The Thieves of Summer captures life in long ago Salt Lake City

Review by Doug Gibson

In 2014, Signature Books is released a novel, “The Thieves of Summer,” drafted by Linda Sillitoe just before her death in 2010. Sillitoe is best known for co-authoring the non-fiction crime book “Salamander: The Mormon Forgery Murders,” but also wrote novels, short stories, essays and poetry. In “Thieves of Summer,” Sillitoe combines several of her passions -- crime reporting, elephants, family, Mormonism and the culture of old Salt Lake City -- to craft a cluttered, but nevertheless entertaining summer story.

It’s 1938, and in Salt Lake City’s Liberty Park area the Flynn family is surviving the Depression as best it can. Dad Evan is a police detective, consumed with a case of missing children. His wife, Rose, stays at home and with dad raises Glenn, a new adult, troubled teen Joyce and three 11-year-old triplets, Annabelle, Bethany and Carolee. Nearby lives Princess Alice, a very independent elephant that is the main attraction at the Liberty Park zoo. 

Sillitoe has tossed a lot of ingredients into her novel’s conflict broth, and at times the reader will wonder what exactly is the main plot of “Thieves of Summer.” It probably fits into the genre of crime fiction, but there are long interludes in which the case of the missing children, and the thoroughly evil pedophile antagonist, disappear from the novel. Also, the elephant Princess Alice, tagged pretty early as a major character in the novel, makes cameo appearances until the novel approaches its climax. 

Perhaps a better title would have been “The Family Flynn” because they are the real focus of the novel, particularly the parents and the two oldest siblings. The family’s challenges, which include Glenn getting his girlfriend, Margie, in a family way, as well as emotionally maladjusted Joyce being caught stealing at work and trying to harm her new sister in law, are detailed from both secular and religious consequences. Sillitoe makes it clear that for an active Mormon family in 1938 Salt Lake City, every crisis includes a reaction from the dominant church. In one episode, in which an aunt dies of complications from mumps and pertussis, Sillitoe captures the culture well in the manner the family hustles away Glenn from the quarantined home due to the potential threat to his child-bearing future. The not-always-subtle discrimination against woman is captured in how some ecclesiastical leaders handle Glenn and Margie’s pregnancy.

The author captures the period piece of Depression-era Utah well, particularly in a family outing to Saltair, trips on the old public transportation system, horse-riding in the city, and an era of medicine that relied as much on hope as medical expertise. I particularly enjoyed the innocence of the conversations of the triplets regarding the crisis of Glenn, Margie, Joyce and even the stolen children. They are in that small pocket of life where they know something is amiss but are not actually sure what is amiss. Their ruminations comprise excellent writing.

The climax of the novel, which is the resolution of the criminal case, is easy to predict but nevertheless clever and the writing is very strong. As mentioned, the pedophile criminal is extremely evil and sociopathic. Spending several pages in his head leaves readers wondering if they need to take a shower. Sillitoe has the talent to effectively convey the emotions and thoughts of children and adults. The Flynn father, Evan, is an extremely fair-minded, patient man, and Cynthia Sillitoe, Linda Sillitoe’s daughter and an Ogden resident, notes in the novel’s forward how easy it is to see Evan in her grandfather.

After the novel’s conclusion, there are several actual newspaper articles, as well as a photo of the real Princess Alice elephant, which lived in Salt Lake City and was an attraction at the Liberty Park zoo between 1916 and 1918.

“The Thieves of Summer” is a quirky mix of family tension, crime drama and an homage to an elephant, but the writing is superb and Sillitoe has produced a tale that captures interest and provides entertainment.

-- Originally published at StandardNET

Acid Test: LSD vs. LDS is an '80s Mormon punk conversion memoir

Review by Doug Gibson

"Acid Test LSD vs. LDS," 2020, Zarahemla Books, is a long-awaited memoir from Mormon writer, editor and publisher, Christopher Bigelow. At its foundation, it's a re-conversion tale. The author chucks away his Mormon faith -- proclaiming it bland and conformist -- after graduating high school, and re-converts after a short spell of trying to acclimate himself to what he describes as a "chaotic neutral" existence, to use a Dungeons and Dragons term.

The seeking-to-be-"chaotic-neutral" period involves sampling or observing modes of life his religion prohibits, or frowns on: including semi-communal living, a brief sojourn back to his childhood area, Southern California, drug use (particularly LSD), shunning higher education, scattered low-paying work life, attempts at a punk lifestyle, launching a punk 'zine that focuses more on critical thought than reviews and interviews,  fornication, mooching from parents, satanism, petty theft, and homosexuality.

At its heart though, "Acid Test," I suspect, is an homage to an era of Salt Lake City counterculture of the mid-1980s, when the city boasted an often unique punk and New Wave culture, with local bands, and musical venues and clubs filled with younger adults embracing a movement at odds with Mormon culture, and for that matter, Reaganism. Even readers, such as myself, with musical tastes that never approach punk, will smile with nostalgia as Bigelow recalls journeys to Cosmic Aeroplane shop or the Blue Mouse theater. This was also the era of Mormon conman/murderer Mark Hofmann, scamming gullible LDS Church leaders with fake memorabilia, and bombing people to death.

