When we left off yesterday, we were segueing from the couple-creators portion of this interview to talking with Ben Abbott about the new one-man show he has written and is starring in this weekend (with, of course, some additional insights from his wife Barbara). If you will be in the Bay Area, click on the poster to buy tickets. Hurry — the show is expected to sell out.

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Th: The reason I’m finally getting around to making this interview happen now is Ben’s show this weekend. Tell us about it.

Ben: This is my senior thesis at UC Berkeley. It’s a one-man show about gay members of the church. When Proposition 8 happened I was the only active Mormon studying at PCPA (which is in California), where the majority of my friends were gay. I felt strangely caught between two worlds, with my family and faith on one side, and my friends and work on the other. I thought, you know, do I have to reject one or the other of these to some degree to truly embrace the other? Out of those ponderings came the question, well what about gay members of the church themselves? Talk about conflict. How do they reconcile the contradiction? Or do they? I spent a few months interviewing people, and from those transcripts I pulled segments and pieced them together into a one-man show. I think it offers a wider look at the issue than most of what I’ve seen that’s out there right now. This is not a monolithic group, and there is a huge variety of reactions to finding oneself at the crossroads of gay and Mormon, and I try to present enough of them to challenge just about anyone’s assumptions, no matter which “side” they’re on.

Th: Was this project an easy sell to Cal’s theater department?

Ben: Well, I was one of a bunch of proposals, out of which they chose two.  Cal’s theater department is actually a theater and performance studies department, and if you know anything about performance studies, this project really hits a lot of its main focuses:  intersectionality, ethnography, performance of self, dialectic performance. But also I think they were intrigued by the fact that I was taking this project on as a straight, faithful Mormon. One professor said you would expect a gay Mormon to write this kind of project proposal, so it’s almost surprising coming from me. I think they were intrigued by the fact that I was coming at the issue truly curious, without my mind made up about anything or an agenda to push, just wanting to learn more and understand this quagmire a little better. Plus of course in the wake of Prop 8 in California, it’s very topical. Besides, the core issue of being in conflict between one’s sexuality and one’s religious faith is not just a Mormon issue. I got the sense from some of the faculty that they were genuinely interested in what I found.

Th: What kind of support did you require to bring the project to fruition?

Ben: It’s funny you ask that.  In tech rehearsal last night there were dozens of people working on lights, sound, costumes etc.  The lighting design teacher came up to me and said “remember a year and a half ago when you were first thinking up this project, and now look at this room full of people working away on it.”  A play, even a one-man show is not something that someone does alone.  But back to the beginning, first I had to find people to interview, and you actually helped me out quite a bit with that.  You put me in touch with a couple of your friends and they referred me to others and so on.  I went from hoping I could find enough people to interview to not even being able to interview half the people I was in touch with.  The process of turning hundreds of pages of interviews into a 55 minute one-man show involved a faculty advisor, a very helpful stage manager and a director.  Both of them are Cal undergrads who don’t know anything about the Church, but a lot about theater.  They were able to help tell me what was working and what wasn’t and my director was fantastic at crafting the movement of the show so it’s not just me standing there talking for an hour.  The great thing about this opportunity for me is that it’s a department show, so I was assigned lighting and costume designers and so forth. After months of feeling like I was working all by myself, the last couple of months have been amazing as I got to see this whole army of people mobilize to make it a reality.

Th: Tell us a bit about the people who you talked with. How do they breakdown demographically? And how did they feel about your proposal?

