lack of proof is not an absolute confirmation that demons do not exist; you can’t prove a negative. This leads the author to conclude that, while he cannot, with 100% certainty rule out the existence of demons, he has absolutely no proof of them whatsoever and, in fact, has far more compelling explanations for everything he witnessed.

In addition to debunking basically every aspect of exorcism, the author points out a serious problem with the whole practice – the only people who seem to become possessed are Christians, primarily evangelical/charismatic Christians… Hmmm… Do you see the problem? Christians are the only ones who claim to have a solution to possession, but they are also the only ones who are becoming possessed (see pages 92 and 112). When was the last time you saw a possessed atheist? Exactly. Demonic possession only afflicts Christians (in the U.S. at least), because they are the ones who believe in it. They have created a disorder and the cure and are, fittingly, the only ones afflicted by it. Of course, religion in general is no different – sin is the problem and religion is the cure.

But the exorcists have an answer for this, too, “This was an issue I raised with more than a dozen prominent deliverance ministers, all of whom responded in one of two ways. It simply wasn’t the case, some said, that charismatics were more vulnerable than anyone else to the depredations of the demonic. Charismatics, it was true, complained more about demonic interference in their lives than just about anyone else, but this was only testimony to their heightened spiritual sensitivities” (p. 112). The other justification offered, “Charismatics were forced to endure far more than their share of demonic harassment not because they were patsies, not because their movement was somehow defective, but because they had been specifically targeted for abuse by Satan. They were martyrs for their faith, shouldering burdens that ordinary Christians (once again) could scarcely imagine” (p. 113). In summary, Charismatics are more “sensitive” to possession and/or are targeted for it by Satan. (Yeah, I’m laughing out loud right now too.) The author, of course, points out the obvious, “But there’s another possibility. Perhaps charismatics experienced far more than their share of demonic harassment during the seventies and early eighties because they were expected to, they were encouraged to, and (in some cases) they wanted to” (p. 113).

As I noted above, this book is an absolute pleasure to read. Part of this is tied to the excellent writing. But it is also because the book tells some very humorous stories involving the author in specific exorcism incidents:
- “During my research I was given the diagnostic once-over numerous times, with wildly conflicting results. Sometimes I received an utterly clean bill of health, sometimes I was told that my spiritual condition was dubious, and sometimes I was pronounced to be desperately in need of deliverance. Occasionally all three of these verdicts were rendered (by different individuals) within the space of just a week or two. And once, in upstate New York, I attended a meeting where two women discerned the presence of evil spirits in me while two others discerned spirits of peace and gentleness.” (p. 118)
- “Just an hour earlier I had eaten dinner with Pastor Mike at a local restaurant, and now, concerned for his safety, I take off my jacket, walk slowly up the center aisle, and throw a headlock on Brian, which stops his gyrating and gives Pastor Mike a chance to climb from his back” (p. 167)
These are just a few examples of incidents the author participated in or witnessed. The book is teeming with gripping stories that alternatively make you grimace in disgust or laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all (a couple more are included below)…

The last point I want to make, however, is to point out just how disturbing this whole affair is. The author argues that there may, in fact, be something therapeutic about exorcisms, “Thanks to the researches of cultural anthropology, we now know that traditional religio-magical methods of healing may sometimes be as effective in alleviating mental and emotional distress as modern, secular ones. Indeed, the specific method of healing, the choice of therapy, isn’t nearly as important as one might think. As the psychologist Jerome Frank has pointed out, virtually all therapeutic procedures-regardless of whether they’re rooted in primitive shamanism or Freudian psychodynamics -may confer certain benefits upon their clients: the hope and expectancy for improvement, the support and attention of the therapist, the discovery of new perspectives on problem-solving” (pp. 161-162). Exorcism can function as a placebo, which is actually effective for lots of people. But, and this is the part that really disturbs me, these ministers and exorcists, for the most part, have no formal training in psychology or psychotherapy. Add to that fact that there are five to six hundred exorcism ministries in the U.S. today (p. 209) and you are just setting people up for psychological problems down the road. That is disturbing. This is a stunning tribute to the gullibility of people in the U.S. today. Even scarier, however, is that there are some psychiatrists who recommend exorcisms, “Father X might very well have consulted with a psychiatrist on this case, but I’m not sure it really matters. There are plenty of sympathetic medical professionals in the United States willing to give the go-ahead for an exorcism. It doesn’t take much shopping around to come up with one” (p. 261). If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, I have to think our accreditation system is too lax in the U.S.

