"Truly Like Lighting" by David Duchovny

I completed reading this book today.

Restless, but resilient, Hollywood stuntman, Bronson Powers, took possession of a multi hundred acre spread near Joshua Tree National Park, in the California Mojave Desert, after he complied with the stipulation of the rich grandmother, now deceased, making the bequeath: Powers must convert to Mormonism. This he did, though in a very originalist interpretation of Mormonism.

Bronson checked out of Hollywood and checked in to his new desert property where, eventually, he had thee wives, and by them eleven kids. Wives Yalulah and Maria, who (gulp) have their own relationship, survive Jackie, the third wife, who has passed a way. The kids were, actually, ably home schooled, not only in the three R's, but in self sufficiency and self confidence, all away from the corruption of the modern world.

Enter ambitious, mid level, investment company executive, Maya Abbadessa, who stumbles onto Powers' world by taking a wrong road after she left a party which was getting a bit too raucous. Maya sees dollar signs. Powers' kids are not registered with the San Bernardino School District. Powers is likely beaucoup in arrears on his property taxes.

With her crafty boss, David Malouf silently pulling the strings, Maya does a deal with Powers. "I won't sic the government on you if you'll make a wager. Put your kids in Rancho Cucamonga High School for a year. If they don't do better than they did under your home schooling scheme, you have to sell me half your land at bottom dollar. If they do improve, I'll leave you alone." Feeling he has no other choice but to accept the bet.... he will lose his land if he doesn't comply. he surmises...Bronson Powers bites. He knows that he might see his kids succumb to twenty first century lifestyle, thereby, threatening his own way of life. Still, accepting Maya's bet offers the only choice Bronson Powers has that has a possibility, however slim, of preserving his idyllic status quo.

Two of the kids, supervised by Mom Maria , who moves with the three children to Rancho Cucamonga, over achieve. Deuce, who works at fast food restaurant, succeeds in unionizing the restaurant's twenty employees Deuce attracts national attention and receives a Harvard scholarship. Pearl, who (shudder) had her own thing with her Dad before coming to Rancho Cucamonga, lands the role of Maria in the high school's production of "West Side Story." She's a hit. She earns a scholarship to Julliard.

What, in another era would be a tragic, but, accidental outcome of a run of the mill school yard fight, becomes an issue of racial animus, not in the least because Hyrum's dad is worth a lot of money. A civil suit claiming racial motivation is filed against Bronson Powers by the Hispanic kid's family. Hyrum is told not to leave his Rancho Cucamonga home pending school and police authorities wrapping up their investigations.

Bronson Powers understands his son not to be at fault. Powers is proud of his son's restraint and his fighting skill, when Hyrum resisted only as a matter of last resort.

But, for Powers, the law of God, trumps any sense of right and wrong he might have had in his prior life. God's law, he believes, channeled by the Mormon prophet Brigham Young, stipulates that in some circumstances, atonement for murder, can only occur via "blood atonement," a life for a life. Like Abraham sizing up Isaac for a sacrifice, Bronson Powers "kidnaps" Hyrum from his Rancho Cucamonga flat, and, repairing far into his booby trapped desert, sets out to exact God's justice. Hyrum, trusting heavily in his Dad, accompanies Bronson willingly.

Most modern LDS, whose modern church teachings are more about strengthening the family in the face of complex social headwinds, would have never heard of the doctrinally arcane blood atonement. Brigham Young purportedly spoke about blood atonement in a speech. But, the doctrine was never officially implemented by the Church and the idea was discarded one hundred forty years ago, never incorporated into church doctrine.

A reader, knowing little about modern Mormons, might be led by Duchovny to believe that Powers' lifestyle and seeming Old Testament family choices fairly represent the practices of the broader, modern, LDS faith. They do not.

In his acknowledgements, author Duchovny professes admiration for Joseph Smith. Duchovny was a student at Yale of Harold Bloom, religious philosopher, who wrote that Joseph Smith was a genius.

I know of no template in contemporary life where a Bronson Powers figure has adapted Mormon teachings to live a life of polygamous, solitary, self sufficiency. As regards polygamy, there may be some similarities between Bronson and Mormon fundamentalists. But, the fundamentalists would never be able to control a competent loner as independent minded as Bronson Powers. Nor, of course, would Powers, with his prominent independent streak, chose to live in tightly controlled social hierarchy.

Back to the novel. The denouement is a violent one. A little bit of spoiler alert here. The good guys move on to success in the modern world. Pearl enrolls at Julliard and Deuce attends his first year at Harvard. Heretofore reedy Maya has a repentant crisis of conscience and ceases her dealings with the scurrilous, narcissistic, sociopath, David Malouf.

Malouf engineered retrieval of the video which, later, exonerated Hyrum... but, in return for freeing Hyrum and the family land from the Hispanic family legal claim, Malouf unapologetically, euchres the Powers family out of a vast chunk of Powers' valuable desert land.

As to Bronson and the rest of the family? There's enough of interest in that story to keep the readers of this review in suspense, hoping they might read the book to find out the whole of the denouement.

Duchovny writes a good, albeit fantastical, plot. A Mormon reader might be a bit nonplussed about Duchovny's odd interpretation of Mormon doctrine. Still, the novel adeptly surveys the intersection of family, religion, culture, sex, greed, human nature, and the vanishing environment of the ancient desert.

"Truly Like Lightning" has received pretty good reviews. Duchovny, better known as an actor (The X Files), is now being seen as a serious novelist. I recommend reading this novel, not just as escape, but for useful reflection on the impact of evolving cultural and social trends.