Ben: I thought that by narrowing it down to gay Mormons I would get a narrower view, and in fact the opposite happened. They range in age from their mid-twenties to their seventies. I interviewed four women and eight men. While many of them had a lot in common, I think I found a wider range of experiences and opinions on the subject of homosexuality and the Church than I could find anywhere. Some have left the Church way behind, some are still active and zealously so, some have come back after years of being gone. Three of the people I interviewed are in mixed-orientation marriages (meaning they’re gay, but married to a straight spouse of the opposite sex) and even among those three there’s a wide range of activity and belief in the Church. The most interesting thing about the interviews is that I genuinely liked every person I interviewed. Even though they were so vastly different from each other, and this person’s statements would likely make that person cringe and vice versa, I was just there to learn and I really did like every single person I interviewed and learned a lot from each of them. One thing they all had in common as well was that they were glad I was doing this project. Whether they loved the Church or hated it, were closeted or in a same sex marriage, each of them knew I was also interviewing people who felt the exact opposite as they do, and almost all expressed some interest or gratitude for what I was doing. To me that seems to indicate that not enough of this kind of work is being done.

Babs: It’s surprised us, actually, at how overwhelmingly positive everyone responded to this project. Everyone we told about it just loved the idea. I mean, this kind of thing just hasn’t quite been done before that we’ve seen, and as a result, people thirst for it. Frankly, it was intimidating because people have had such high hopes and expectations for the show, Ben was nervous he wouldn’t live up to them. Personally, I think he’s done the work justice.

Th: How has working on this project changed you?

Ben: These are not easy questions.  I’ve thought this before, but it’s just been magnified a hundred times that empathy and understanding are so much more important than being right and having the answers. Also, I think my testimony in the Church is so much more flexible, like a skyscraper that’s able to wobble in an earthquake, but not topple. I don’t have to know all the answers to everything or be right about everything for my testimony to be intact and strong. I’m more comfortable than I used to be with difficult questions, and being able to say, I just don’t have an answer to this or that, but that doesn’t bother me.

Babs: In many interviews the subject of personal revelation is brought up by the interviewee and each of them received answers unique to their situation, even if it was to leave the Church, or to stay with their same-sex partner. There just isn’t a cookie cutter shape for what a Mormon or any other Christian should look like or do; therefore — and I know this is such a cliche statement — we can’t judge others based on our shape and our actions. I’ve developed a stronger sense that Heavenly Father really loves and interacts with us on an individual level, and my testimony of personal revelation has been greatly strengthened.

Th: After the show closes on Saturday, what’s next for Questions of the Heart?

Ben: Well like I said, the more people I interviewed the more people I wanted to interview. This show really is only a very small sampling. What I really want to do is continue the research. I would love to find a theater company interested in producing Questions of the Heart, but I would also love to spend another year or so interviewing and learning more. I have so many questions now that I didn’t have before I started. It’s a one-act show now, but perhaps it can be developed into a full length. I’m talking in circles, but basically, what I have now is a vehicle I can continue working on, and there’s so much work to do, I’d love to find a way of researching full time and getting this issue into our dialog as a community. I would love to perform this in both Utah and the Castro district in San Francisco and see what I learn. The difficulty now is that I’m graduating and thus leaving this wonderful support system, so I’ve got to figure out either how to plug into a new one or how I can proceed just on my own. If there’s anyone out there interested in financing this kind of work, let me know.

[Theditorial note: Anyone wishing to contact the Abbotts may do so through me at theric*motleyvision*com.]

Th: This is a bit of a redundant question as you have already essentially answered it, but talk about the mountains of interview you collected (and the further mountains you were unable to collect given your brief timeframe). What are you going to do with all that extra stuff?

Ben: I only interviewed a dozen people, and the hardest part of this process was not being able to use even a fraction of the remarkable material. I feel like with just a couple follow-ups I could literally do a one-man show based on each interview. You and I were talking the other day about this and I said sort of off the cuff that I already had enough material to compile a book. I’d forgotten I was talking to someone for whom that kind of thing isn’t just idle talk.  In thinking about it since then I think that may be the most logical direction for this go. It’s just so difficult to cram enough of what I think is remarkable material from these interviews into a single performance. I don’t think I’ll abandon the play though because there’s something so amazing about getting people into a room together to experience something together. I don’t know, perhaps a book and a play aren’t mutually exclusive.

