I should comment that I like William Morain and enjoyed a very pleasant time with him at MHA 2005 where he chaired the panel in which I presented a paper. I mean no offense in my discussion of the book. I also would disclaim that I lack the time necessary to have all the quotations and citations necessary to make this a rigorous review.

To my eye, there are two books combined in one. One of the books is quite intriguing and had my attention from start to finish. The other appears to be simply the latest offering from the Viennese delegation espying and descrying human genitalia in every memory, dream, landscape feature, and striving of the human psyche.

The compelling book is one that seeks to describe the bone debridements of young Joseph's tibia performed by Nathan Smith and colleagues and to think about the possible echoes such horrifying trauma might have had on Joseph the adult. Morain's descriptions are heart-rending and a useful reinterpretation of what transpired around 1812-15 in Joseph Jr.'s life. A less compelling but still intriguing corollary is the attempt to associate the Alvin Smith death and disterment with the trauma of the debridement. Morain's core insight can be productive. I suspect some of Joseph's awareness of the eternities did arise from or respond to intense emotional trauma. I don't envy him those experiences, and it's hard for me to imagine that they would have left no imprint on him. Joseph is open about the effects of Alvin's death but somewhat understated in terms of the debridement, an approach Morain sees as indicative of dissociation as a response to trauma. Overall I enjoyed the opportunity to consider various possible sequelae of these traumatic experiences.

My major complaint about this "first book" is that Morain has attempted to apply contemporary psychiatric theories of childhood trauma, hopelessly muddled by freudian (I refuse to capitalize the adjective) constructs and more importantly almost hopelessly culturally conditioned. Morain hopes that culture has not changed in the ensuring 150 years, but he has neglected the huge changes in American death (and health) culture from around 1830 to around 1940. Pretending that Joseph Jr. was one of the burn victims that Morain (a plastic surgeon) has personally treated in New Hampshire is unlikely to help us understand this early nineteenth-century boy. My second concern about the book is the extent to which these traumas are taken (almost) to be necessary and sufficient. One is left with the impression that any boy who had a typhoid osteomyelitis debrided followed by the death of an older sibling would become the prophet of a new sect. Unfortunately for Morain, those are pretty common occurrences. Nathan Smith was busy operating for years, often on young men, and given mortality rates then, it's hard to imagine anyone surviving to adulthood without losing a sibling along the way. Historically, he has also failed to appreciate the extent to which the corpse was distinctly understood by antebellum Americans vis-a-vis their descendants in contemporary America. Disinterring Alvin I suspect was much more likely to be a relief than a trauma, as it allayed Smith fears of a fate more horrifying than death, the loss of the mortal remains of the beloved.

My own view, informed by my reading as well as Morain's careful treatment, is that the debridement did affect Joseph Smith, but that it was one influence among many and is far from either necessary or sufficient to generate his religious and secular activity.

The "second book" I won't talk much about. Suffice it to say that its climax (I am here aping the freudian prose style of portions of the manuscript to give a sense for the book) is the concept that the granite obelisk (sorry, "shaft") honoring Joseph Jr.'s first centennial (38.5 feet high) is an enormous obdurate penis and is the most fitting monument to Joseph's life. And the stone crypt in which the Nephite relics lay is also obdurate genitalia, this time female.

As regards the Viennese delegation, I'm with Nabokov. Enough of this nonsense; let's have some perspective about genitals (ours and others') and get to more important discussions.

As far as recommending the book to fellow Mormons: this book will be seen as heavily anti-Mormon and is unlikely to find a following among faithful Mormons. I personally think it's less anti-Mormon than it is overwhelmingly freudian (the generalizations and premature closure and treatment of evidence and statement of theoretical axioms is just as vehemently apologetic of that worldview as the rebuttals I imagine occurred from Mormon apologists) but still would not recommend it for the average faithful Mormon. I enjoyed reading the book for its close reading of the surgeries and their aftermath and because I get a kick out of reading freudian interpretations, primarily for a few good laughs (not "belly" laughs, as the belly is located perilously close to the loins).

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Sam Brown
January 23, 2006