I’m looking for those extra allusions, resonances and movements that grab me as a literary critic, a fan of fiction, and as a Mormon.

Even if it’s couched in something that makes you uncomfortable to read?

Interesting point, Jonathan. It’s true that I read books by known-LDS authors differently; sometimes this gets in the way of my enjoying the book. I know this is true of many LDS readers, notably those appalled by the raciness of Twilight of the downright evil of Orson Scott Card.

The way it gets in my way is different, but it did make it hard for me to enjoy, say, The Marketing of Sister B whose faults were exacerbated by being about the sort of people I am. My standards are generally higher for LDS fiction. Which can be problematic.

There are many other lenses through which one could view the “LDS” element of a work. For example (from the reader’s perspective): Is there some dimension of the writer’s work that you understand differently, perhaps more completely than other readers, knowing that the writer is LDS and what you know about what being LDS means? Many of Orson Scott Card’s works for a wider market meet this criterion.

From the perspective of the author, I think it’s interesting to ask what the author’s gospel-based reason is for writing–perhaps more interesting than to ask how gospel-consistent standards influence the work. The latter has to do with what and how we write. The former has to do with why we write.