An Unusual View on Joseph Smith and Polygamy
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Meg StoutJanuary 8, 2015
I had a friend who fell in love with Sam Taylor's writings after I shared Heaven Knows Why. After she'd read through all the less-controversial books, I admitted that he'd also written Nightfall at Nauvoo, and lent her the copy I hadn't really read since being a teenager. I told her how it had bothered me, but suggested that perhaps I'd been a kid. My friend called me a day or so later, sounding like death. "Why should I remain a member of this Church?!?!?" she asked. I responded by asking her how she would wire an attic light. And then I gave her a copy of Scott Card's Saints. She found Saints sufficiently not weird that she was able to back away from the cliff.To Wester, who is "Javiera?" The one that comes up when I google the name didn't debut as a signer until three years after Sam died.
Nadine AndertonJanuary 7, 2015
Why read fiction? You do know what fiction is, don't you? It's someone's opinion about a situation, not factual. There are many novel (fiction) about polygamy, and most of the ones I've read are very anti-Mormon. They often promote the idea that I've seen in current "fundamental" polygamous communities where the older "authorities" marry all the pretty younger women or girls and the younger men are left without anyone to marry. That just didn't happen. Polygamous marriages had to be approved, and were sealings, not just civil ceremonies. It was not nearly as common as many seem to think. It is true, however, that it didn't always work out, but then our divorce rate now it high, too, isn't it? I suggest you read something non-fiction by a general authority or well-known reputable LDS historian and get the actual facts.
JonFBJanuary 7, 2015
I suspect another "litmus" book would be Orson Scott Card's "Saints". I usually tell people "it's like The Work and the Glory, but for grown ups."
Claudia hallmarkJanuary 5, 2015
Very interesting
Wester PotterJanuary 5, 2015
We bought "Nightfall" at a Bay Area Ward when Sam gave a review of the book. His comment "It is a litmus book, those who read it either turn pink or blue" was such a fun take on the book. We moved back behind "The Zion Curtain" as he called it a couple of years later and I was laughing to see the paperback on the Ten Best Sellers list at the local 7-11. I sent Sam the list and his reply: "Thanks for the library statistics from Zion. If, as our prophets used to preach, the Devil lurks behind the covers of books, I wonder if "Javiera" is leading more innocents to doom than "Nightfall"?
Sis Barnes-MossJanuary 5, 2015
I cant wait for part two! I had ancestors who went over to Utah in 1860 and had a polygamous marriage and am studying more into that line.
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