Catholic College Studying Brother Brigham

Through my Zarahemla Books hobby-business, I published D. Michael Martindale's creepy supernatural Mormon novel Brother Brigham, which deals with polygamy and evil spirits and other fun stuff.

To my surprise, a professor at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, has picked up the novel for use in his Modern Religious Movements class.

Here's the course description:

Examines the phenomenon of modern religious movements within the United States. The movements considered are popularly known as cults, and one of our most important objectives will be to examine critically this term and other categories, such as brainwashing. Ranges broadly, from a consideration of contemporary movements such as Scientology, the Branch Davidians, the People’s Temple, and UFO Cults, to other groups that have experienced longer histories, such as the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) and the Watchtower (Jehovah’s Witnesses). Special attention is also given to contemporary religious movements within Catholicism. A consideration of modern religious movements is inevitably highly charged. The fundamental purpose of the course is to provide the analytic tools to consider not only modern religious movements themselves but also the discourse surrounding them.

Sounds like a fun course. I wish we could spy on it. D. Mike suggested we insert a tiny microphone into the spine of one copy and stamp it "Instructor's copy." However, the books are printed in Tennessee and shipped direct to Massachusetts, so oh well...