Jon Krakauer

JON KRAKAUER

He lost four teammates in a snowstorm while climbing Mount Everest, but award-winning adventure writer Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air) experienced a new form of fear while visiting Utah State Prison. Krakauer went to the penitentiary on the invitation of Dan Lafferty, an inmate eager to boast of the crime for which he is serving a life sentence: in 1984 Dan and his brother, Ron, used a 10-inch boning knife to slit the throats of sister-in-law Brenda and her infant daughter, Erica. In the most disturbing interview of Krakauer's career, Lafferty relayed the double-murder "in such clinical detail that it was as if he was giving directions on how to rebuild an engine," the writer told The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Even more chilling was the Lafferty brothers' professed motive: the word of God, who allegedly told them "it is My will that they be removed." This "divinely inspired" act of unthinkable brutality is at the center of Krakauer's new non-fiction book, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, which Krakauer calls "an inquiry into the nature of faith."

The unrepentant murderers (Ron Lafferty currently sits on death row) are both Mormon Fundamentalists--a radical offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS). Although not officially recognized by the Mormon mainstream, the sect claims around 40,000 followers in North America, and fanatically adheres to an archaic doctrine abandoned by LDS in 1890: polygamy. Living predominantly in small, isolated communities, fundamentalist men shirk nationwide laws against bigamy, ruling over a harem of one lawful wife and additional "spiritual" wives. Many of these wives are married against their will, at ages as young as 13, subject to rape, incest, slavery and the abusive whims of their husbands.

Other fundamentalists live as nomadic "independents," including Brian David Mitchell, the man accused of kidnapping Elizabeth Smart. Krakauer devotes a chapter to Smart's ordeal, as well as numerous chapters on the tumultuous history of the Mormon Church, which is now the fastest-growing religion in America, and one of the few with origins on U.S. soil. The San Francisco Chronicle praises Under the Banner of Heaven as "a fantastic read . . . [a] depiction of that strange American blend of piety, violence and longing for the End Times."

Krakauer began this project with a much more benign subject in mind. Growing up in Corvallis, Oregon, many of his friends, teachers and neighbors were of the Mormon faith; he admired "the way they raise their families and the generosity of spirit," but wanted to know more about the origins and development of their religious fervor. Though the Lafferty murders represent an extremist, excommunicated minority in the religion, their story was too compelling to ignore. "I struggled over how much to leave unsaid," he told The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "I still believe it is better for readers to come upon conclusions themselves, rather than being lectured to . . . I haven't figured everything out myself."

Now 49, Krakauer is a graduate of Hampshire College, and has worked as a carpenter, commercial fisherman and reporter, publishing in Outside, Time, The New York Times and National Geographic. The lifelong mountaineer has scaled the most dangerous mountains in the world, including the Stikine Icecap in Alaska, Cerre Torro in the Patagonian Andes and Mount Everest itself. The latter peak, was the basis for Into Thin Air, the worldwide bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize.