POST-MORMON STORIES

A Disciple of the Prophet Joseph Smith

In this excerpt from my memoir, a young LDS missionary under police interrogation begins to realize just how much trouble he’s facing.

With the horror film Heretic making a splash in theaters, I wanted to remind folks that I too went through some harrowing adventures as a Mormon missionary. What’s more, I wrote a book about it, The Accidental Terrorist: Confessions of a Reluctant Missionary. Here’s the prologue as a teaser.

Me at 19, acting as cool as it’s possible to be at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah — which is to say, not very. September 1986.

23 February 1987

The detective unlocks my tiny room and drags a plastic chair in from the hallway.

“Mister Shunn,” she says, “I’d like to ask you some questions now, if you have a few minutes.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, narrowing my eyes. My stinging eyes.

There’s no one but the detective and me in this consultation booth, no knob on the inside of the door. The detective locks us in, sits down, crosses her legs, and smooths her short, short skirt.

I squirm in my chair. She’s disconcertingly blond, mid-thirties. I’m nineteen years old, and I haven’t been alone so close to a woman in five months. With no table between us, our knees nearly touch…