Overall, this is an enthralling book. It is filled with entertaining stories and compelling explanations. The book walks a fine line between disgust for blatant fraud and blind faith, presenting a skeptical perspective that strives for understanding but does not accept truth claims without evidence. The result is a clear explanation of one of the more ridiculous aspects of religiosity in the U.S. – people don’t want to take the blame for their problems, so they pin it on demons and act outrageously in trying expel their demons, thanks to Hollywood. Truly, all the world is a stage, and for some religious fanatics, that stage includes acting out scenes with make believe demons.

Some extra stories for you reading pleasure:
pp. 174-175 “For a solid hour it’s a repeat performance of the night before. Clumps of bodies sprawled out across the floor. Foam-spattered, writhing demoniacs being held down and prayed over. People not directly involved at any given moment stand by the refreshment table chatting, surveying the situation.
“I position myself by the rear doors, where five young children are playing on the floor, drawing pictures with crayons, seemingly oblivious to it all. Pastor John’s eight-year-old son, sweet-faced and skinny, joins the other kids and says, “We have to draw a happy face. Let’s everybody draw a happy face.”
“Less than ten yards away Pastor John is now putting on a rousing show of his own, squirming in a chair, snarling, barking, cursing (“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck this fucking place! “), with Pastor Mike holding him from behind, praying.
“Watching Pastor John, it occurs to me that the demons at this gathering communicate along rather quaint gender lines. When acting out in the men, they blister the paint with foul language, but with the women they mostly restrict themselves to screaming, shrieking, and crying out such innocuities as “I hate this workshop!” or “Shut up!” In addition to cooperating with the staging of the performance, in other words, the demons seem respectful of local norms of public comportment.”
Brilliant writing and contrasts.

p. 279 “It can sometimes amount to even worse; sometimes exorcism can actually prove fatal. We’ve all heard the stories. In March 1995 a group of overzealous ministers connected to a tiny Pentecostal sect in the San Francisco Bay Area pummeled a woman to death while trying to evict her demons. Two years later a Korean Christian woman was stomped to death by a deacon and two missionaries operating out of a church in Glendale, California. The three men had gotten carried away trying to expel a demon they believed was lodged in the woman’s chest. The same year, on the other side of the country, a five-year-old Bronx girl died after her mother and grandmother forced her to drink a lethal cocktail containing ammonia, vinegar, and olive oil and then bound and gagged her with duct tape. The two women claimed that they were merely trying to poison a demon that had infested the little girl several days earlier.’
“There are other true stories of exorcisms gone horribly wrong, none more heartrending than Charity Miranda’s. In 1998, on a cold Sunday afternoon in January, Charity Miranda spent her final hours undergoing exorcism at the hands of her mother, Vivian, and her sisters Serena and Elisabeth at their home in Sayville, Long Island. At one point, as fifteen-year-old Elisabeth subsequently informed the police, “Mom put her mouth to Charity’s mouth and told her to blow the demon into her and she would try to kill it.” When this didn’t work, their mother said, “I’m sorry, girls, this isn’t Charity. It’s taken over her.” She then tried to destroy the demon by smothering Charity with pillows. This also didn’t work, so she picked up a plastic bag that was lying on the living room floor. Elisabeth Miranda told the police what happened next: “Mom placed the bag over Charity’s head. Serena was holding Charity’s body down because it was fighting. My mom told me to leave and I went into her bedroom.” When Elisabeth, sometime later, came back into the living room, the job was finished. “Serena was pacing. Mom said don’t be sad because that wasn’t Charity, don’t be attached to the body… The three of us went into my mom’s room and she was saying don’t cry because Charity left that body long before. We held hands on the bed and listened to my grandfather’s favorite Frank Sinatra music.”
“Charity Miranda was seventeen years old and a cheerleader at Sayville High School. Her friends informed reporters that she’d been looking forward to starting college the next fall.’
“Cases such as this, I should emphasize, are very much the exception. The vast majority of exorcisms are relatively innocuous affairs. They might not add up to much permanent good, but neither do they end in tragedy.”

