Slapped!: A Novel Based on a True Story

Two headstrong conservative Mormon housewives, bent on preserving open space near Utah's Jordan River for their children and coming generations, speak out publicly against a multimillion-dollar commercial project that would encroach on the river and destroy wildlife habitat. They are promptly sued by the wealthy, influential, and powerful developers for $1.7 million. When these women choose to stand their ground and fight, the developers do everything in their power to use these women as "whipping moms" so that no citizen or city will ever dare oppose their developments in the future. On these bones of a classic American story (based on actual events), a cast of fascinating characters fleshes out. A bipolar lone-wolf environmental activist forms an alliance with the women and becomes the story's x-factor. A diverse team of lawyers, including a civil rights attorney, supply the women with legal assistance. The developers' network of family members, business associates, political cronies, judges, and church leaders reaches deep into small-town Salt Lake County. Here, they inevitably cross paths with the housewives and their allies. Neighborhood vandalism, vicious gossip, and dirty tricks ensue. The two beleaguered housewives and their ragtag grassroots supporters hunker down to resist a brutal lawsuit, intended to shut them up and break them with legal bills. An important environmental fight morphs into an even more significant battle for free speech. Will a glass and concrete city rise in the river bottoms?

Paul Swenson was born the youngest of ten children in 1936 in Logan, Utah. He began his writing career at age twenty-two as a crime reporter for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City. Later, he took up the editorship of Utah Holiday magazine, where he became known for producing important investigative journalism about Utah politics. Many successful writers, including Nevada Writers Hall of Fame inductee Phyllis Barber and Pulitzer Prize nominee Linda Sillitoe, got their start under Paul's editorship. He also edited The Event magazine and wrote for the Salt Lake Observer. Many of his other articles were published in the Salt Lake Tribune, Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, and other publications. During his later years, Paul followed in the footsteps of his poet sister, May Swenson, producing many poems. Paul wrote many news stories about the real-life events that inspired this book and became so intrigued that he spent four years researching and interviewing the people involved in order to produce this novel. He died shortly after completing it in 2012.