Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2009, Page 44
Book Reviews
Lost Boy
By Brent W. Jeffs with Maia Szalavitz, New York: Broadway Books. 2009. ISBN-10:
0767931777 ISBN-13: 978-0767931779 (hardcover), 256 pages. $24.95 ($16.47
Amazon.com).
Lost Boy is the story of Brent Jeffs, a fourth-generation-born Mormon fundamentalist
polygamist from the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints (FLDS). This painful and self-
revelatory account of one young man‘s horrific journey is a well-written and candid story
that recounts an abusive existence under a façade of religious piety, family legacy, and
male privilege. (His family origins in polygamy can be traced six generations back to Joseph
Smith.) The story progresses to detail the struggle of someone living as a ―Gentile‖ within
the larger Utah culture, which is itself uniquely outside the mainstream of American society.
Brent‘s first-person narrative is an important account historically because he brought the
landmark lawsuit against his uncle, FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, and the FLDS church. Brent
filed the suit in 2004 for compensatory and punitive damages alleging that Warren
sodomized him regularly when he was between the ages of four and six. In the unfolding
story, readers come to understand the power that Warren held over children, his
opportunity to exploit them, and those who were accomplices to his crimes. Readers also
learn that, as with all pedophiles, his victims included others, as well. In particular, Brent‘s
older brother Clayne is so tormented by Warren‘s sexual abuse that his self-destructive
behavior leads him to the ultimate eventuality: suicide.
Lost Boy describes an often abusive and violent home life, where wives and children are
pitted against one another for scarce resources, and a community that lives in paranoid
fear, guilt, mind-numbing obedience, and isolation.
In heartbreaking honesty, Brent describes his struggle to eventually assimilate into public
school after Rulon Jeffs expels the family from the FLDS, and that of living with other lost
boys who are also floundering in a new and judgmentally stratified culture. Further, his
narrative graphically explains how abuse and abandonment cause these children to migrate
toward the drug culture for self-medication and some sense of belonging: ―…goody-goody
Mormons weren‘t an option. But the stoners accepted anyone.‖
One problem occurs at the point where the book asserts that boys have been expelled from
the FLDS since 1999 (also included on the jacket cover), This assertion leads readers to
believe that such expulsions began only in that year, when in fact they simply increased in
that group in 1999. From my own research and the common knowledge in Utah, the
expulsion of boys has been an ever-present dynamic in the FLDS group as well as in other
fundamentalist polygamist groups and independent families and it remains so today.
At times Brent romanticizes the past, when a different leadership held power over the
group, including periods of time before his birth. He writes that, early in the group‘s history,
―…the FLDS was mighty peculiar, but not particularly perverse.‖ Yet he recounts family and
church history that is decidedly perverse. Such examples include describing his
grandfather‘s first wife‘s breakdown, the church ownership of people‘s homes, the massive
numbers of children‘s deaths, and a genetic disorder from arranged intermarriage that is
responsible for the deaths of seven of his mother‘s siblings—just to name a few.
We can forgive much of this, however, as Brent admits to the continuing process of
unraveling and understanding his roots, which he illustrates with poignant moments of
developing insight. For example, in describing the group‘s penchant for avoiding medical
Book Reviews
Lost Boy
By Brent W. Jeffs with Maia Szalavitz, New York: Broadway Books. 2009. ISBN-10:
0767931777 ISBN-13: 978-0767931779 (hardcover), 256 pages. $24.95 ($16.47
Amazon.com).
Lost Boy is the story of Brent Jeffs, a fourth-generation-born Mormon fundamentalist
polygamist from the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints (FLDS). This painful and self-
revelatory account of one young man‘s horrific journey is a well-written and candid story
that recounts an abusive existence under a façade of religious piety, family legacy, and
male privilege. (His family origins in polygamy can be traced six generations back to Joseph
Smith.) The story progresses to detail the struggle of someone living as a ―Gentile‖ within
the larger Utah culture, which is itself uniquely outside the mainstream of American society.
Brent‘s first-person narrative is an important account historically because he brought the
landmark lawsuit against his uncle, FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, and the FLDS church. Brent
filed the suit in 2004 for compensatory and punitive damages alleging that Warren
sodomized him regularly when he was between the ages of four and six. In the unfolding
story, readers come to understand the power that Warren held over children, his
opportunity to exploit them, and those who were accomplices to his crimes. Readers also
learn that, as with all pedophiles, his victims included others, as well. In particular, Brent‘s
older brother Clayne is so tormented by Warren‘s sexual abuse that his self-destructive
behavior leads him to the ultimate eventuality: suicide.
Lost Boy describes an often abusive and violent home life, where wives and children are
pitted against one another for scarce resources, and a community that lives in paranoid
fear, guilt, mind-numbing obedience, and isolation.
In heartbreaking honesty, Brent describes his struggle to eventually assimilate into public
school after Rulon Jeffs expels the family from the FLDS, and that of living with other lost
boys who are also floundering in a new and judgmentally stratified culture. Further, his
narrative graphically explains how abuse and abandonment cause these children to migrate
toward the drug culture for self-medication and some sense of belonging: ―…goody-goody
Mormons weren‘t an option. But the stoners accepted anyone.‖
One problem occurs at the point where the book asserts that boys have been expelled from
the FLDS since 1999 (also included on the jacket cover), This assertion leads readers to
believe that such expulsions began only in that year, when in fact they simply increased in
that group in 1999. From my own research and the common knowledge in Utah, the
expulsion of boys has been an ever-present dynamic in the FLDS group as well as in other
fundamentalist polygamist groups and independent families and it remains so today.
At times Brent romanticizes the past, when a different leadership held power over the
group, including periods of time before his birth. He writes that, early in the group‘s history,
―…the FLDS was mighty peculiar, but not particularly perverse.‖ Yet he recounts family and
church history that is decidedly perverse. Such examples include describing his
grandfather‘s first wife‘s breakdown, the church ownership of people‘s homes, the massive
numbers of children‘s deaths, and a genetic disorder from arranged intermarriage that is
responsible for the deaths of seven of his mother‘s siblings—just to name a few.
We can forgive much of this, however, as Brent admits to the continuing process of
unraveling and understanding his roots, which he illustrates with poignant moments of
developing insight. For example, in describing the group‘s penchant for avoiding medical
