Book Buzz: Steinbeck fact or fiction, new book about heaven

John Steinbeck's 'Travels With Charley' was heavily fictionalized, it's been revealed on the books 50th anniversary. (Photo: Associated Press)

12:33PM EST November 26. 2012 - Here's a look at what's buzzing in the book world today:

New and noteworthy: Michael Connelly's new Harry Bosch book, The Black Box, is out today. Check out book editor Jocelyn McClurg's picks for the week. Plus, read USA TODAY's 3-star review of Friendkeeping, about the difficult art of maintaining friendships.

Steinbeck's story: On the 50th birthday of John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley, publisher Penguin admits the author heavily fictionalized the book from his 1960 road trip.

Bryce Cortenay dies: Courtenay, the Australian author of The Power of One, which was adapted into a 1992 film starring Morgan Freeman, has died at 79.

New YA imprint: HarperCollins announced today it's launching a digital imprint called HarperTeen Impulse that will focus on young adult short stories and novellas.

To heaven and back: The New York Times profiles Dr. Eben Alexander III, a neurosurgeon who has written the book Proof of Heaven, about his religious experience while in a meningitis-induced coma. The book is No. 10 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list.

Food for thought: Jami Attenberg, author of the food- and weight-focused novel The Middlesteins, writes about the power and meaning behind food in literature for The Wall Street Journal.

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THE PRISONER OF HEAVEN

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Washington Post book reviewers

Aug 8, 2012 ARCHIVES  |  Entertainment  |  COLUMNS

Carlos Ruiz Zafon Translated from the Spanish by Lucia Graves
HarperCollins
ISBN 978-0062206282
278 pages
$25.99

Reviewed by Yvonne Zipp, who regularly reviews books for the Christian Science Monitor and The Washington Post.

It's surprising to learn that Carlos Ruiz Zafon, of all people, uses a Kindle. In the world created by this internationally best-selling Spanish writer, book lovers are heroes and rare books the greatest treasures of all.

"The Prisoner of Heaven" is Zafon's third novel set around Sempere & Sons bookstore and the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a fabled repository in Barcelona where people are allowed to choose one volume in their lifetime. Oh, you could digitize all those rare editions, but where's the drama in that?

Zafon claims you don't have to read his books in chronological order, but "The Prisoner of Heaven" would be a confusing place to start. This slender novel provides some answers to what happened to David Martin, the writer who made a Faustian bargain in "The Angel's Game" (2009), and to the mother of Daniel, the young hero in "The Shadow of the Wind" (2004).

Each of the novels in this series revolves around a particular rare book. This time, a valuable copy of "The Count of Monte Cristo" gets pride of place. Several key plot points parallel Dumas' classic of wrongful imprisonment and revenge.

It's Christmas 1957, and customers are scarce at Sempere & Sons; bills are coming due. But then a man with a porcelain hand enters the store and buys the most expensive book, an edition of "The Count of Monte Cristo." He inscribes it: "For Fermin Romero de Torres, who came back from among the dead and holds the key to the future."

That "gaunt knight," Fermin Romero de Torres, becomes the hero of a tale within a tale marked by improbable escapes, torture and near starvation. As he careens from one near-death adventure to the next, Fermin makes bravura pronouncements such as "Obstetrics, after free verse, is one of my hobbies," and "Destiny doesn't do home visits." When a character remarks that he must have a hard time in Franco's Spain, the former spy replies, "You have no idea. But I always tell myself that having direct access to serrano ham makes up for everything."

"Everything" in this case involves a stint in the Montjuic Castle in the 1940s, presided over by the nefarious Mauricio Valls. Before the Spanish Civil War, he "penned bad translations of Greek and Latin classics and, with the help of a couple of kindred souls, edited a cultural pamphlet with high pretensions and low circulation." Fermin is imprisoned alongside another of Zafon's characters, and the two try to find a way out of the impenetrable fortress that makes the Chateau d'If look like the Four Seasons. The sadistic Inspector Fumero from "Shadow of the Wind" is also back, lurking in the castle's dungeons.