It really was a crazy time.

The very young Bigelow packed a lot of life into the short time this memoir covers. In Salt Lake area lodgings that eventually became packed with friends and squatters, he stayed in several locations. At times the reader forgets he's a youngster, 17 when the tale starts. He has an endearing immaturity mixed with an unfeigned quest to challenge conventions. At the beginning, nothing frightens him. Even the occult is a subject worth exploring.

The author's family history is etched in Mormon history, Heber C. Kimball, Brigham Young, and many more, all related to the author. The teenage Bigelow is perceptive enough to understand that the corporate-life LDS Church he shunned in 1984 was once a progressive, way-out-of-the mainstream religion when Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were its prophets. Many early church policies and doctrines we don't talk much about today fascinate Bigelow and his adventures in Acid Test seem an effort to connect with the spiritual bohemianism of his early-LDS ancestors

For someone who has never taken LSD, Bigelow's vivid descriptions of what the world appears like to an LSD user tripping is fascinating and almost, but not quite, tempts this reviewer to sample it. However, later in the memoir, Bigelow's enthusiasm for drugs is tempered, replaced by a fear that it's a tool of dark entities to lead souls away from spirituality.

Bigelow was already an accomplished 'zine publisher as a high school student. In Acid Test, he recounts efforts to start a 'zine, called Flourishing Wasteland. After a spotty start, he works very hard on issue 2. However, his interest wanes and then concludes as he begins a re-conversion to the LDS Church.

The author's effort to cast aside concepts of good, and evil start to shake a bit after he takes LSD a lot. He senses deception in his LSD experiences, questions how real they are. He is also fascinated with the Stephen King novel, "The Stand," which involves a near total loss of human life and survivors who gravitate toward locations with leaders who represent good and bad.

There is a central reason Bigelow returns to Mormonism, and this memoir (a trilogy is planned) ends with the author's mission approaching. I don't want to give away the distinct event that motivates Bigelow to give up an alternative lifestyle and return to staid Mormonism. Getting around that, reading Acid Test made me think about all those Bible-like quotes in the Book of Mormon that talk about a sinner being past the point of redemption and consigned to hell. I don't like any idea of a literal hell but Acid Test posits to me the possibility that those types of scriptures, in the Book of Mormon or The Bible, are talking not about a hypothetical lake of fire but instead a consistent state of wickedness that goes on too long, leaving the sinner devoid of grace, incapable of repentance, and redemption.

Another reason for the author's disillusionment for "chaotic neutral" is more simple. He loves a teenage girl. Her promiscuity causes him normal pain. He includes her in his re-conversion efforts. She joins in the effort but the relationship seems shaky as the memoir ends.

Bigelow is a very talented writer. I read a review that compared Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" to the memoir. It's probably apt but I thought more of George Orwell's memoir/fiction when I was reading. Bigelow's conflicted thoughts, yearning for a meaning, and despair of a shaky love reminded me Orwell's "Burmese Days." His at-times narrative, matter-of-fact, without-self-pity accounts of unpleasant circumstances (including a date with middle-aged male "chicken-hawk" ) remind me of the style of Orwell's 'Down and Out in Paris and London."

Late in the book, Bigelow laments that, for the most part, he's not getting the spiritual charge he's led himself to believe that conversion to the faith promises. The Scriptures are a tough slog, church meetings are still regimented, even the Temple lacks the spiritual manifestations that others have talked of. It's a reminder that spiritual experiences are rare commodities for most of us, and that endurance is a more valuable tool toward church activity.

Bigelow grew up in a family with parents that represent an earlier generation follower of Mormonism, one that talked more of the Three Nephites, of Cain roaming the earth, of White Horse Prophecies, and demons struggling to lead us into darkness. Each life is a battle between good and evil. Spiritual manifestations seemed to be more common in "those days." Bigelow mentions his mother having several spirit observances. On a side note, my parents were that way. My late mother once told me she saw the Savior's profile in the temple.

Ultimately, these traditionalist Mormons serve as a catalyst for the author's return to his family's faith. They never abandoned their son, and were often ready to provide assistance. This underscores another strength of the memoir; that love is still a commandment, even if the recipient is not living as parents, or others, might wish they lived. Some of the characters in Acid Test had depressing futures and ends. Others had better futures. Some of them did not receive unconditional love.

You can buy Acid Test LSD vs. LDS via Amazon here.

In Lee v. Skousen tiff, LDS Church sided with the man who liked strippers

One of the more entertaining Utah political tiffs was the battle between Salt Lake City Mayor J. Bracken Lee and Salt Lake City Police Chief W. Cleon Skousen. The battle ended in 1960 when Lee managed to convince a majority of city commissioners to fire Skousen.

Skousen was hired in 1956 to re-energize a police force that suffered from low morale. He had been recommended by FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover. The then-mayor, Adiel F. Stewart, not surprisingly, lobbied LDS Church leader David O. McKay for permission to get ex-FBI agent Skousen out of his BYU job. By most accounts, Skousen did improve the moral of the department. However, the moralistic, ultra-conservative Skousen was headed for a collision with the election of Lee as SLC’s mayor in 1959.

