Michael S Robinson

Four Corners, One Square Michael S Robinson

While the stark peculiarities and unorthodoxies of Mormonism are at the core of this story--particularly the sense of entitlement that comes from the belief that its members are fledgling gods--it is a powerful look into the dauntless people who both shaped the religion's history and tackled the job of settling and farming the rugged Colorado Plateau. Chronicling the lives of two divergent groups of Mormons, it paints a colorful picture of the hardships and successes of both--the ones who turned around after Joseph Smith's death and went back to their old lives in the East, and those who struggled onward to forge new opportunities in the West. At the center of this story are the abuses that occur when a people believe that they are God's chosen. The righteous people of the Colorado Plateau town of Deseret Wells find their lives and futures threatened by their smug tenacity to the darker tenets of Mormonism, its fundamental racism, rabid Constitutionalist mindset, and its belief in the future deification of its worthy members. Farmer, Fred Goodson, is a refreshing exception, a man who places human kindness and understanding above his religious beliefs, while his daughter, Dellie, is the predatory, narcissistic, goody-goody Mormon farm-girl who scraps her religion and feeds upon those unlucky enough to cross her path.