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Review: A Few Good Mormon Novels

3.21.12

So there’s several Mormon novels I read that I kept meaning to review, but never got around to it. They were there in the back of my head, screaming at me, “Tell the world about us!” I looked compassionately at those great works of art and said, “Okay, I have a duty to you for [...]

Bright Angels & Familiars:
“I Am Buzz Gaulter, Left-Hander” by Darrell Spencer

3.14.12

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I’m not a fan of Spencer’s most famous story and it was, until now, the only Spencer story I’d read. This one (read it now!) I liked more, but I’m still mulling it over, not quite sure what to make of it.
The tale is apocalyptic in nature. Earthquakes are threatened, floods are happening (a town’s [...]

Whitney General Fiction Finalists 2011

3.08.12

This year I decided I was going to try to read as many of the Whitney finalists as I can before the deadline for voting (April 23). I’m taking it in chunks-by-category, with the thought that this way, each category I complete is one more I get to vote for. Besides, this way I can [...]

Bright Angels & Familiars:
“The Christianizing of Coburn Heights” by Levi S. Peterson

3.05.12

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Welcome back! After a Bright Angels & Familiars hiatus (that we might better engage with Mormon Lit Blitz), we are picking up with a terrific story from Levi Peterson. Unlike his famous The Backslider, the hero of this story is not a dirty ole backslid cowboy but a rich stake president from the hills looking [...]

“If you two don’t give a crap about our friendship,
I’ll just have to give enough crap for the three of us.”

(Napoleon Dynamite on TV)

2.20.12

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Before I review this show, I have to tell you a bit about my history with the character and the movies.
Once, long ago, Lady Steed and I checked out a Final Cut VHS tape from the Orem Public Library that featured the BYU student film, Peluca, that later appeared at Slamdance and from which we [...]

Bright Angels & Familiars:
“Born of the Water” by Wayne Jorgensen

2.07.12

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In his introduction to this book, Eugene England describes Joregensen’s fiction as “meticulously-crafted.” This seems like  a good spot to begin discussing ”Born of the Water.”
The story is loaded. It would take us months to tap it of all its symbolic potential. It’s structure is surprisingly complicated without ever seeming at all disjointed or forced or [...]

Bright Angels & Familiars:
“Hit the Frolicking, Rippling Brooks” by Karen Rosenbaum

2.02.12

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I must admit I would find it difficult to talk badly about this story if it deserved it (it doesn’t) as Karen is a friend of mine and, arguably, a large part of the reason life has resulted in me doing story-by-story reviews of a two-decade-old Mormon-short-story collection.
After graduating from BYU I joined the AML-List and [...]

On Robert Goble’s Across a Harvested Field

1.31.12

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1. Relatively spoiler-free backcopy.
“To Jordan Fairchild, the dark-haired girl renting his basement apartment seems somewhat quiet and reclusive. Just a business arrangement, he thinks, as he watches her sign the name ‘Nattie Hand’ on the contract. Though two thousand miles away, Celeste Betancourt, an attractive Georgetown graduate student he met through a mutual friend, has [...]