Review
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Title: Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath
Authors: Richard E. Turley, Jr., and Barbara Jones Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Genre: Historical, narrative history
Binding: Hardcover
Year Published: 2023
Number of Pages: 520
Audiobook Time: 17 hours, 29 minutes
Price: $34.95 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0195397857 (Hardcover)
Reviewed by Adam McLain for the Association for Mormon Letters
Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath is, for all intents and purposes, a sequel. In 2008, Richard E. Turley, Jr., along with Ronald W. Walker and Glen M. Leonard, published Massacre at Mountain Meadows, a narrative history of the massacre that updated much of the historical work done in Juanita Brooks’s The Mountain Meadows Massacre (1950). Turley’s efforts were also meant to be a “faithful” (more on this later) representation of the event, responding to the slew of books (fictional and historical) and films made about it. In Turley’s assessment, most of the texts created that engaged with Mountain Meadows tried to either disassociate or closely associate the Church with the massacre; for the authors of both books, this was not faithful to the historical record (to disassociate the two) nor to the Church (to closely associate the two). As such, all of the authors set a goal to reexamine the historical archive with permission from the Church, but as individual scholars of history, given archival privilege with the Church’s records but keeping editorial autonomy in writing the text and making assessments of historical behavior.
I emphasize “sequel” in this review because Massacre at Mountain Meadows and Vengeance Is Mine are narrative histories, using the tools of story to bring the historical documents in question to life. Whereas, for example, Brooks’s book is a historical depiction of the event, Turley, Walker, Leonard, and Jones Brown’s efforts rely on telling a story. This is where I would like to focus my review. Instead of emphasizing the historical aspects of the book, which I’m sure well-trained historians are doing in their own reviews, I focus on the narrative aspects of this history. Because I am a scholar of literature, I review it according to its contributions as a story in and of itself and as a sequel, in its attempt to tell a “faithful” adaptation through narrative and in its technique of character and setting as propositioned toward the audience.
On its own, Vengeance Is Mine serves as a strong record of the massacre and a telling of its aftermath. In preparation for this review, I read the 2008 book to see if readers would need to read that to better understand Vengeance Is Mine. While Massacre at Mountain Meadows is a thorough telling of the massacre itself, Vengeance Is Mine catches the reader up on the important aspects of the history; in other words, even though I read it as a sequel, the first book in the duology does not have to be read. Vengeance Is Mine does enough work to represent the massacre and its aftermath that one should go to the earlier text only if they want a closer analysis of the events leading up to the massacre.
As a sequel, Vengeance Is Mine does what any sequel does best: expands what is presented in the first iteration, deepens the audience’s understanding of what is being presented, and concludes threads considered in the first text. Vengeance Is Mine connects readers more to one of the main figures in the massacre—John D. Lee—expanding his narrative and outlining the effect his trial had on not only him and his family but on American politics, the treatment of Latter-day Saints, and the Church that nestled itself in the Salt Lake Valley. Because it is both a good standalone and an excellent sequel, I recommend readers taking either path when reading: taking up the first book; if they are interested in a deep dive into the massacre, or reading this text on its own, since it provides the same main points that the first book does.
Even as I laud the text in its thoroughness, the emphasis on story brings into question, for me, the work of portraying a faithful adaptation of the event. Turley, Walker, Leonard, and Brown Jones utilize this wording of faithful in two ways: in both books, the authors state that they want to deliver a historical text that is faithful to the record available but also a narrative that is faithful to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the first instance, it means practicing sound historical methodologies, searching through archives, and presenting their findings as truthfully as they can. Even though I am not a historian, I believe they succeed in this effort.
By the second use of faithful, the authors mean a portrayal of the events that does not outwardly extrapolate on a connection, if any, between the massacre and Mormon theology. Because of a history of violence in the Latter-day Saint tradition, many outside or opposed to the religion have developed arguments that connect the practice of blood atonement, the teachings of defense and preservation, and the promises of God to the Saints as influencing the various violent moments that speckle the history of the restorationist movement. One can look no further than the recent Hulu adaptation of Under the Banner of Heaven (2022) to see how the connection of violence and theology is proffered by many. As faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the authors are firmly opposed to these connections, arguing that the historical reality is more complicated than a one-to-one connection; as such, they choose to ignore these connections, not providing arguments for or against them, but rather trying to make the historical record speak for itself.
Brought into question for me is whether one can tell a narrative history and not be trying to tell a story of particular events. Innate in the presentation of narrative is the storyteller’s biases; when one tells a story, they want to tell it in a particular way and for a specific effect. I wish there had been more reflection on this effort than was provided in the text since brief commentary on it seems like a missed opportunity to engage in a broader conversation around the stories we tell through history—and the stories we tell with history. Especially with the Church of Jesus Christ’s efforts with the recent narrative history Saints, it would have been beneficial to have heard more about telling stories and narrative and its effect on history itself, with self-reflection on how that innately means the authors wish to present the history in a specific way or light.
However, I do praise the use of narrative history itself to tell about the massacre. It leads to a better reading of the text and connects readers to the lived history in a way that a historical or document telling would not. Turley and Jones Brown write in a way that envisions the players in this historical event as complex characters that readers do not quite develop empathy for but rather engage in an understanding of them. This is a difficult feat to accomplish, but I think Turley and Jones Brown mediate toward that special space between presenting their historical actors as complex human beings and not endorsing the actions they take. Even if their history is a narrative that they control in its telling, it is a good narrative in and of itself.
On a final note, I would like to personally recommend the audiobook, if you are an audiobook listener. I usually listen to all of my historical texts rather than reading them, and Vengeance Is Mine is no different. I was surprised (and delighted) when I found it available to listen since that meant I wouldn’t have to use my PDF reader to piece together my reading. The narration is excellent—for Vengeance Is Mine as well as Massacre at Mountain Meadows and Brooks’s The Mountain Meadows Massacre, which I also listened to in order to grasp the larger conversation occurring with this text. In all instances, the narrators are excellent. For Vengeance Is Mine, I could tell when the text transitioned between quoted material and the authors’ words, which allowed me to follow along with the narrative being told and the historical effort put into the text. Being read a narrative history written by two excellent historians who are also storytellers connected me to Mountain Meadows and the broader historical implications of this singular event.