Devil Drives

Fawn Brodie was born a Mormon in Ogden, Utah, in 1915. She attended the universities of Utah and Chicago. Her prize-winning No Man Knows My History, the life of the Mormon founder Joseph Smith, was published in 1945. Afterwards, at her own wish, she was excommunicated from the Mormon Church, but was nevertheless elected a Fellow of the Utah Historical Society in 1967. Her other works include a critical edition of Burton's The City of the Saints, a best-selling biography of Thomas Jefferson and an acclaimed study of Richard Nixon. She died in 1981.