Devil’s Gate Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy

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The revelatory story, now in paperback, of the worst disaster in the history of the Western migrationsand how Brigham Young made it a parable of the indomitable Mormon spirit. • Dramatic re-telling of a terrible but little-known tragedy: In 1856, 220 Mormons traveling west to Utah, pushing and pulling their belongings in handcarts, died of malnutrition and hypothermia. Roberts draws on contemporary letters and diaries to re-create the drama and suffering. • A powerful indictment of Brigham Young: Young had been warned that the pilgrims were at risk from winter storms; he could have waited until the next year or sent aid eastward sooner but failed to do so until it was too late. Not only have Youngs biographers ignored or minimized this tragic and preventable event, theyve tacitly accepted the official version of the story, which casts it as an unavoidable act of God that testedand provedthe faith and steadfastness of the Mormon spirit. • Follows the success of other books about the Mormons: Devils Gate will appeal to the same readers that made Jon Krakauers Under the Banner of Heaven and Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smiths The Mormon Murders into explosive, national bestsellers.

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