Full of stylish writing, Gothic atmosphere and love letters to 19th-century novels, "The Prisoner of Heaven" ends with one villain still at large, so fans should get at least one more trip to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

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Review-a-Day for Sat, Sep 24: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

by Jon Krakauer A review by Doug Brown

On July 24, 1984, two fundamentalist Mormon brothers brutally murdered their sister-in-law and her baby girl, believing they were fulfilling a revelation that one of the brothers had received from God. Today they reside in federal prisons. The older brother, Ron (who had the revelation), is on death row and following every avenue for appeal. The younger brother, Dan, is serving a life sentence and seems okay with it (Krakauer says he refers to prison as a "monastery"). Krakauer spoke to Dan for the book, but not Ron. Under the Banner of Heaven tells in parallel the story of the Lafferty brothers and their descent into fundamentalism alongside the history of the Mormon Church.

The modern Mormon Church is quick to distance itself from fundamentalists; most are excommunicated from the Latter-Day Saint (LDS) community. The church downplays the history of plural marriage (polygamy) in Mormonism, to the point of maintaining that Brigham Young was monogamous (history says otherwise). Polygamy is a central point of contention with fundamentalists -- they feel the church went astray when it cooperated with U.S. law and renounced the practice in the late 1800s. A practice that is still a part of the church, though, is revelation. Mormons are encouraged to listen for messages from God, and much of the basis of Mormon dogma is a sequence of revelations that Joseph Smith and later church leaders have had. One doctrine of Mormonism that has terrible consequences is "blood atonement"; if acts are committed against Mormons, Brigham Young said this could sometimes only be rectified if the "sinners have their blood spilt upon the ground." Fundamentalists are naturally drawn to blood atonement, and this element of Mormonism became a focus for the Lafferty brothers.

A fundamental point of Ron's trial was whether he was insane. The defense argued he was; the prosecution argued no. As Krakauer details, if Ron Lafferty is insane, it could be argued that so are most religious people. He believed he was receiving revelations from God, but revelation is a tenet of Mormonism. Despite carrying out horrible crimes, he felt he was doing the right thing, and was thus divorced from reality. But so is everyone who goes to war with a cross or a star or a crescent around their neck. Ron did what he did because of his faith. Sure, the motive seems self-serving -- Brenda Lafferty (the victim) had convinced Ron's abused wife to leave him, so naturally Ron said that God wanted her "removed." But there was much discussion between the brothers and their circle about whether the "removal revelation" was legitimately from God; the final decision, for Ron and Dan anyway, was yes. This discussion is a particularly sore point for Brenda's family -- several people knew about the revelation months before it was carried out, and no one warned her. Krakauer maintains one of these people was Allen Lafferty, Brenda's husband. Ron had shown him the revelation and asked what he thought of it. Allen spoke against it, but never felt inclined to say, "Hey, honey, I had the creepiest talk with my brothers..."

Even before Under the Banner of Heaven was on the shelves, the LDS church preemptively attacked it. In a five-page screed that is reprinted in an appendix for the paperback, Krakauer is taken to task for focusing on the negative aspects of the church. It emphasizes that the Lafferty brothers weren't members of the LDS church, having been excommunicated. Krakauer responds to each of the charges. In a few cases, he acknowledges having gotten facts wrong in the initial release (which were subsequently corrected for the paperback edition). But, for the most part, he defends the points made in the book.

Events have happened in the history of Mormonism that the church would rather sweep under the rug, like the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre (detailed in the book). And while the Laffertys had been excommunicated from the LDS church, their beliefs were rooted in the church. They believed they were being better Mormons than the LDS church leaders. To me, that was an important take-away lesson of the book -- religious fundamentalists don't necessarily believe something completely different from the mainstream; they just interpret the same texts more inflexibly and believe in their interpretation more deeply. In the hands of fundamentalists, religious belief is by definition intolerant, and often used for brutal ends. Under the Banner of Heaven is a scary book about the dark fringe of extremist religion and believers who are willing to lethally impose their dogma.