ExMormon

Author:
Carol L. Hanson

Publisher:
Lulu

Date of Publication:
2006

ISBN:
website

Rating:
7

Summary:
This book isn’t that easy to summarize. It’s designed like the movie Crash in that it follows a bunch of seemingly separate story lines, but all of the stories ultimately interrelate. Without going into too much depth, let me summarize the main points from each section and see if I can’t give a general overview of what happens.

Section I is about a 13 year-old girl named April who is growing up in a fairly normal Mormon family in Minnesota. She’s kind of in to art and other typical girl pursuits. The point-of-view taken in this section is April’s. This pattern follows in all of the other sections – the person telling the story in each section is also the main character in that section.

Section II takes place a couple of years later and the focus shifts to one of April’s younger sisters, Lynn. The bulk of the section revolves around a Mormon Youth Conference in which Lynn tries to garner the attention of boys with the help of her friends. Most of the action takes place at “proper” Mormon dances. Ultimately, Lynn fails in her pursuit of romantic attention, but not for lack of effort.

Section III involves another 15 year-old girl, but this girl, Jill, is from a different family and lives in Utah Valley. The book turns directly toward sexual intimacy in this section; it was mentioned briefly in passing in the first two sections, but not as openly. Jill is involved in a production of Saturday’s Warrior and falls in love with one of the actors playing a main part, a very attractive guy named Walter who is about to go on a mission. Believing Walter has fallen in love with her, she ultimately lets him have his way with her, meaning unprotected sex in the dark of an empty, cold baptismal font in the Stake Center one day after rehearsal. Jill gets pregnant as a result and ultimately turns to a Jack Mormon involved in the play for help. The woman and her son, Jake (who comes back into the story later), team up to help Jill go to Las Vegas and get an abortion without the rest of her family finding out. But one member of her family does find out, Rex, her older brother, who also returns in later sections. At the end of the section, Walter takes Jill out on another date, oblivious to the pregnancy, and asks for her forgiveness as he is trying to clean up his life before going on his mission.

Section IV returns to the story of Lynn, the girl from Section II, but now Lynn is a young student at BYU. She is still struggling with boy problems and what not, but the slightly bigger issue is her difficulty with Mormonism. In an act of defiance (ultimately reported to the Honor Police at BYU), Jill shaves half her head one day on a whim. Her “flagrant disregard of conformity” doesn’t get her expelled, but does bring the attention of the friend of a friend, a guy from Orem named Rex (the older brother of Jill from Section III). Rex and Lynn meet at a sleepover at Jake’s uncle’s cabin (Jake is also from Section III) and eventually hook up. But not before Lynn finds out that Rex is an atheist and apostate – he’s studying Math at Stanford and has been trying to work his way out of Mormonism. Lynn also finds out, thanks to her trip to the Honor Police’s Office, that her older sister, April, the main character in Section I, is a lesbian. After realizing she doesn’t really believe in Mormonism or religion or god anymore, she and April give up on BYU and go back to the upper Midwest for college.

Between Section IV and Section V is a relatively brief “Interlude” that is dubbed a “gratuitous sex scene.” I don’t think it was gratuitous, but it was very short. It is basically the climactic (pun intended) end of Lynn’s affiliation with Mormonism when she seals the deal by having sex with Rex at the cabin where they met. And if you’re worried it’s a little graphic, don’t be. The sex scene in the baptismal font is more graphic if just because it’s so one-sided and awkward…

Section V introduces another family with the arrival of a long lost cousin who has escaped from a polygamous enclave – Joe. Joe, at age 15, ran away from a polygamous group in pursuit of a better life and education. Turning to the only relatives he knows of (The Hobbs), he shows up at his Uncle’s house to a very cold reception. His uncle is an ass who is only interested in living out his football dreams vicariously through his children. Luckily, some of the Hobbs kids, Sam and Spencer, are kind of cool and prevail on their parents to let Joe stay with them, even though Joe has to agree to convert to “mainstream” Mormonism. Joe and the parents agree to a cold, distant truce and Joe moves in. Joe becomes good friends with his cousin, Sam.