Th: What sort of buzz are you hearing in the communities you’re addressing — theater, LGBTQ, LDS? And how do you expect (slash-hope) they will respond?

Ben: Mostly people seem excited about it.  I can’t really speak for them, but from the feedback I’ve received, the LGBTQ community seems glad that I’m raising these questions, and interested in what my take is on this as an outsider; the LDS community I think is hungry for someone to really look at this issue in a way that doesn’t wreak of anti-Mormonism (I’m thinking specifically of 8: The Mormon Proposition [link to AMV review]) because that’s an immediate turn off; and the theater community is interested to learn more about something they don’t know much about and are hoping that it’s a good show.

Th: I’ve bought tickets for Thursday’s show, but for people who are squirmy or never seen a one-man show or who otherwise still need convincing, give them your best shot. (This is probably a good spot to mention the nudity thing.)

Ben: OK, so since you mentioned the partial nudity, the first thing I need to say is that it’s not me!!  I stay fully clothed the whole time thank you very much. My show runs with another one act senior thesis project called Time and Materials which is a stage adaptation of some of former Poet Laureate  Robert Hass’ poetry, and in that show there is a brief moment of a topless woman. My show is going first so that anyone who objects to brief partial nudity can politely excuse themselves at intermission.  But if you do come I would really encourage you to stay for both shows. Time and Materials is worth seeing and we don’t want there to me a mass exodus at intermission as that wouldn’t be fair to them.

Why come to the show?  When was the last time you went to a show that actually surprised you, and both affirmed and challenged you in intriguing ways?  No matter who you are, you will hear things in my show that you strongly agree with, things that you strongly disagree with, and things that you hadn’t ever considered.  The neat part of theater is that you’ll be in an audience where everyone has a different opinion, and you’ll all be experiencing and reacting to the show differently, and I think there’s a lot to learn from that. These are wonderful characters, and I was both enlightened and challenged by each of them. I also want to point out that I have no interest in doing or seeing a show where I just get talked at the whole time, or lectured, or just constantly challenged. That’s not my kind of show. I still think that on top of everything we should be able to go to the theater and be entertained, and because of that, this show is fun and moving. And hey, if all else fails, there is the partial nudity in the show after mine.

Babs: And Ben is too modest to say this but he really is a very talented actor.  Not to mention the script is great.  There’s a balance between the serious and funny, heartwarming moments.  It’s just a good and honest show.

Th: Thanks, you two. And although I haven’t seen the script or ever seen Ben perform-perform (those who’ve met actors, know what I mean), I have tremendous faith in this show. I can’t wait to see it. Is it still tradition to encourage you to break an appendage?

Ben Christensen used to blog at the Fobcave. Now he lurks on other people’s blogs. And submits the occasional guest post, apparently.

Title: The Abominable Gayman
Author: Johnny Townsend

Reviewed by Ben Christensen

Note: Ben received a free review copy of this book from the author.

“I used to think,” says Elder Anderson, the narrator and protagonist of The Abominable Gayman, “that the goal of perfection meant we all had to become the same, but here in Italy, I’d seen new flowers, tasted different foods, spoken a different language, and I realized that the best, most perfect rose could never inspire the exact same feelings as a perfect hedge of five-pointed star jasmine.” Elder Anderson, you see, is a gay Mormon serving a mission in Rome, and is only starting to consider the possibility that perhaps becoming straight is not a necessary step on his path to perfection. In the process of figuring out where this collection of short stories fits in gay Mormon literature—whether nearer Jonathan Langford’s No Going Back or Tony Kushner’s Angels in America—I realized it doesn’t necessarily fit among other gay Mormon-themed literature. But it is definitely Mormon literature. The most appropriate comparison, I believe, is to John Bennion’s Falling Toward Heaven. Both Falling and Gayman tell the story of a young man who, by normal Mormon standards, is doing everything wrong, yet somehow finds himself stumbling into a better understanding of himself and a closer relationship with God.