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BETWEEN HEAVEN AND MIRTH: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life

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Nov 25, 2011 ARCHIVES  |  Entertainment  |  COLUMNS

James Martin
HarperOne
ISBN 978-0062024268
263 pages
$25.99

Reviewed by Harvey Cox

According to the Westminster Catechism, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." Why then, Jesuit writer James Martin wants to know, does Christianity seem to have forgotten the "enjoy" part? This book is his attempt both to answer that question and to inject some joy, mirth and humor into modern spirituality, which he deems entirely too solemn and dour.

The task Martin has undertaken is not easy. Suffering, after all, was what started the Buddha on his quest. At the center of Christianity is a man being tortured to death by Roman legionnaires. Some of the most moving texts in the Hebrew scripture focus on mortality, pain, defeat and exile. These are hardly laughing matters. But Martin argues persuasively that genuine joy does not minimize suffering. Rather it arises from facing it and, with God's help, overcoming it. Martin regrets that he sees so many long faces at church, but he also recalls how, as a seminarian, he visited an African-American Baptist church and discovered that people who bear heavy burdens often worship with exuberance. Joy, he says, is clearly a gift of grace. He might also do well to drop in occasionally to a Pentecostal church, where playfulness and gusto can shake the chandeliers.

Still, there is much murk to dig through before mirth can be revived. Martin might be just the man for the job. An editor of the Jesuit order's esteemed journal America, he worked for six years after college in corporate finance before joining the order. He is also the author of several books and has an abiding interest in relating spirituality to everyday life. He knows something about mirth, too, and has appeared several times on Comedy Central's "Colbert Report." Martin, who wrote the exquisite book "My Life with the Saints," might have fun explaining why, with the exception of course of St. Teresa in ecstasy, the saints are inevitably pictured as in serious funks. Has anyone ever seen an image of a saint laughing?

"Between Heaven and Mirth" unfolds in nine short, sequential sections. Martin scatters jokes here and there, and some of them - not all - are funny. He touches on why we need to reclaim humor and laughter in religion. why it has been so downgraded, and what the spiritual masters in different traditions have taught about joy. He ranges through classical and modern Christian writers from St. Benedict to Karl Barth, quoting their apt remarks on joy. He even cites Pope Benedict XVI, who, to this reader's surprise, once wrote, "I believe (God) has a great sense of humor. ... (He) wants to prod us into taking things a bit more lightly." But Martin does not restrict himself to his own faith. He cites the 14th-century Muslim mystic Hafiz, who said, "What is this precious love and laughter budding in our hearts?... It is the glorious sound of a soul waking up!" Might Muslims and Christian theologians hit it off better if they stopped arguing about the Trinity and swapped some droll stories?

In the second half of the book, Martin gets more practical, turning to joy in institutional religion and also to how the reader can recover it in personal life "even if you don't feel especially joyful." He includes brief but lucid discussions of three biblical passages. The first is Psalm 65, which ends with a description of how the valleys and hills "shout and sing together for joy." Next he turns to Luke 1, the delight shared by two expectant mothers in the "Visitation" scene of Mary and Elizabeth. Then comes First Thessalonians, the oldest book in the New Testament, in which St. Paul, according to Martin not really the sourpuss he is made out to be, exhorts the people to "Rejoice always."