Section VI returns to Lynn, who is now living with Rex. They are both back East going to graduate school in mathematics. Lynn’s younger sister, Annette (remember, her older sister is April; there are only 3 of them), is engaged to the older brother of Sam Hobbs (from Section V). In typical Mormon fashion, the wedding is rushed – they’ve only known each other for 6 months and been engaged for three. Lynn is the narrator in this part and it follows her travels as she returns to Orem for the wedding with her cohibatant, Rex. They meet up early on with April, who now has a girlfriend with a daughter. April’s current religious status isn’t very clear, but she’s clearly not Mormon anymore and stays out of the story for the most part – except when her partner is disinvited to the reception than reinvited by Annette. Meanwhile, Rex takes his younger brother, Jared, along with Sam and Joe, to their hotel to go swim, but instead buys them beer and porn. Lynn finds them drinking back at the hotel and laughs, as any sane person would (Mormon jaws should be dropping about here). Jared, Sam, and Joe are only 16 at this point. Anyway, when Rex and Lynn go to Rex’s place for dinner, things get ugly. Subtle insults turn into blatant insults as Rex’s parents talk about how awful of an example Rex is setting for his younger siblings “living in sin” with Lynn. The discussion gets a little heated, but blows up when she finds a beer stuffed in the pocket of Jared’s coat. Surprisingly, this doesn’t result in a complete blow up, but she sure is pissed. Rex and Lynn head back to their hotel and then go through the awkward steps of participation in a typical Mormon wedding in which they play a nearly insignificant part, as they can’t attend the ceremony or do much else. They do, however, run into Lynn’s now divorced parents. Her father is still a “True Blue Mormon,” so he seems fine with everything. Her mother, however, has given up Mormonism for evangelical Christianity and is now frothing at the bit to convert everyone with the help of her new husband. Add to this Lynn’s paternal grandparents who are caught up in a new pyramid money-making scheme and you actually end up with some rather entertaining scenes. The wedding goes off with ne’er a hitch and the story moves on…

Section VII turns to focus on Jared, Rex’s little brother, as he deals with life in high school. Only a few months have passed since the wedding fiasco and Jared is now good friends with Sam and Joe. But thanks to religion and women, their friendships are suddenly strained. Jared and Joe both fall in love with a girl from back East who is an atheist and wants nothing to do with her parents’ Mormon ways, Andrea. Meanwhile, Jared is being hunted by a member of his French class, Tanya, who is madly in love with him. In an awkward series of events, Jared finds out that Andrea is more interested in Joe than she is in him. In his grief, Tanya is able to get him drunk and then have sex with him, leading to a tense couple of scenes in which he has to try to figure out whether he wants to be involved with the less attractive Tanya. Meanwhile, Joe, who quickly became an atheist after leaving the polygamous compound, is called out by Andrea for not owning up to it to his Uncle. He has put it off since it would surely mean he would be kicked out of the house, but with Andrea spurring him on, he gets his own apartment and a job and then tells Uncle Hobbs off. So, Joe ends up with Andrea while Jared ends up getting laid, but not knowing if that is what he wants.

Section VIII turns to a missionary serving in Bordeaux, France. The missionary is Sam’s older brother, Spencer. Spencer is just about to head home when he runs into three girls from his home town of Orem, UT – Andrea, Tanya, and Kim. Remember, Tanya fell in love with Jared in their French class, so she speaks a little French and her well-to-do parents decided to send her to France before she heads off to college in the Fall. She and Andrea and Kim find “Elder Hobbs” in Bourdeaux and pester him and his companion for a while. The short amount of time they spend together somehow entrances Spencer and he falls in love with Tanya. He nearly ends up consummating his love for her the day before he goes home to Utah, but Tanya kind of flakes on him and he is left wondering what happened.

