(Note: Publicity for the book, and the front cover of the book itself, put the title as The Mormon . . . and Mr. Sullivan. But the cover page, the spine and the page headers all omit the ellipsis. I have chosen to follow this convention for convenience purposes only.)

The Mormon and Mr. Sullivan is a most curious book. Having heard that yet another volume had come forth concerning the Mountain Meadows Massacre, I was, of course, anxious to get my hands on it. Would it be apologetic in nature, or would we have a budding Bagley on our hands?

Mr. Wynn's position was made startlingly, and abundantly, clear, at the outset. The opening words of the Foreword follow:

America has twice witnessed September 11 episodes of terror: in 2001, the twenty-first century Islamic horror show that brutalized New York City and Washington, D.C., and in 1857, the senseless slaughter of Americans by other Americans near a desert oasis in nineteenth century Mountain Meadows, Utah. Both acts of violence reflect a chosen people's blind faith in their Savior's Divine Purpose. (p. ix)

Wow. A bit overstated? I don't know. At the very least we know where Mr. Wynn stands. We can expect little sympathy for John D. Lee and the Mormon attackers, and, in fact, we get little.

But this book isn't about assigning blame or condemning an entire people. It's about how the past can reach into the present and affect the lives of real people, sometimes in unexpected, and unwelcome, ways.

The Mormon is J. Doyle Lee, namesake and direct descendant of the infamous John D. Lee. He goes by the name Doyle, and shares with his family a dislike for Mormonism and the for the Church that turned its back on his ancestor, leading to his death at the hands of a firing squad.

Mr. Sullivan is Jody Sullivan, a wealthy businessman and soon-to-be oil magnate, who befriends Doyle as he (Doyle) begins a new life following an acrimonious divorce. Jody had heard tales of his ancestry, and it soon emerges that he is a descendant of Zealy Sullivan, a scrappy pioneer who had an incidental involvement in the murder of Parley P. Pratt. He subsequently joined the Fancher Party in their trek through Utah, and was murdered in the massacre.

The Mormon and Mr. Sullivan documents the progress of the lives of the two men. While there are certainly intersections in their lives and careers, and while their friendship is enduring and sincere, they are motivated quite differently and thus find themselves on divergent paths toward clarity. Doyle is out to forget, and grow out of, his past; Jody wants to explore and learn the truth about his past. But when Jody discovers that his new best friend is a descendant of the man who murdered *his* ancestor, how will this affect their friendship?

Along the way, Wynn steeps us in detail about the men's lives. Their work (including an extended, and detailed, explanation of the art of oil exploration), their loves and their ambiguities, are explored, nicely developing the characters. Wynn does a good job in defining the characters and placing them at strategic points in the story-telling to keep the plot moving.

However, the episodic nature of the book should have encouraged Wynn to at least add some chapter headings, including the years covered. Jumping rapidly from Doyle's childhood to his adulthood, and back, was a bit disconcerting. More than once I had to read into the chapter to know whether I was dealing with the child or the adult.

The childhood narratives are especially powerful. Wynn evokes a time and place few of us have experienced. The difficulty of raising a family during the Great Depression, the solidity of family life at a time of extreme economic fragility, add to the story nicely and give us some foundation for understanding the adults.

And further, Wynn's narratives of John D. Lee's execution and of the Massacre itself are harrowing and convincing. Wynn has a sure voice in his handling of these accounts.

But make no mistake -- this book is a melding of fact and fiction. Beginning on page xv, Wynn offers a Chronology, which he prefaces as follows:

The cause and effect of the Mountain Meadows Massacre covers a period spanning fifteen decades. Out of consideration for the reader, set forth below is a chronology of major events, some of which actually happened.

And then follows this Chronology, a big help when you consider the constant jumping from past to present without the aid of chapter headings.

When reading the last part of the book, one can easily forget that this is about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. It is hardly mentioned as Wynn explores the life-paths of the two men. But when one considers that this book is really an exploration of the emotional trajectories of the Massacre, the relationship is clearer. The Massacre re- emerges as a major issue at the end of the book, with a resolution that might not satisfy some readers.

I'm going to spend a few minutes here with my biggest gripe about the book, and I don't know who to blame, the author or the publisher.

If an editor even glanced at the book, it isn't obvious. Unbalanced quotation marks are rampant, and are sometimes completely absent, making it impossible to know when someone is speaking or when the narrator is commenting. It was frustratingly distracting.

And the book contains hundreds of instances where a spell checker will have missed an error, but an editor would not.

Some examples:

Sobering details of the 1846 Donner party tragedy was [sic] deeply etched in Fancher's memory. (p. 6)

"If I'm arrested and found guilty of involvement in the Meadows affair, Brigham and the Church leadership will come to my defense. They won't sacrificed [sic] me for the misdeeds of so many." (p. 17)

"Git some cold water, Rebecca, and some old rags. Wipe his face and I'll clean his wounds." Pratt's face was ashen, a ghostly parlor [sic]." (p. 70)

Ed paused again. His silence had a stirring affect [sic] on Jody. (p. 78)

And it gets worse as the book proceeds.

Mama Grace's passing would be a devastating blow to the children, particularly Jody. She doted on the boy. Mama Grace saw in him a potential that others overlooked. The boy was intelligence [sic], polite, soft-spoken and serious. The somber demeanor often camouflaged his comic tendencies. Mama Grace viewed Jody as a family trailblazer, the one to set a higher educational standard for future generations. She accepted the probably [sic] fate of her four daughters. (p. 168)

Two blunders in one paragraph. This is not good.

And here is the tragedy of the situation. The Mormon and Mr. Sullivan is one heck of a story. Wynn is a good storyteller. He develops his plots and characters and keeps the interest of the reader. He even catches the nuances of what Mel Brooks called "authentic frontier gibberish" without annoying the reader. And he moves his story along with a sure footing and a sense of direction.

Why this book wasn't edited is a mystery to me. Should Wynn decide to re-issue the book at some point, this, along with chapter headings that include the years covered, must be done by a careful editor/reviser.

One more note: Wynn does a good job of skewering Brigham Young and Parley P. Pratt. He joins a growing chorus of voices raising questions about involvement and responsibility. And yet his book is prefaced with a clear, accurate statement of how Mormon doctrine is established, an apologia of sorts that makes clear that the Church has established methods of determining belief. I don't know whether Wynn is Mormon or not, but he seems to know the culture fairly well.

The Mormon and Mr. Sullivan is a pretty good book, marred greatly by the editing problems. Had this task been performed better, I would have enjoyed the book a great deal more. Despite this, the book suggests an interesting situation -- the encounter of descendants of historic enemies -- and explores nicely how the past projects into the future and affects peoples lives.

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Jeffrey Needle
jeff.needle@general.com 
or
jeffneedle@tns.net