Nibley siblings outraged over sister's book

Tell-all books written by Joan Crawford or Ronald Reagan's daughters are expected to include sordid details of their public parents' private lives. But a sordid tell-all book by the daughter of Hugh Nibley — Brigham Young University professor-emeritus, noted LDS scholar and cultural gadfly — is a genuine shocker.

Yet Crown Publishers, a subsidiary of Random House in New York, has announced the March 8 publication of the explosive autobiography "Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith," by Martha Beck, 40-year-old daughter of the greatly respected Nibley.

Beck is one of the eight adult children of Nibley and his wife, Phyllis, and they all grew up in an unpretentious, tiny, green-painted family home in Provo. Beck is a life coach with a doctorate in sociology from Harvard University who writes columns about everyday life problems for Oprah Winfrey's O Magazine.

Her book, made available to the media in advance editions, is, as the title suggests, an anti-LDS screed, with specific bold, angry accusations about her father, alleging he sexually abused her when she was a child, from age 5 to 8.

Beck declined to speak with the Deseret Morning News, but her siblings were eager to talk about their sister's book.

"None of the family agrees with her story," said Boyd Peterson, who is married to Beck's sister Zina (and who authored a Hugh Nibley biography). "And the Nibley family is itself pretty diverse. Probably 50 percent of the brothers and sisters are no longer members of the LDS Church, or they are members in name only. All of them have issues with their father. The boys are angry about his being a big Mormon celebrity who was too often absent from the family."

Peterson considers it "a nasty book" that has Beck unfairly attacking her parents and her church. He considers the material concerning Mormonism to be "bizarre — she thinks the Danites are going to come and kill her."

All of Beck's siblings nonetheless maintain a united front, each expressing disbelief that their father ever sexually abused their sister. Christina, the oldest daughter, called Beck's book "a work of fiction" and said she is "outraged" that her sister would write it. "I'm extremely disappointed."