The final section is kind of a conclusion chapter to wrap up the loose ends. It is narrated by Heavenly Father (which, given the gist of the book, is a bit odd) and takes place at an ExMormon conference in Salt Lake. Most of the main characters come back, centering around Lynn and Rex. They put together some of the pieces I outlined above, but also talk about what happened to some of the other characters in the book. For instance, Walter, the scoundrel from Section III, ends up marrying one of Spencer’s sisters. Spencer, meanwhile, ends up running into Tanya at a party where they hit it off. And that’s how the book ends…

Review:
It’s been a while since I read a book that was not directly connected to Sociology. This was really a pleasure book. I happened upon it via a blog and asked the author for an electronic copy, which she agreed to if I wrote a review. Well, that was easy – I always write reviews. Anyway, what did I think of the book?

To begin with, the writing is pretty basic. That isn’t to say that it isn’t entertaining, it’s just not very complex. I also had a hard time following the points-of-view taken throughout as they were not always uniform. Additionally, there were a few instances in which the author used the same description for multiple people, “Mindy was twenty-six years old, but at heart she was as much a schoolgirl as we were, so she was at least as excited about the whole secret project as Amy was” (p. 53). This description wouldn’t be a problem except it was used just a few pages before to describe the mother of April’s best friend. There were also a bunch of typos, but that isn’t very surprising considered the book is self-published. All in all, the writing is not a serious problem. It could be more creative and entertaining, but it’s still pretty good. Good enough to get me to read the whole thing.

The biggest problem I had with the book and writing, however, is that there are just so many people. Certainly this is a consequence of the type of book the author set out to write, but still… It was often hard to follow, even though the author includes a cheat sheet at the end describing all of the characters (the cheat sheet is several pages long, which should be an indication of how many characters there are). But even this issue isn’t that big of a deal. As you can see from my summary above, I eventually figured things out. It took quite a bit of doing, but it can be done.

Another problem with the book is that a number of events or decisions or character traits just didn’t seem convincing to me. For instance, when Lynn decides that she doesn’t believe in Mormonism and gives it all up, including her belief in god, it all occurs in less than two days. Certainly Lynn was questioning things a little bit prior to that point, but not enough that it would all collapse as it did. In my experience, the period of questioning and pondering usually lasts a while, several months to several years before the real doubts kick in. And then, boom – it does happen in just a short period, a few days or weeks; but the short period is the climax of a lengthy time pondering and questioning. Another scenario I thought was unconvincing and awkwardly written was when Joe shows up at the Hobbs’s house. They don’t seem to think anything of it – they go right back to watching football on TV. Maybe the author was trying to illustrate something there, but I didn’t get it. If a long lost cousin who had been trapped in a polygamous enclave stopped by my house one day looking for sanctuary, I’d drop everything to help them. I would have even when I was a Mormon. The Hobbs family didn’t and I found that odd.

Also, it’s the kids in the family that are ultimately enlightened enough to allow Joe to stay, not the parents. This was a running issue I had with the book – the kids in the book seemed bright beyond their years. They expressed serious doubts and employed complex reasoning in arriving at conclusions even though they were young teenagers. Maybe I was just naäve and an idiot when I was 15, but these things were just not on my mind at that point in time. This part of the story just didn’t resonate with me very well, though much of the book did. This was particularly true of the female characters in the book, who all seemed to like pushing and breaking Mormon rules, “At church they were reminding us practically every other week about how watching rated R movies is a sin, particularly ones that are full of nudity and sex, which were the only ones I wanted to watch” (p. 112). Again, I recognize I was naäve in high school and even during my mission and afterward, but this cognitive framework seems a bit advanced for a 15 year-old.

