This is a cross genre book about Mormondom, written by a Catholic. It is part memoir, part historical novel, part biography, and just a bit fiction, but the fictionalized parts blend so seamlessly with the historical parts that they are hard to discern. The book is written, for the most part in first person, by the author about his progenitors, his family, and himself. The setting is very believable, and the little town of Adenville, which is fictitious, and the adjoining towns of Enoch, which is a real town today, Silverload, and Castle Rock all seem very believable, and blend themselves quite well in to the ambience of the story. The time span is from the middle of the nineteenth century until the first decade of the twentieth century.

The author discloses in the forward that he is writing the book as a fulfilment of a promise to his departed mother. She asked him to "write a story about all the little people who built the west, ... a true story about the Mormons as papa knew them, as I know them and as you know them."

Fitzgerald used a treasure trove of old news paper clippings, letters, family photos, and journals he found before his mother's death, and rediscovered after the Second World War as a basis for his work.

Fitzgerald's mother is Mormon girl and the daughter of one of the Mormon Pioneer founding fathers of Enoch. She was raised as a best friend of the Mormon Bishop's son, and has been sort of his childhood sweetheart. At any rate their parents had agreed they should marry when she turned eighteen. Of course this did not happen. John D Fitzgerald's father came west when his father's mother extracted a deathbed promise from him that he would find and look after his older wayward brother Will, who had left the family years before to go out west. The Fitzgerald's are Catholic and John D. and Will's younger brother became a Priest. All but one of the Fitzgerald children remained Catholic. John's oldest brother joined the Mormon Church, served a mission in China and graduated from the BYU academy.

To me, the amazing message in this book is the incredible religious tolerance displayed by John D. Fitzgerald's mother and father, and how they so perfectly understood the principle of free agency. They both came from rigidly intolerant homes, with diverse backgrounds, and through their tolerance and understanding, punctuated by their abiding love for all humanity, they were able to draw their family and friends into their circle of love, and maintain family solidarity amongst diversity.

As this very interesting and telling story unfolds we see the coming together and blending of religions. Protestant, Catholic, Gentile, and Jew into a tapestry of true love, with an underlying thread of a message that speaks of Christian love and acceptance of all, from agnostics, drunkards, dance hall girls, and gamblers, to saints and sinners alike. The story explores all the diversity of the human spirit, from bigotry and debauchery to self righteous condemnation and true Christian love of all God's children and true Christian fellowship.

This book is a real page turner. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it to all. I suggest to those of tender feelings and emotions to have a box of tissue handy for the last few chapters. I was blubbering like a fool. But then again, I like "chick flicks."

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Bill Willson
October 21, 2003