The Fall 1974 issue of “The Utah Historical Quarterly,” has an interesting account of the tension that developed between Mayor Lee and Chief Skousen. Both were political conservatives, but Lee, who was not Mormon, enjoyed recreational activities that the straightlaced Skousen regarded as immoral. According to historian Dennis L. Lythgoe, the pair clashed over Skousen regularly sending the city’s vice squad to bust striptease shows “to the private clubs of the city, such as Alta, Ambassador and Elks.” Lee allegedly ordered to Skousen to let up on the raids. Skousen refused. According to Lythgoe, “Angry words followed, with Lee suggesting that the police should stay away from striptease shows and admitting that he enjoyed them himself and had no desire to be arrested while attending one.”

Lee’s defense of striptease shows in refreshingly candid. In a footnote to Lythgoe’s article, he says in an interview “… I think the prettiest thing in the world is a nude woman — a good looking nude woman.” It’s clear that Lee was offended by what he believed was Skousen’s attempt to put a heavy police presence on issues that offended his personal morality. The pair also clashed over Skousen’s attempts to crack down on mild forms of gambling that went on surreptitiously at area private clubs.

When he became police chief, Skousen initiated a program where local taverns would self-police themselves. His reasoning was that if the taverns could self correct any potential violations of the law it would cut down on needed police presence. The taverns formed an association and hired a former police officer to advise them.

Lee disliked the program, and asked Skousen to disband it. He believed that tavern businesses were pressured and intimidated by both SLC police and the association if they spurned membership. At a public hearing charged by Mayor Lee on the program, both sides of the association debate were heard. In an interview with Lythgoe, Lees regards the tavern owners as thieves who had made a bargain with Skousen to steal less. He told Skousen, “I think you could make a deal with the underworld to only steal so much at night and they would be glad to police themselves.”

The rift between Lee and Skousen was moving beyond competing moral visions and into disputes over the role and size of government. Despite both men being traditional, anti-communism conservatives, Lee was realizing that Skousen’s morality tolerated an intrusive form of bigger government that his competing moral views opposed. Lee was not interested in vice cops chasing dancing women in panties or bras. Also, he wanted taverns to be policed by cops.

Not surprisingly, the final straw that led to Skousen’s firing was over the size of the police department’s budget. Lee wanted it trimmed far more than Skousen wanted to trim it. Skousen’s salary, at $10,000 a year, was larger than Lee’s. He also had three highly paid assistant police chiefs. Lee wanted those to go. The money issues, as Lythgoe recounts, couldn’t be worked out, and one day, in a Machiavellian move, during a routine commission meeting, Lee made a surprising motion to fire Skousen. Even more surprisingly, it passed 3-2 among city commissioners.

The mayor suffered short-term public relations/media problems but eventually withstood harsh criticism from Skousen supporters and others. In fact, Lee was re-elected as mayor of Salt Lake City twice after firing Skousen. In an interesting twist, the Deseret News, which had been an enthusiastic supporter of Skousen during his tenure, published a lukewarm, passionless editorial on his firing. What Lythgoe reports is that the Deseret News had prepared a full-page editorial harshly condemning Lee for firing Skousen. However, at the last minute, the LDS Church First Presidency spiked the editorial, and sent Counselor Henry D. Moyle to make sure the editorial did not run. Moyle’s church duties at the time included overseeing the editorial content of the Deseret News.

According to the article, Lee says that when he learned of the upcoming editorial, he called Church President McKay, who told him not to worry. Skousen is quoted as saying that Moyle was sent to spike the editorial because Lee was a Mason and the church worried about offending Masons. In an article footnote, then-Deseret News editorial director William Smart, who was editor and general manager of the News at the time Lythgoe’s article was published, Smart said that he had been opposed to Skousen’s firing but added this: “Well, we’ve never published nor ever will publish a full-page editorial — that’s ridiculous. And I’d really rather not comment on that. That’s an internal matter that I’d rather not get into.”

n the history of Utah journalism, it’s no secret that the Deseret News’ editorials are influenced by the hierarchy of the LDS Church. (In fact, recently, the newspaper, and the rest of the church’s media, has been restored to First Presidency control to a level that equals, if not exceeds, what it was 52 year ago.)

As to what drove the LDS Church leadership to side with the mayor who liked strippers over the ultra-straightlaced Skousen, I suspect Skousen is pretty close to the truth when he claimed “that the president of the church had always been more comfortable with a non-Mormon in office who was friendly than a Mormon who might feel a need to be independent,” writes Lythgoe.

As mentioned, it was an entertaining tiff in Utah history. The winner was Lee, who continued with a successful political career. Skousen resumed a private life, and enjoyed success with his brands of politics and religion for about two more decades until changing moods rendered him obsolete. However, in recent years the popularity of Mormon commentator Glenn Beck, a Skousen fan, has pushed his books, particularly “The 5,000 Year Leap,” back into prominence.

-- Doug Gibson

-- Originally published at StandardBlogs