While I’ve debated whether I think the inclusion of just about every Mormon stereotype (with the exception of green jell-o salad) is a good thing or a bad thing, the book does an admirable job portraying them all. In fact, I almost wondered if the book was written to incorporate all of the stereotypes, building a story framework around them. The book really does hit on all of them – BYU stereotypes (controlling atmosphere, addiction to chocolate, dresscodes, athletes, etc.), morality, big families, dances, roadshows, youth conferences, missions, polygamy, pre-marital sex, etc. They’re all there… An early example should illustrate this, “With their eight kids ranging in age from teenagers to young primary kids, they were the largest family in the ward. Some of the other important families had five or six. We were in the next tier down with only three” (p. 11). The author even included temple weddings and all of the awful problems that come with them – temple-worthy dresses, not allowing “unworthy” family members inside the temple for the ceremony, wedding lines (which I’ve always seen as an assembly line approach to receiving gifts), and the banning of April’s lesbian girlfriend, which was quit ingenious actually. I think my favorite, though, is still the grandparents trying to pitch their pyramid scheme on unwitting children – wow Mormons are suckers for such schemes. I was even involved with a couple at the behest of my father while growing up…

Another small issue that pops up if you know a little about the author is the application of what I would guess are her characteristics throughout to the characters in the book. For instance, from the author’s blog I know she currently lives in France. Thus, the whole missionary sequence in France is rooted in her personal experiences. Certainly there is nothing wrong with drawing on personal experiences to write stories, but it did lead to the one actual gratuitous element of the book – the French dropping. There are probably two or three pages of dialogue and phrases in French, which are more distracting than anything. One or two phrases here or there would have been acceptable, but if you’re going to write something in French only to provide the translation afterward, I think you’re better off just writing it in English. Also, all of the characters are definitely the doubting, “intellectual” type. I’ve never met the author, but I’m guessing that is what she is like, or at the very least how she envisions herself. There is, again, nothing wrong with that, but it seems to be a nearly universal characteristic of all of the characters, which is a little much. A little more variety would have been good (I think she tried with Jared, but he was the only one)…

Perhaps building on the last thought, I was a little surprised by the depiction of young women in the story. Not having been a young woman myself, I can’t really say whether the depiction is accurate, but having them all completely infatuated with attracting members of the opposite sex really bothered my inner feminist. I certainly hope (and believe) that women think about things other than what they can do to attract the eyes of young men. The young female characters in this book seem to have single track minds – get a man. Maybe that is how Mormon women think; I don’t know. But if it is, that’s sad. I also found the prevalence of masturbation among the characters to be a bit surprising. I don’t think it would have surprised me except for the fact that none of them seemed bothered by it. If that is truly the case, the Mormon guilt machine isn’t doing its job.

I recognize I’ve only been critical up to this point, but that’s because I wanted to leave the positives for the end. The book has some very humorous scenes that had me laughing out loud. It also has a number of poignant scenes that drive home some of the more important issues that revolve around being an ex-Mormon. I think my favorite point in the book was eloquently addressed in this quote, “He was a beautiful creature, so strong and manly, yet reduced to a child by his parents’ disapproval” (p. 295). The quote is Lynn talking about Rex after he’s been chastised for giving his younger brother beer. As much as most young ex-Mormons want to deny it, the disapproval they experience from their parents really does hurt at a fundamental level. Most people want their parents to be proud of them, and when something like religion results in a permanent state of disapproval, that’s hard to take. Another great element of the book is that it does a good job pointing out some of the more ridiculous points of Mormonism in ways that bring back memories for those who lived through it, “…but it was really tricky to avoid doing the head-bobbing thing. You know what I’m talking about: It’s when you start dozing off and your head starts to droop, and then you wake up a little and it suddenly snaps back up. The only remedy I had found was to rest my chin on my palms and my elbows on my knees and just give in to the call of sleep” (p. 67). I’m guessing I wasted at least 6 months of my life in that position in Mormon church services and temple ceremonies. Oh what memories…

Overall, this is actually a pretty good book, even though it will appeal to a very narrow, niche audience of individuals who have left Mormonism and become non-religious. It makes a lot of great points. And even though the story is a bit more complicated than I’d like and not always compellingly written, it is entertain and worth reading. I enjoyed the book and recommend it for other fans of ex-Mormon fiction.