What about Jesus? Did he ever laugh? Martin insists he did, probably, very frequently. Then why don't the Gospels say so? Martin believes they do. Some of Jesus' parables are playful and witty and must have sounded like shaggy-dog stories to his hearers. He was a master of hyperbole and of the unexpected ending. The problem, says Martin, is that the Gospels all concentrate heavily on the final weeks of Jesus' life, the Passion narrative. But after all, he writes, Jesus lived for 30-odd years before that and is described as attending weddings (at one he replenished the waning wine supply) and dinner parties, allegedly in the company of sinners, where, the writer suggests, wine and laughter must have enlivened the room. The reason the Gospel writers shortchange this part of his life is that they felt they had to explain why the Messiah had been killed, something unthinkable to his contemporaries. I had my doubts, however, when Martin said that one reason the Thessalonians were so joyful was that in the midst of their persecution they expected the imminent return of Christ. Most Christians today doubt it is all that imminent, and those who do - the people who savor the "Left Behind" series of novels about the earth's last days - sound more angry and vengeful than joyful.

"Between Heaven and Mirth" is delicious, well crafted and well paced. Martin draws on his own experience as a priest and demonstrates both a light touch and an impressive command of his subject. Reading it reminded me that when Dante finally approaches heaven in "The Divine Comedy," the sound he hears "me sembiana un riso del universo" (seemed to me like the laughter of the universe).

Harvey Cox is Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard and the author of "The Future of Faith."

Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
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Review-a-Day for Sat, Sep 24: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith

by Jon Krakauer A review by Doug Brown

On July 24, 1984, two fundamentalist Mormon brothers brutally murdered their sister-in-law and her baby girl, believing they were fulfilling a revelation that one of the brothers had received from God. Today they reside in federal prisons. The older brother, Ron (who had the revelation), is on death row and following every avenue for appeal. The younger brother, Dan, is serving a life sentence and seems okay with it (Krakauer says he refers to prison as a "monastery"). Krakauer spoke to Dan for the book, but not Ron. Under the Banner of Heaven tells in parallel the story of the Lafferty brothers and their descent into fundamentalism alongside the history of the Mormon Church.

The modern Mormon Church is quick to distance itself from fundamentalists; most are excommunicated from the Latter-Day Saint (LDS) community. The church downplays the history of plural marriage (polygamy) in Mormonism, to the point of maintaining that Brigham Young was monogamous (history says otherwise). Polygamy is a central point of contention with fundamentalists -- they feel the church went astray when it cooperated with U.S. law and renounced the practice in the late 1800s. A practice that is still a part of the church, though, is revelation. Mormons are encouraged to listen for messages from God, and much of the basis of Mormon dogma is a sequence of revelations that Joseph Smith and later church leaders have had. One doctrine of Mormonism that has terrible consequences is "blood atonement"; if acts are committed against Mormons, Brigham Young said this could sometimes only be rectified if the "sinners have their blood spilt upon the ground." Fundamentalists are naturally drawn to blood atonement, and this element of Mormonism became a focus for the Lafferty brothers.

A fundamental point of Ron's trial was whether he was insane. The defense argued he was; the prosecution argued no. As Krakauer details, if Ron Lafferty is insane, it could be argued that so are most religious people. He believed he was receiving revelations from God, but revelation is a tenet of Mormonism. Despite carrying out horrible crimes, he felt he was doing the right thing, and was thus divorced from reality. But so is everyone who goes to war with a cross or a star or a crescent around their neck. Ron did what he did because of his faith. Sure, the motive seems self-serving -- Brenda Lafferty (the victim) had convinced Ron's abused wife to leave him, so naturally Ron said that God wanted her "removed." But there was much discussion between the brothers and their circle about whether the "removal revelation" was legitimately from God; the final decision, for Ron and Dan anyway, was yes. This discussion is a particularly sore point for Brenda's family -- several people knew about the revelation months before it was carried out, and no one warned her. Krakauer maintains one of these people was Allen Lafferty, Brenda's husband. Ron had shown him the revelation and asked what he thought of it. Allen spoke against it, but never felt inclined to say, "Hey, honey, I had the creepiest talk with my brothers..."

