Say you’re sitting on a plane next to a guy who’s reading last year’s winning novel of the Pulitzer for fiction. You get to talking, and he finds out you’re a Mormon. He says, “You know, my best way to understand a different culture is to read a really good, deep, intimate, human novel from that perspective. What novel should I read to start understanding the modern Mormon experience?”
Which single Mormon novel would you tell him to go home and order from Amazon?
After my last Segullah guest post, I was e-mailing with another author about which LDS novel has come the closest so far to unpacking the modern Mormon experience and inner life in a way that readers of other faiths or no faith can connect with and appreciate. (Historicals don’t count; it needs to be about contemporary people who are still alive and kicking.) We both agreed that perhaps the book that has come closest so far is Orson Scott Card’s Lost Boys. This other author said:
“I thought he did a good job of showing a realistic LDS family and LDS culture without getting too preachy about it. A lot of the reason I think Card did such a good job with Lost Boys is because I have several friends who aren’t LDS yet they liked the book. Several of them even asked general questions about the church as it related to the story after they read it. It’s been the only ‘LDS book’ I feel I can give those not of the LDS faith who won’t come away thinking worse about the church for having read it. (I wish I could say the same for a lot of other LDS ‘literature’ that I’ve come across.) Card may not have gone as in-depth to the family’s hearts and minds or real deep humanity to it you may have liked but that’s not why he wrote it. I believe he wanted to write a book that showed an LDS family who was just as ‘normal’ as any other family yet show their faith without getting preachy or turning non-LDS readers off from the story. In my mind this makes it the best LDS book to date written for a general audience.”
It’s been over a decade since I read Lost Boys–if I remember right, the Mormon elements are not a huge part of the story, but they’re definitely there. However, I want to see us go so much farther with it. One of my favorite books in recent memory was Ian McEwan’s Saturday, which provided such a deep, detailed, intimate look inside a man’s head and also developed a suspenseful plot about some bad guys threatening a family. I long for the day when a writer of this skill can tell a Mormon-saturated story.
What do you think? Is there a novel out there that would be better to recommend than Lost Boys? Anything else published by a national press? Something that Deseret, Covenant, or Cedar Fort published that I missed? (I read hardly any fiction they put out.) I’m a pretty big fan of Levi Peterson’s The Backslider, but I don’t think it portrays any kind of modern Mormonism that I’m familiar with.
(As for me, if I really had that opportunity and without knowing of a surefire novel that would quite suffice, I would probably try to send the guy a care package containing Coke Newell’s On the Road to Heaven and two of my own books: Mormonism For Dummies and my novel Kindred Spirits, which I see as working together to represent my own Mormon worldview; one book was produced by my Mormon superego and the other by my Mormon id. But I suppose that would be cheating on several levels, according to the situation I set up at the beginning of this post.)
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The only LDS fiction I have ever read is The Backslider. I thought it was phenominal, though it doesn’t portray what I would consider a typical mormon experience.
Wow. Chris. I’m completely stumped. I don’t claim to be an expert in LDS fiction, at all. But, I think if the passenger was a woman, I would introduce her to Carolyn Pearson. She’s not a novelist, but I think her work shows what it’s like to be Mormon woman from many different perspectives. I might also consider telling her about Hallstrom’s ‘Bound on Earth.’
If it were a man, I would probably forward him to Zarahemla or Mormon Pavilion for a selection of books he might be interested in (total cop out, I know). And I’m not saying that for brownie points, I honestly wouldn’t know what else to recommend that he do.
I’ve never read Card’s ‘Lost Boys.’ Now it’s officially on my list.
I hate that I can’t think of anything to recommend. It’s troubling. I keep thinking about how enlightening it was to read Potok and how much I appreciated afterward the ‘wierdness’ and beauty of orthodox Judaism. I would hope that Mormonism could be made palatable and enticing to a non-LDS audience in a similar way, but I don’t think it’s been done. yet.
Honestly, I can think of lots of good short fiction that’s been published in Irreantum or Dialogue or Sunstone that probably fits the bill better than a novel. Right now I’m reading Alan Rex Mitchell’s Angel of the Danube (haven’t finished it yet) and it’s a great missionary novel. It focuses primarily on missionary work, though, which is obviously different from the day to day of living a Mormon life.
I read Card’s Lost Boys a long time ago and can’t recall it well enough to comment intelligently. But I also think there’s something to be said for Udall’s The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint.
Maybe I’ll come up with my own list of short stories. Too bad most people won’t be able to get a hold of them!
Angela, I have to admit I’m not a huge fan of Edgar Mint. It was an OK read on the general literary level, but I don’t remember the few Mormon parts (one section, really) being particularly illuminating about what it’s really like to be a Mormon.