Another commonality Bennion’s and Townsend’s works have is in their themes of love and sex. Falling Toward Heaven starts with Elder Howard Rockwood breaking one of the biggest taboos a missionary can break: before going home, he has sex with a woman he had met in one of his areas. Presumably no relationship founded in such sin could become more than that—at least that’s what Howard’s family seems to think—but Howard and Allison’s initial sexual encounter develops into an enduring relationship. Elder Anderson, on the other hand, doesn’t ever break that rule, but he does spend much of his time obsessing about sex. He fantasizes about men constantly, and hates himself for it. At one point he compares himself to a married man who had asked him for a blowjob: “Did I want to lead a pitiful, shameful life like Brother Mangiapia did, propositioning strangers in a dusty, dark room?” For Elder Anderson, homosexuality is filthy and disgusting, clandestine encounters and illicit affairs. Later, when Anderson meets a gay couple, he realizes there can be more: “These men apparently had talking, friendship, and sex.” Both Elder Rockwood and Elder Anderson gain a complete picture of love only after they get beyond the taboo of sex.

Some of the strongest segments of Falling Toward Heaven are those in which the roaming third-person narrator hovers over Allison. Bennion switches between the male and female points of view flawlessly, developing a fuller representation of the relationship between Allison and Howard. In The Abominable Gayman, Townsend sticks with a single first-person narrator, but nonetheless the strongest parts are those in which Elder Anderson gets outside of his own head and speculates on the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of those around him. One story in particular, “A Wife of Whoredoms,” stands out as one in which the narrator moves beyond self-pity and obsession with his own concerns to consider others. The story focuses on his relationships with sister missionaries and female members of the branch he’s serving in, and throughout he ponders the idea of marrying heterosexually.  He thinks of Sister De Feo, and how if he had to marry a woman, she wouldn’t be a bad choice. Then he stops himself: “‘Had to marry,’ I thought with a shudder. What an insult to any woman to phrase it like that.” In this moment of clarity, Elder Anderson thinks beyond what he needs to do to save his own soul, to how such actions would affect others. If only all twenty-year-old men showed such maturity.

John Bennion once told me his theory on why the television series The Simpsons is so successful: not just because of its hard-edged humor, but because of its sweet aftertaste. Each episode ends on a sweet note, with the family back together and things as they should be. Bennion follows this model inFalling Toward Heaven, putting his characters through hell and then ending at a nice spot, Howard and Allison cuddled up and pondering their future. The Abominable Gayman also follows this model, perhaps to an extreme. Speaking of his struggles as a gay Mormon missionary, Elder Anderson says at one point, “The constant awareness of my completely alien nature was like a continual oppressive weight, suffocating me.” This is an apt description of the first ten stories of the book. Honestly, there are moments that are painful to read, steeped as we become in Elder Anderson’s self-hatred and the constant onslaught of homophobia from his fellow missionaries. In the second half of the book, though, Anderson slowly emerges from the muck of self-pity. He has a companion who genuinely loves him, and before long he begins to love himself. The final story, “Transfer Cookies,” ends just like Falling Toward Heaven or an episode of The Simpsons—on a sweet note. The sense of relief as Anderson comes to terms with himself and with God makes the tension of the earlier stories worth it. And if that isn’t the pinnacle of Mormon literature, I don’t know what is: Without knowing misery, Elder Anderson wouldn’t know joy. And so Elder Anderson fell, that Elder Anderson might be, and Elder Anderson is, that he might have joy.

Publisher: Booklocker.com, Inc.
Genre: Collection of Short Stories
Year Published: 2010 (many stories collected therein were previously published between 1991 and 2009)
Number of Pages: vii; 409
Binding: Trade Paperback
ISBN13: 978-1-60910-118-3
Price: $18.95
Available from BookLocker.com and other sources.

Thanks, Ben!

