‘Tree House’ speaks softly to readers but carries a big stick

 

This review was originally published on March 27, 2009 in the Standard-Examiner newspaper. Due to a website update, it disappeared from the site. A search of Internet Archive failed to locate it. I am grateful to Christopher Bigelow, publisher of Zarahemla Books, providing a copy they had retained. Author Douglas Thayer died in 2017 at age 88.

Zarahemla Books’ latest offering in regional, LDS culture fiction, “The Tree House,” by Brigham Young University professor Douglas Thayer, maintains a soft grip on the reader which slowly tightens like a vice. Even when you think life is getting easier for the protagonist, Provo native Harris Thatcher, a sense of dread — just a few pages away — seems out there.

Thayer’s tale, which stretches from the mid 1940s to the mid 1950s, is told in gentle prose that almost seems to sleepwalk to the reader. Nevertheless, a lot of heavy, “big stick” stuff happens to Harris. His dad, who loved him but wasn’t a spiritual role model, dies. A few years later, Harris falls in love with a pretty classmate, Abby. Before “first love” can reach a gentle conclusion, Abby, who has frail health, dies.

Those two events are very important. Harris never seems to gain — real or unreal — a “testimony” of the Mormon faith. He’s a cultural member who does everything he’s supposed to but envies his best friend Luke, who has that type of sought-after “testimony.” There are very few pages where readers experience Luke in the first person. Perhaps that is intentional. Luke represents the outward spirituality that Harris never received from his father.

Abby’s death makes her a larger figure in Harris’ eyes than she would have likely been. She is the standard by which he compares women as he becomes an adult. 

Harris is what most of us would call a “good kid.” He loves his mom and brothers, goes to church, gets good grades and works hard at a local job, earning the respect of several role-model adults, LDS and non-LDS. His life is geared toward his mission. He’s called to serve in West Germany.

At this point, Thayer’s novel shifts a bit in tone. What was a memoir of growing up becomes on the surface a faith-promoting tale of a boy becoming a man. Harris is shocked by the devastation of postwar Germany but impressed by the faith of some members and the stoicism of a non-member couple who lost sons in the war. He adopts that stoicism to resist the temptation to slack off and becomes a model missionary, enduring much rejection to find a few converts. He witnesses a lot “spiritual experiences” while still acknowledging to himself that he lacks a testimony.

Harris returns from Germany and, almost immediately, reports to the Korean War. Luke also is drafted, although they will not be together. At this point, the reader will be in for a jolt. The novel shifts from Harris’ sometimes sad, quiet Mormon life to the horror of life on a ridge in Korea trying to survive while fighting off endless hordes of invading North Korean and Chinese soldiers. Harris’ stoicism makes him a good soldier and keeps him alive against tough odds.

But what he endures, including hand-to-hand murder and witnessing death daily, destroys his fragile testimony. No longer can he accept as truth just because it is told to him. Enduring war, and its emotional aftermath, has taken all the energy Harris can muster. He has none left for religion, which now seems unimportant against trying to survive. In a very emotional scene, Harris wonders why he deserved to live when so many others died. Among the dead is his best friend, Luke.

If I have a quibble with The Tree House, it is that Thayer continues to pile tragedy upon Harris even after the war. As Harris begins to rival Job in calamity, the novel threatens to veer into parody.

Nevertheless, The Tree House is a success. I remain impressed by the quiet, soothing style of prose Thayer uses which can still impact the reader. Even a jarring transition from the serenity of the West German mission to the slow-building terror of the Korean War is handled deftly by the author.

Although most of us don’t experience war or a 1940s European mission, if we’re honest with ourselves, we can feel empathy with Thayer’s Harris Thatcher, who oftentimes goes through the motions of what’s expected of him even though he can’t feel it inside.

-- Doug Gibson

The last years of Sidney Rigdon

 

I recently re-read the late Richard S. Van Wagoner's superb biography, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess, 1994, Signature Books. In a long-ago Culture of Mormonism blog post, I mentioned the book. In the ensuing paragraphs of this blog post, my source is Van Wagoner's biography.

Re-reading the book, I was struck by the last poverty-stricken years of Rigdon's life. He lived with loyal wife, Phebe, and existed on the charities of his children and few dozen followers. Latter-day Saints are very familiar with Rigdon, but after he lost a power struggle of control of the church to Brigham Young in 1844, conventional Mormons know little of his life. He tried to start an offshoot of Mormonism in Pennsylvania and later in a rural setting but failed. He then failed again. Some of his followers lost a lot of money, and his children lost confidence and prevented "Father Rigdon" from trying to be a prophet and leader.

