Jack Waters

Great history to steer the mythology

Revisado: 01-08-25

Elijah Wald does a great job using the actual history to steer the mythology’s fictions and truths.

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Wow

Revisado: 09-16-24

Wow. This novel is mad, fragrant, and propulsive. Amazing. No wonder it was Kurt Cobain’s favorite novel.

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The real Jay went to my high school

Revisado: 07-12-24

The real Jay went to my high school (years before me) — those of us who went to high school in a pre-Internet age before 9/11 lived with (I assume) more myths and oral traditions than those today. Jay’s Journal was a frequent topic throughout Jr. High School and High School in the 1990s. Jay’s (Alden was his real name) dad had a medical practice on Main St. a baseball’s toss from the city library where my mom worked.

Stories about Jay ranged from the benign, “I knew someone who knew him” to the more sinister, “I know where Jay did rituals in this house/underground tunnel/etc.” The “Blue Moo” restaurant is the Purple Turtle in real life, still a staple of the small, actual city of Pleasant Grove, Utah.

Alden/“Jay’s” grave is in the PG cemetery, not too far from where my dad’s grave is, so I’m at the cemetery more often during the past few years. “Jay’s” gravestone has a chipped clay picture of him -- whoever did it forgot that when you are looking at a picture, Jay’s right side is our left (the journal mentions his death via gunshot to the right temple). There is also a lengthy poem written by Alden/“Jay” on the gravestone that misspells “Who’s” instead of “Whose” a few times but has a few tender lines, including one about being thirsty — there are often drinks placed at his grave as a result. I've left one many times myself, usually from Hart's or BJ's, two gas station convenience stores kitty-corner to each other just down the road from the PG cemetery. It was said around town that if you placed a drink at his grave, you’d be protected from the evil spirits or “Raul” etc.

I used to ride my bike past Alden’s house (the Barrett’s), but I never knocked on their door to bother them. When I was an office aide at Pleasant Grove High School, I confirmed that there are tunnels under the school, and some are accessible near the assembly hall stage. When I went down there it was your basic dusty, cobwebbed alley with dead mice, minor graffiti, a few chairs, other unknown items, etc. I didn’t have a flashlight so I didn’t go too far, plus it was a dicey place to navigate, devil-worshipping myths or not.

I was shocked years later when I learned how widespread Jay’s Journal was, across the nation and even the world. I thought it was a documented local legend — there were probably six or seven local legends that were given almost as much weight as Jay’s, including a so-called “Swinger” at an elementary school near Alden/“Jay’s/the Barrett’s home. Swinger in the sense of a swingset. Supposedly, a woman, usually dressed in all white (who was also an albino who'd only go out at night), preferred the tall, chain swingsets at nearby Valley View Elementary School. I saw the Swinger multiple times in person — or at least someone in all white swinging at night (who knows if it was a person pretending to be the swinger to continue the power of that myth). As such, that was the strongest local myth, with Jay being second, as far as my perspective is concerned.

I decided to re-read this book (which, when young, was considered contraband, and passed around in secret). The library copies were always missing, and one time someone put a different dust jacket on it and placed it elsewhere so that it would always be available when needed. I wanted to re-read it to prepare for the Rick Emerson book “Unmasked Alice” about the editor/author of Jay’s Journal and Go Ask Alice, Beatrice Sparks, being a deceptive charlatan who used only 20 or so actual journal entries of the 220+ in Jay’s Journal. She had other deceptions that really hurt the Barrett family after they entrusted her with their traumatic story about their son Alden in hopes that it would prevent similar occurrences for other families, but it looks like Jay’s Journal may have created even more problems during the drug and satanic panics of the 80s and 90s. I'll probably read this book one more time in my life, after I read the Rick Emerson book, which looks to be quite detailed.

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Great story. Audio mistakes not edited out — so some lines are re-read.

Revisado: 02-25-24

Great story from lots of different voices and sources. The glaring problem of it is that several audio mistakes are not edited out — so some lines are re-read.

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Dense, dreadful, and delightful.

Revisado: 10-18-21

Vollmann is a master of magnifying the details of the past in compelling narratives. An unparalleled talent.

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A more than marvelous work

Revisado: 03-29-20

What do you get when you combine boomtown dynamics, theocratic bravado, manifest destiny, church v. state battles, secret and illegal marriage practices, America's chaotic expansion, a charismatic leader, a malleable and dogmatic populace, and a whole lot of fun and wackiness? Something like Nauvoo, Illinois in the mid-nineteenth century. And Benjamin E. Park's book does a fantastic job weaving all of these threads in an instructive, fair, and compelling way.

Park unearths vital information that isn't widely and easily available to modern Mormons -- he goes deeper than the shiny, toothless representation of the Nauvoo period proferred by Mormon leaders and their correlation-mandated materials. Some of those friendlier happenings are true and essential to the story, but when they are isolated it gives a faulty, lifeless utopian feel to a vicious and visionary paradigm in both Mormon and American history.

It's imperative that both the Mormon and historical contexts go together in a C.S.-Lewis-which-shear-is-more-essential-in-scissors way for the story, and Park has the skills and sheer expertise to accomplish the task, raising the ghosts not just among the brick and ornate edifices, but the fallen wooden shacks and buildings as well.

In the book's final pages, a personal connection brought me joy. My great-grandma^4, Mary Ann [Frost] Pratt, was fed up with the secret polygamy of her husband, one of the earliest Mormon apostles, Parley Pratt, and was granted a divorce from him. I was happy to see her name in print since it took much resolve to stand up for one's self amid such patriarchal secrecy. It really meant a lot that a book of this import includes such seemingly small details since her husband (my great-grandpa^4) has had endless ink used on his behalf. She's a hero of mine and I feel honored to be her descendant.

The book has my highest recommendation, and I will soon re-read/listen.

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Jackson Crawford is unparalleled

Revisado: 03-03-20

Jackson Crawford is unparalleled. I’d love to go on a long hike with him while he reads stanzas.

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A modern must-read.

Revisado: 03-02-20

Hägglund has done an incredible job distilling a wondrous take on secularism without the jarring displeasures seen from many anti-theists. The long chapter on Democratic Socialism alone is worth it. I have a physical copy and an Audible copy and will read and listen to this multiple times. The narrator Kirby Heybourne did a fantastic job with the material.

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