As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have read the Book of Mormon many times. I love the doctrinal truths of Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the world, explained in their plainness and simplicity in the words of ancient New World prophets as translated by Joseph Smith. I love the Book of Mormon as another witness of Jesus Christ, standing next to the Bible as the word of God.
Nevertheless, I have also been fascinated by the stories and the people of the Book of Mormon. This book of scripture is full of dramatic events, sweeping themes, and character development. Young people come of age as they face challenges, seek redemption, and forge heroic conquests. Spies and robbers, captains and generals, prophets and kings take the stage. Men and women risk their lives to protect their families, their liberty, and their religion. It speaks of gigantic battles, decade-long wars, revenge, executions, beheadings, burning at the stake, genocide, holocausts, duels. Spoiler alert: in the end, cultural evil triumphs over good, but individual righteousness overcomes all other wickedness.
The Book of Mormon is fertile soil from which fabulous stories can be cultivated. It is also highly relevant to our current time and situation. Though the book was written more than sixteen centuries ago and published almost two hundred years ago, it was written for our day by prophets who saw our times and the challenges we would face. The themes are fresh, germane, and to the point for people living in the Twenty-First Century.
What motivated or inspired me to take a theme and characters from the Book of Mormon around which to weave a work of fiction? This episode in the history of the people in the Book of Mormon is particularly fascinating. Their society has gone through great upheaval and dramatic change in the previous generation. Traditional cultural norms and roles have been reversed. The Lamanites, who throughout the history of the people have been bloodthirsty pagans and atheists, have generally been converted to the One True God and have become a delightful, peaceful, faithful community. The Nephties, on the other hand, who traditionally have been the followers of God, have begun to apostatize from their religion and have become greedy, worldly, and full of pride, with hearts set on riches. The Nephite civilization is beginning to disintegrate under the pressures of corruption and evil.
Spawned by this maelstrom of growing incivility, and directly tied to it, is the establishment among the Nephites of a "secret combination". A small group of malcontents, who are willing to murder anyone and everyone to push their agenda, quickly gains power. They grow into a powerful gang of robbers and terrorists whose goal is to overthrow the crumbling Nephite government and take full control of the society. This band of outlaws is called the Gadiantons, named after one of their early leaders. They become a military force, with strongholds in the mountains. They are supported by sleeper cells among the Nephite populate in the cities below.
This is the setting and backstory of In the Days of Lachoneus. It is like reading the headlines of today's newspaper.
What is missing in the scriptural account of this great cultural battle are the details. The Book of Mormon gives a few names, such as Lachoneus, who is the governor of the Nephites, and Giddianhi, who is the chief of the Gadiantons. But it tells little of their personal lives. As I have read the brief description of the events in the scripture, I have wondered who these people were. What was it like to be the governor of a dilapidated society threatened with extinction? How did a man like Giddianhi become the leader of a terrorist organization? Did Lachoneus have a family? What was it like to live under the constant threat of terrorist attacks? These were real people with real lives, most of which are ignored by the prophets who wrote the Book of Mormon. They had limited resources, and wrote under difficult circumstances, and with a particular purpose in mind. They used the events of the past to teach precepts of faith, repentance, and charity. But I cannot help thinking about the people. And so in absence of facts, my imagination conjures up the details that the scriptures leave out. Out of my imaginings came the novel.
Is it not sacrilegious to cast scriptural figures and events into a novel and to add characters and dialog that never actually existed? Well, I hope not. I have tried to keep the people named in the Book of Mormon account true to their roles, even if I had to make them say things and do things in the novel to move the story along that are not included in the scripture. I am not adding to the scriptures. This is a novel, a work of fiction. I have no way of knowing what Lachoneus or Giddianhi actually said or did beyond what is written in the scriptures. I have had to make up all of the people and the details out of my imagination. I have received no added revelation. Nothing I have written in this novel should ever be quoted in a church setting.
Is my book like Chris Heimerdinger's Tennis Shoes series? First, I loved Mr. Heimerdinger's books. When my son was in junior high school, we read all of the Tennis Shoes books together. He wrote excellent books for young readers and included fun elements of fantasy and magic. My novel, on the other hand, is targeted for more mature readers. I treat the adult themes that are part of the story in a circumspect way, but those themes are still there. No magic or time travel occur in my story. It is written as historical fiction through the points of view of the characters who lived at the time of the events portrayed in the story.
Is this novel only for Mormons? Again, I hope not. I have tried to avoid assumptions about what people may or may not already know about the chapters in the Book of Mormon on which the story is based. The story carries a certain religious theme because religion was an important part of the people's lives. It does not, however, promote Latter-day Saint theology per se. I tried to portray religious principles and rituals as I think they were observed in the time and place of the story. The people of the Book of Mormon were descendants of Israelite ancestors who obeyed the Law of Moses and believed in Jehovah. The religion and culture of the Jews was carried forward by the Nephites throughout their history until the resurrection of Christ and the ushering in of the New Covenant, as described in the New Testament of the Bible. The religious believers in Lachoneus's day were waiting for the Messiah, just as were their Jewish cousins in Jerusalem.
So though the story is based on a religious text, it is not an inherently religious story. It is a story about a clash of cultures, politics, and powers. It is about people who lived ordinary lives in extraordinary times. It is a story about our day and time. The events may be set in 14 A.D., but the themes, the challenges, and the dangers are as current as the Internet, Smartphones, and YouTube.