In fact, when a man named Stephen Post wrote to Rigdon, inquiring about starting a church, Rigdon's son, (John) Wickliffe, wrote to Post, pleading that Post stop enabling his father's religious mania.

Post stayed away for a while, but Rigdon and Phebe were determined to begin again, and Post eventually resumed correspondence with Sidney. Late in his life, Sidney and Phebe started a church, Children of Zion, more or less without the knowledge of their children. I found it fascinating that Sidney's last church was formed and operated on the sly.

He ran it from afar, calling priesthood leaders, demanding his followers provide him and his wife financial assistance. Sidney's reputation as a scholar and early LDS church likely still counted for a lot with people seeking divergent paths of the Smith-started main church, now led by Brigham Young. 

Rigdon's church had three interesting themes. I'll offer sketches in this post, but urge readers to get the above-linked Van Wagoner biography to learn more:

First, The Children of Zion church ordained women to the priesthood. Rigdon went even further, placing women in high priesthood callings. His wife Phebe was the first woman he ordained to the priesthood. There are touching passages of Phebe assigned as a Book of Mormon teacher, and her diligence in reading the Scripture, studying it, providing lesson outlines and her overall pious enthusiasm.

Second: Rigdon's animus towards the original LDS Church was deeper late in life. He believed Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet, Brigham Young a tool of Satan and predicted that the Salt Lake City saints would face the wrath of God with apocalyptic type sufferings and massacres. In fact, Rigdon taught that he was the prophet called by God to restore order after God cleansed the earth. Rigdon also referred to himself as the most important prophet of God through all eternity.

Third: Rigdon believed that God would restore his strength and that he would not suffer death but be healthy enough to restore order to the world. He fervently believed this even as he suffered a series of strokes in the last stage of his life. His wife Phebe also believed. After his death, she, perhaps grief-stricken and disillusioned, ceased much of her activity in the small church.

Rigdon's son, Wickliffe, unaware of his father's latest church, contacted Brigham Young in Utah to ask if the church leader would arrange for Sidney and Phebe to return to the main church and live in Utah. Young, who seemed to regard Rigdon at this time with wry bemusement, agreed. Surprisingly, Rigdon initially entertained the possibility. But it was not to be, as Rigdon placed delusional demands, like demanding that the Utah Saints repent to avoid being destroyed and that Young provide him and Phebe $100,000.

Wickliffe Rigdon later wrote a biography of his father's life. In his 70s, he joined the Utah-based church his father hated.

In Rigdon's biography, Van Wagoner notes that Sidney would probably be classified manic depressive. Solitude and being ignored pained him. In the years before his last, semi-secret church, after Rigdon failed at previous efforts at leadership, only Phebe believed in her husband. 

"Solitary zeal was a devastating sentence to be imposed on so vocal a prophet," writes Van Wagoner. But the aforementioned letter from Post arrived and so began Rigdon's last tenure as a prophet seer and revelator.

But despite lasting the rest of his life, the Children of Zion was a failure too. Membership dwindled to just a few dozen. The Reorganized Church poached many of his Children of Zion membership. That infuriated Rigdon, who had hoped the Joseph Smith III faction would join his church.

Rigdon's erratic behavior alienated many Children of Zion members. They grew tired of a leader from a distance who frequently changed his mind, throwing their efforts to follow him in disarray. A major rupture in the small church occurred when Stephen Post's niece, an unbalanced woman named Evva, attempted to abort her baby with charcoal. It was a failure. As strange as this seems, she prayed to God that the charcoal would not turn her baby into a negro. Evva claimed to receive a revelation from an angel that showed her it was white. She then assumed a level of church leadership.

Other members protested. Sidney turned on the protesters and backed Evva, likely because of his close friendship with Post. This further decreased church membership. Also, Rigdon alienated longtime loyalists by demanding money from them. He angrily denounced them when they demurred, arguing they had stayed loyal despite losing money from his earlier ecclesiastical efforts.

Rigdon died on July 14, 1876, in Friendship, N.Y. He is buried there. Phebe survived him by almost 10 years. She is buried in the same cemetery.

-- Doug Gibson