It’s always interesting seeing what non-Mormon readers of No Going Back have to say about the book. For one thing, it includes an awful lot of Mormon detail. Since I never imagined that it might have a large non-Mormon audience, I didn’t go to any trouble to explain that detail. No real accommodations for any readers who don’t happen to be Mormon.

At a more basic level, I’ve wondered if non-Mormons would even be able to identify with the characters and their motivations. Sure, there’s a lot of universality to the basic conflicts in the book. Every teenager struggles with issues of identity and peer pressure. Every married couple struggles with issues of communication and priorities. But that doesn’t necessarily make the particulars of one person’s conflict easy to identify with on the part of readers whose lives are very different.

I particularly wonder if there’s much possibility for non-Mormon readers to identify with the main characters in No Going Back in their Mormonness. Granted, there are other conservative churches that reject homosexuality as a lifestyle, and even some that embrace the delicate balance of viewing the attraction itself as not a sign of sin but rather as a trial that must be resisted. It’s my perception, however, that being a Mormon is rather different on an experiential level from being a Baptist or a Catholic or what have you. Certainly on a theological level the reasons why Mormons reject homosexuality are quite different, so far as I know, from the reasons given by any other religion — because we’re the only ones who believe that (a) it is human destiny (if we accept it) to become like God, and (b) that the definition of God includes, and is indeed partly defined by, heterosexual marriage. That’s far more than just rhetoric for Mormon teenagers; it’s a fundamental part of how we view ourselves. One of the first songs we learn in childhood starts, “I am a child of God” — and for us, that’s literal.

So I’m always interested to read or hear what non-Mormon readers think about No Going Back, and whether it makes sense to them. All of which made me particularly interested in a review that showed up earlier this week on Amazon.com by Amos Lassen, a veteran Amazon reviewer (almost 3,000 reviews!) who apparently tries to read as many GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) titles as he can and who also has strong interests in religion, but not specifically LDS religion. Awarding No Going Back 5 stars (out of 5), he writes in part:

“Everyone tries to understand [Paul’s] feelings and provide him with love and support but he remains somewhat in pain…. He doesn’t try to cure himself but he feels he needs the support of others but he does not want to come out and he knows that gay sex is forbidden by his religion. He wants a life of virtue and to be accepted for the person that he is…. The struggle between desire and faith seems to always be with us and the author has us examine ourselves closely so that we can be more understanding and accepting of others. The book is not an attack on gay people and is just the story of a boy who understands that he has the right to make the choice about how he wants to live his life.”

After reading Lassen’s review, I emailed him to thank him for his thoughts and find out more about how he’d become aware of my book. (Answer: browsing Amazon.) He mentioned that he teaches a class in gay literature at the college level, and is thinking of adding No Going Back. I’d love to find out what his students think.

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It’s a perpetual question among many Mormon writers just how we as Mormons can effectively present Mormon experience to a national audience. Examples that are frequently held up for emulation from other traditions include the novel The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, depicting the coming-of-age of a Jewish boy during World War II, and the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

I freely admit that No Going Back isn’t a terribly good candidate for that. It’s got too many other things going on to really be a good depiction of Mormon experience for non-Mormons — including the gay issue, which kind of overshadows everything else. But the positive responses I’ve received from a few non-Mormon readers — including the one from Amos Lassen, and one from a non-LDS retired literature professor published in my Wisconsin hometown newspaper, and even the surprisingly positive response I got from a vehemently atheist gay British acquaintance — make me wonder if maybe the target isn’t a little closer than I’d thought.

Looking at what I’ve seen of Mormon attempts to portray our experience in literature intended for Mormons and non-Mormons both, I find that a lot of it suffers from one or more of the following problems:

- Eccentricity — showing characters that would be oddballs in any Mormon ward (or anywhere else, for that matter)

- Over-the-top slapstick

- Whitewashing

- Focus on superficial elements of Mormon experience

- Attempts to convert

All of these have their place, but they get in the way of helping non-Mormon readers come away from the reading with a better understanding of what it means to be Mormon.