Even before Under the Banner of Heaven was on the shelves, the LDS church preemptively attacked it. In a five-page screed that is reprinted in an appendix for the paperback, Krakauer is taken to task for focusing on the negative aspects of the church. It emphasizes that the Lafferty brothers weren't members of the LDS church, having been excommunicated. Krakauer responds to each of the charges. In a few cases, he acknowledges having gotten facts wrong in the initial release (which were subsequently corrected for the paperback edition). But, for the most part, he defends the points made in the book.

Events have happened in the history of Mormonism that the church would rather sweep under the rug, like the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre (detailed in the book). And while the Laffertys had been excommunicated from the LDS church, their beliefs were rooted in the church. They believed they were being better Mormons than the LDS church leaders. To me, that was an important take-away lesson of the book -- religious fundamentalists don't necessarily believe something completely different from the mainstream; they just interpret the same texts more inflexibly and believe in their interpretation more deeply. In the hands of fundamentalists, religious belief is by definition intolerant, and often used for brutal ends. Under the Banner of Heaven is a scary book about the dark fringe of extremist religion and believers who are willing to lethally impose their dogma.

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Review-a-Day for Thu, Aug 25: Sweet Heaven When I Die: Faith, Faithlessness, and the Country in Between

by Jeff Sharlet A review by Steve Yarbrough

I used to live in Fresno, Calif., a red city in a blue state, and during my years there I belonged to a gym where I once overheard a conversation between two young people about whether or not "intervention" was in order when you learned that a Christian brother or sister had out-of-wedlock sex. I found myself thinking of that conversation while reading "The Best Minds of My Generation," a piece about youth minister Ron Luce in Jeff Sharlet's superb new essay collection Sweet Heaven When I Die: Faith, Faithlessness, and the Country In Between.

Luce's intention, Sharlet argues persuasively, is to "immunize" the young from the enticements of secularism. His most devoted followers cough up $7,800 per year to become students at his Honor Academy. "'Turn and burn,' goes a popular saying there. That is, look away from Jesus for even an instant -- at, say, a hot girl in Potter's Desire, the academy's evangelical dance team -- and you might find yourself in hell instead of Texas. Which is why every student must pledge to confront other students if their behavior is ungodly, or simply too arousing."

Luce puts his recruits though such ordeals as a 2 1/2-day endurance trial in which they are forced to remain awake at all times and carry enormous wooden crosses. They take "gender-divided purity classes" taught by such experts as Shannon Etheridge, who has written volumes for an "antimasturbation" series. Etheridge, Sharlet notes, developed a "passion for sexual purity ... in mortuary college." If all of this sounds comic, it is. But it's also profoundly disturbing. Luce, Sharlet says, has created for his followers "a cramped little country in which there is not enough room to be lost or found, only 'saved' as a static condition."

Many of these essays isolate figures who operate on the fringes of extreme belief or extreme skepticism. One of the most compelling pieces concerns philosopher Cornel West, who describes himself as "a bluesman in the life of the mind. ... A jazzman in the world of ideas." In order to live, West believes, one must constantly remain ready to die. "In the end," he tells the author, "we're beings headed toward death ... for the most part we don't have any control ... you have to acknowledge the magnitude of the mystery."

The musical motif resounds most memorably in the stunning concluding essay, which focuses on the life of the great banjo player Dock Boggs, who recorded eight sides in 1927, got rid of his banjo during the Great Depression and, as far as we know, didn't play the instrument again for 30 years. Thinking about Boggs and recent setbacks in his own life and that of a friend, Sharlet considers what it means to quit.

"Quitting," he writes, "is a place, free not just of ambition but of bitterness, too. A place where what could have been is simply not, neither forgotten nor clung to. At most just observed. Like the sparks that didn't sizzle when they hit the pond."

From what people in the publishing business tell me, collections of essays are not easy to sell these days. I hope Sharlet proves conventional wisdom wrong. This is a fine book, by a deeply thoughtful writer, one with the wisdom to observe that "we are none of us human yet, only trying and quitting and trying and tiptoeing out the back door. We recorded our eight sides and went home, singing the 'Down South Blues.'"

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