Now that I think about it, Forrest and Heather could easily have lived in separate wards but the same school district (many of the kids in my ward lived in different school districts and I saw them only on Sunday). As I document in “A Picture of My Father as a Young Man,” when the chapel in this story burned down, the congregations were divided up among churches in different counties.

What I was probably remembering, though, was that even in those small wards, the teen cliques were as socially rigid as in any feudal society.

Wow…. That’s

so unlike your average New Era fare.

There’s nothing that smells the least like sentimentality. And it ends without settling. Incredible!

I probably read this when it came out, but I’m afraid I can’t recall my reaction then, my junior year of high school. I wonder what young me thought…?

Oh. And the Clint Eastwood westerns are rated R too.

The one thing I find curious is that this seems to take place over some weeks, and they seem to be in the same ward, but we don’t ever see them outside of school. Aesthetically, I think that was a good choice, but realistically, shouldn’t we see their interactions in Sunday School?