Tell you the truth, I find I don’t remember much about the novel–something about it just doesn’t stick with me. I remember feeling pretty nonplussed by all the build up regarding that guy who stalks Edgar, but then that plot engine just fizzles out in the end, if I remember.
At some point, I would love to see Zarahemla publish a collection of the best Mormon short fiction from the previous decade or two (perhaps for the time period since England’s Bright Angels and Familiars collection). I bet you would be the perfect editor to pull that together….
Oooh, that would be really great. I’d love to do something like that. Bright Angels is a great collection, but I think it’s about time we had something new.
I agree that Edgar Mint isn’t the ultimate representation of what it means to be Mormon. But there’s some valuable stuff there, imo. I liked the book . . .
“A Cage Full of Stars” is a book I might recommend. It’s not by a Mormon and it gets some details wrong (like taking a child born to temple-married parents to a (non-existant) temple to be sealed to the family) but the family relationships and the central issue of forgiveness were very compelling.
I’m so glad you thought of Lost Boys. One summer, I read everything Card had ever had published. This was about ten years ago, and I still think about Lost Boys. In particular, his descriptions of the wife’s calling as the Spiritual Living teacher in Relief Society and joining the choir resonate with me. In general, the story and mystery are handled in a very mormon-centric way.
But you’re right. I too long for the day we have a writer with the skill of Ian McEwan. Saturday is excellent.
Saints by Orson Scott Card. It is still (IMHO) the finest historical LDS novel written to date and my favorite of all of Card’s novels. YMMV. ..bruce..
Lost Boys. I loved it, and I think it has a great portrayal of Mormon life.
For a novel, I would have said Edgar Mint, too. It’s been six or seven years since I read it, but no other Mormon novel I’ve read touches it. But if I can do short stories, too, then Udall hands down (although I really liked the stories in Long After Dark, too).
I still haven’t read Lost Boys or anything by OSC. I really liked “Falling Toward Heaven” by John Bennion and think it would be fairly comprehensible to non-Mormons. Same thing with “Heresies of Nature” by Margaret Young.
FoxyJ, I agree and I agree.
Great question, Chris! While The Backslider (Levi Peterson), Salvador (Margaret Young), and The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint (Brady Udall) are all terrific books, I don’t think any of them accurately represent “the modern Mormon experience.”
Yeah, Card got the Mormon stuff right in The Lost Boys, but the supernatural elements in the novel would probably stop me from offering it as a window into our culture.
Honestly, I think I would give him (my hypothetical literary seatmate) a copy of Angela Hallstrom’s Bound on Earth. Good, deep, intimate, human? Absolutely! And beautifully written, to boot.
I was going to recommend Falling Toward Heaven, but FoxyJ beat me to it. Not only would it be fairly comprehensible, but the non-LDS character provides an entry into (and both critique of and search for understanding of) Mormonism as both a religion and a culture.
Had I read The Backslider as a non Mormon I would’ve begged to be baptized. That book is like home to me.
John Bennion for sure. I also agree with Sharlee, though, I loved Bound on Earth. It would be an easy choice to share that.
Ditto mas John Bennion.
Bound on Earth, definitely. Also John Bennion’s short story collection, Breeding Leah. Angel of the Danube is good, too. I would add Fine Old High Priests and Neal Chandler’s Benediction. But Bound on Earth is head and shoulders above the rest of these, I think, because it is so intimate with the character’s thoughts and LDS world-view (a wide variety of characters, not just missionaries) and the characters themselves are so much IN the church, not fringe-y or whiney.
The Giant Joshua and The Backslider, although not typical modern LDS experiences, have been the two LDS novels enriched my understanding the variety of experiences within our culture. The list here makes me feel like I need to read a lot more!
I was going to suggest Angel of the Danube as well, but I’m still not sure if I loved it that much because I served a European mission too or if it is that good. I need to reread it. I also liked Bennion’s story collection, but my main problem with both his books (and many other LDS books) is that they are just as much about the Utah experience as the Mormon experience. My experience growing up as a Mormon is nothing like what he describes in his books, especially the issues with sexuality. They’re still great books, but somewhat narrow in the way that Chaim Potok’s book are great but narrow in focus to a specific sort of Jewish Experience. I don’t think it’s possible to write just one book that will capture what it’s like to be a Mormon because there are 13 million of us and we’re all different.
I love all the suggestions for books on this post because I want to read them!!
I’ve not read many LDS books beyond the Scriptures (I’m a fairly new convert) so I really can’t comment on that aspect. But just to add something, a lovely Sister from Church lent me The Fire of the Covenant and I LOVE it! It’s not contemporary but I like period pieces. And it’s not a story of why one should be Mormon, but rather just a story of faith through trials and tribulations, part fiction, mostly fact. Even in moments of my own struggling faith, I’ve still picked this book up and just enjoyed it for what it is. So, if your passenger wants a look into the Church’s early days, I say they might like The Fire of the Covenant.
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