On the Road to Heaven [Paperback]

Coke Newell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 2007

From the author of "Latter Days: A Guided Tour Through Six Billion Years of Mormonism" comes this exuberant and groundbreaking autobiographical novel about the modern Mormon convert experience. Revealing the author's hard-won path to meaning, faith, and forgiveness, "On the Road to Heaven" is a love story about a girl and a guy and their search for heaven-a lotta love, a little heaven, and one heck of a ride in between. In a style reminiscent of and offering homage to Jack Kerouac, "On the Road to Heaven" traces an LSD-to-LDS pilgrimage across the geographic and cultural landscape of two continents in the late twentieth century. From the 1970s hippie heyday of the Colorado mountains to the coca fields of Colombia, it's a journey through Thoreau ascetics, Ram Dass Taoism, and Edward Abbey monkey-wrenching to the mission fields of one of the world's fastest-growing-and most trenchantly conservative-religions. Few stories have ever described a more unusual road to redemption.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The title, epigraphs and style of this fictionalized memoir pay tribute to Jack Kerouac, a surprising muse for a story about a young man's Mormon conversion and two-year stint as a white-shirted Latter-day Saint missionary. At tale's beginning, Kit West, a long-haired, pot-smoking, philosophy-reading 16-year-old from the Colorado mountains, is smitten with Annie Hawk, who has run away from her Mormon parents. An LSD experiment convinces Kit that the Book of Mormon is true, and Annie finds religion. Then the young lovers break up and Kit heads to Colombia, where he knocks on doors, makes converts, conducts baptisms, deals with bullies, misses Annie and suffers the ravages of relentless tapeworms. Newell, for many years a media relations officer for the Latter-Day Saints, never criticizes his church's teachings, and some miraculous episodes strain credulity. Still, memoir readers as well as Mormons looking for a somewhat edgy affirmation of their faith will appreciate the lusty, brawling but tenacious missionaries and the tender love story in this sprawling coming-of-age tale. (Aug.)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 348 pages
• Publisher: Zarahemla Books (August 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0978797132
• ISBN-13: 978-0978797133
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,446,452 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and Authentic!, April 12, 2008

By 

Gregory Wright (Rockford, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On the Road to Heaven (Paperback)

I grew up in the mountains of Colorado near Coke Newell and was a member of the branch where he first joined the church. We became friends and even worked together for a while before going on missions at about the same time. I can personally vouch for many of the details included in this book. I love a book that takes me inside the head of the person writing it--especially when it's well written and helps to expand my horizons. This book did not disappoint. I found it hard to put down. I highly recommend it!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Telling it like it is, December 12, 2007

By 

Christopher Bigelow (Provo, UT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On the Road to Heaven (Paperback)

Here are several very positive reviews:

"I have never read such a gripping story of conversion and missionary
labor. It held me fast partly because of the winsome romance
mixed into the story of a mountain hippie who finds life's meaning
in Mormonism. But the gritty descriptions of friendship and adventure
in the Colorado wilderness and of missionaries working the
mean streets of Colombia are enthralling in themselves. The candid
view of the vicissitudes of a spiritual life will startle readers accustomed to more staid narratives."
--Richard Bushman, author of Joseph
Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Knopf)

"Converts of the world, who came to the church from colorful and
outrageous pasts, rejoice! Here is somebody who tells it like it was,
without apology and without regrets. On the Road to Heaven is a tale
of spiritual adventure, sacrifice, and change-the-world energy to rival
any turned out by the born-in-the-covenant crowd."
--Patricia Karamesines, author of The
Pictograph Murders (Signature)

"Poetic and enchanting, Coke Newell's On the Road to Heaven is a
romance odyssey of love and religion driven by the consumptive
gravity of yearning and discovery. Honest and fearless, Newell has
crafted for us the real power of gospel Mormonism."
--Ronald O. Barney, author of One Side
by Himself: The Life and Times of Lewis
Barney, 1808-1894 (Utah State University),
winner of the Evans Biography Award

"This is the book Jack Kerouac might have written had he met Moroni
instead of Allen Ginsberg. A wonderful romp to faith!"
--Rodney Stark, Ph.D., author of The Rise
of Christianity (Princeton) and The Victory
of Reason (Random House)

"An utterly original spiritual tale--lively, quirky, and profoundly
moving. Think of it as St. Augustine for the Woodstock generation.
Newell's writing is an exuberant ride."
--Terryl Givens, Ph.D., author of
The Viper on the Hearth (Oxford) and
By the Hand of Mormon (Oxford)

"A rollicking, satisfying conversion story."
--Tania Lyon, Ph.D.

"Newell tells a good tale, but he also furthers Mormon discourse,
beautifully illustrating how powerful and fragile this whole idea of
finding God is, of figuring out how this time-bound, messy, mortal
existence all works--what it means and what to do when you are
fairly certain that you have some answers that make sense. And that
he does it by linking the revelatory discourse of the mountain hippies
with that of Mormons makes it all the sweeter. And fun."
--William Morris, founder of A Motley
Vision

"On the Road to Heaven is perhaps the most unique book its particular
audience will ever read. Often entertaining, occasionally hilarious,
and sometimes even startling, this is a book that will leave its
readers feeling as if they have just gotten to know a very real, very
unconventional, and very interesting human being."
--Mike Smith, author of Towns of
the Sandia Mountains (Arcadia)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful book. Enjoyed every page., January 13, 2011

By 

Gotmynoseinabook - See all my reviews

This review is from: On the Road to Heaven (Paperback)

I came across this book quite by accident. I'm glad I did because it is a wonderful story. I laughed often and my eyes got misty a few times as well.

It's one of those books that you don't want to end, and when it does, you get kind of sad. Highly recommeded.