Some characteristics of a Mormon literature that would speak meaningfully to non-Mormons are obvious inverses of the problems I listed above. Such a literature would present its Mormon characters as being fundamentally ordinary, in both good and bad ways. It would show them as flawed, but sincere in their beliefs. It would take the Mormon context seriously enough not to exaggerate or turn things into a joke. It would not shy away from showing some of the deeper aspects of what it means to be a believing Mormon — the spiritual experiences and such —but would do it in a way that invites readers to accept those elements as part of understanding the character, rather than demanding that readers make a decision as to whether they personally accept Mormonism as true. It may be that such a literature will be more successful if it doesn’t attempt to explain elements of Mormon culture, but simply puts the reader into the middle of it.

Certainly we’ve seen some examples of this. Personally I think the first two Dutcher movies (God’s Army and Brigham City) did this quite well. (I haven’t watched States of Grace and so don’t have an opinion on it.) And Orson Scott Card’s Lost Boys is, bar none, the best depiction of modern suburban Mormonism that I’ve yet read, though I suspect the supernatural element in it functions kind of like homosexuality in No Going Back to distract non-Mormon readers from the Mormonness of it all.

But I think there’s a lot more that can be done. And reading the responses of non-Mormon readers to No Going Back gives me, I think, a clearer idea of what that might involve.

Fear is, I’ve come to realize, one of my great personal enemies as a creative writer (along with laziness). Part of this is probably just because of the kind of person I am. I suspect, though, that part of it may be endemic to the writing process.

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Possibly the hardest time for me personally during the writing of my novel (and since) was the time after the manuscript was finished, while I was sending it out and getting feedback from as many people I could entice into looking at it. I remember several days sitting at my computer, incapable of putting in time on my paid work, almost mindless with fear about the kinds of responses I would get. Fortunately, I was able to get past it with several long walks — and prayers, most of which ended with me putting my work, and my pride in it, on the Lord’s altar: accepting that if it turned out that what I had written wasn’t any good, that was still okay because I had tried my best to do something I felt was worthwhile. Ultimately, the only way I was able to achieve peace was through a sense that my effort in writing No Going Back might be an acceptable offering, even if the work itself lacked value or worth.

The whole experience was something of a surprise. I had no idea that I cared so much what my would-be peers in the community of Mormon letters thought about my work. I had no understanding of just how debilitating that fear might be — that I could be tempted to pull my work from consideration by a publisher and readers, even after I had finished it, just to avoid finding out that they might not like it. I didn’t do that, of course — but I can’t help but wonder how much of that was because of how public I had been about my writing of the book, and how embarrassing and essentially impossible it would have been to suddenly pretend it didn’t exist. At one point, I consoled myself with the thought that if everyone hated the book, I could just drop out of the community of Mormon letters and find something else to do with my time: curl up in a ball and hide, essentially. It was good, I thought, that I lived in Wisconsin, not somewhere like Utah where my social life might involve regular in-person interaction with a lot of other Mormon writers and readers — perhaps the first time I’d been glad of that particular fact. Usually, my lack of ability to spent time at Mormon literary events is one of the few things I regret about not living in Utah.

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Back in my graduate school days, I came to a realization that unless you’re in one of the “sexy” fields like queer theory, in order to succeed as a literary scholar, you have to be willing to care more about your own research and writing than anyone else ever will. This presented a substantial challenge to me, since as an externally motivated person, I tend to judge the value of what I do on its value and interest to others and the “ego strokes” I can get from their praise.

Typical advice given to people like me often suggests that we should just somehow choose not to care about what other people think — an act as impossible in my case as flapping my arms and flying to the moon. I’m simply not built that way, and the evidence I see from other people like me is that this is not an area where people typically are capable of change. Yes, it may be somehow better or loftier or more godlike to do what one is doing purely based on internal motivation, but I’m convinced that’s just not an option for some of us.

