Into the Mormon Wild

Jon Krakauer had two mega-hits in the late '90s: Into the Wild, about an ill-fated adventure in the Alaska bush, which spent a combined 56 weeks on PW's hardcover and trade paperback lists; and Into Thin Air, about a deadly Mt. Everest climb, which had a combined 88 weeks on those same lists. His latest, Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, is about a double murder committed by a Fundamentalist Mormon family "in the name of doing God's work." Two weeks before the book was published, the Church of Latter-day Saints took the highly unusual step of issuing a preemptive, negative review of the book that Church officials distributed to the media and book review editors nationwide. Krakauer quickly drafted a response to the LDS Church statement and Doubleday in turn provided that response to book review editors. This debate generated a lot of attention and helped spur book sales. It lands on PW's hardcover chart in the #4 slot and Doubleday has gone back to press four times, taking the 250,000-copy first printing to 330,000 copies. Krakauer has garnered lots of media attention, including appearances on Today and Dateline NBC. He is on a 12-city national bookstore tour, and so far turnout has been very strong: 300 people at Barnes & Noble in New York (July 16); 250 people at Tattered Cover in Denver (July 22); and a sold-out crowd of 800 people at the Trolley Theater in Salt Lake City (July 18), hosted by the King's English Bookstore.