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By Kent Larsen
Coke Newell's 'Latter Days' Tells LDS Story
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- "Latter Days," a re-telling of Latter-Day Saint
history by convert Coke Newell of the LDS Public Affairs Department has done
well for St. Martin's Press. It's done so well that it's been picked up by
Sam's Club and the New York publisher is releasing it in paperback.
"I suppose I tell the story as I wish I would have heard it," says Newell.
"In the church we constantly preach to the choir. I'm fairly outrageous in
my thinking, but Don LeFevre in Public Affairs helped me learn to temper and
control my writing. Learning to tell the Latter-day Saint story to an
audience is what I do on the job every day. I hope the book is an extension
of what I've learned."
As for "Latter Days," the style and tone of the book can be found in the
first words of the prologue:
He could have done something simple, like refuse to go to church or argue
that the preacher was boring. After all, he was just a fourteen-year-old
boy, and everyone would have understood. . . . But no, young Joseph Smith
had to go and turn religion on its head, making claims no one had ever made,
pushing buttons no one had ever pushed.
Source:
Volume on LDS history wins national readership
Deseret News 30Jun01 A2
By Jerry Johnston: Deseret News staff writer
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