Book Review: When the Moon Turns to Blood, by Leah Sottile
'Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a story of murder, wild faith, and end times'
This is the Idaho where the wind is unrelenting, where the trees are thin and weary, where everything underneath the wide, unyielding sky appears to be genuflecting—like it is the blue iris of God, whose gaze is fixed on this very place.
When the Moon Turns to Blood paints the rich backstory behind the bewildering and grisly murders of two children. It also portrays a web of self-anointed influencers on the fringes of the LDS church who seize opportunities for celebrity and profit amid a growing movement of religious reinterpretation among some believers. The book tells the story of how two LDS christians wrapped themselves in an increasingly warped and self-aggrandizing version of their faith, with devastating consequences.
The story of Chad Daybell and Lori Vallow, when they were arrested for the murder of Vallow's children in Idaho in 2020, easily lent itself to click-bait headlines about the ‘doomsday mommy’ as it was unfolding. But Leah Sottile goes much deeper, building on the dogged reporting of local journalists to tell an important story that honors the lives of two lost children, and carries a broader warning for society.
Sottile grew up in the Northwest and has reported on extremism for years. Her writing is brilliant, but never flashy. She dives into Chad Daybell's novels, voluminous court records, video footage, and the historical background behind some of the more cult-like offshoots that have germinated around the Book of Mormon from time to time, giving depth and context to the book's subjects.
More importantly, her dedication to detail and nuance—lucid descriptions of place, the sound of flip-flops smacking the ground in Hawai’i as Daybell and Vallow ignored a reporter’s questions, the smell of her son’s favorite fast food joint wafting across the street to the yard of Vallow’s jail—pull you into the story. Sottile’s treatment of each character makes them feel like real people. Their faults are human, although they fractured to uncommon extremes.
But it's her grasp of the empty moral landscape of the American West, and how the shadows cast by religion and the cult of celebrity on that landscape have often turned its desolate beauty into fertile ground for narcissistic depravity, that elevates the book and places the story in a wider context.
It’s a dark tale, but Sottile is an expert and compassionate guide, illuminating the complex folds of the underbelly of the West. She’s also produced several excellent podcasts, and has a great substack.