Including, interestingly, Joseph Smith, based on some of the evidence from his life. Can you imagine Brigham Young ever saying, “If my life has no value to my friends, it has no value to me”? Brigham’s version would have read more like, “If my life has no value to my friends, I need a new set of friends.” But I digress . . .

Fear, it’s sometimes said, is a useful emotion, focusing our attention on potential dangers and ways to prevent them. I’m here to tell you, though, that fear — or the desire for praise — serves little or no useful purpose in writing, unless its value is to point us to some other kind of less risky and more rewarding activity. Which, despite those risks, is not always a good thing, since I daresay there are some things that can only be accomplished by writing books.

I waited the better part of 10 years for someone else to write the first Mormon novel about a gay teenager trying to stay in the Church. No one else volunteered (something I understand a little better now that it’s been published . . . ). Regardless of whether the novel I wrote was worthwhile or not, the idea that someone needed to write a novel of this kind (and many more, hopefully, still to come on this topic) was something I still believe. Now it’s been done. The next one (by someone else) may be — hopefully will be — better. But it won’t be the first, and the reason it won’t be is because I did manage to get past those fears and put something out there.

It’s interesting being the author of a novel about a topic that matters so much to a lot of readers. Sex and religion are topics that people care about passionately (if you’ll pardon the double pun), and when they intersect, there’s little that’s more potentially volatile.

That’s all to the good when people like my book. I’ve gotten some amazing comments from people, not just about how the book affected them as a story but about the positive good they think it can do in the world. I’d like to believe those comments are all true. But it can be especially unpleasant when people don’t like my book — especially those who share my religious beliefs.

Most of the comments I’ve received from believing Mormons have been highly positive. Some reviewers have cautioned that this is a book “not for the faint of heart.” I agree. I recently emailed a friend, “I have to admit that it’s a pretty intense book, so if you don’t feel up to that, it may be better that you avoid reading it.”

Which brings me to the topic of this blog.

A few readers criticize No Going Back for being too realistic and/or not optimistic enough. I don’t have an unequivocally happy ending. I don’t show Paul’s gender orientation changing. I show him describing himself as gay, not same-gender attracted as the LDS (Mormon) Church encourages. I show him going to a GSA club. I show him (and other teenage boys) cussing and making crude jokes, as well as some serious mistakes. I don’t show all the LDS Church members acting perfectly toward him and his mother.

Well, hello. That’s the way the world is. Kids are confused. They make mistakes. They pick up the attitudes of the world around them. They have to make choices, and sometimes the choices they make aren’t good ones. What positive purpose is served in creating literature that denies this?

My goal, in writing this novel — beside telling a story that would engage readers, about characters they would care about — was to depict realistically what an LDS teenager in today’s world might go through in feeling same-sex attracted but also wanting to stay true to his religious beliefs. I wanted to depict fairly both his desires to live his religion and the struggles that might present for him. I wanted to present a story that had a hopeful ending, but also one that took seriously just how hard things might be for my main character going forward.

I’ve written on my website about issues such as gay identity and why my book doesn’t focus much on the possibility of Paul’s orientation changing. What I want to do here is say why I think there’s value in writing a tough, challenging, realistic novel about a topic like this, instead of always writing the happiest, best, or most positive outcome.

I believe in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I believe it has the power to change and heal all our infirmities — not just those that are the result of sin, but also those that relate to things we didn’t choose, such as same-sex attraction in most if not all cases.

I don’t necessarily believe this change and healing will all happen in this life. In fact, I think we’re given a pretty clear indication in scriptures that in many cases it won’t. However, I do believe we’ll be given strength to meet the challenges we confront in life, if we go before God and sincerely ask him for that help.

I think stories — nonfiction and fiction both — can help us to see and feel better just what the Atonement can do for us. But in order to show the true power of the Atonement, they have to also show the conditions in which we live. If they don’t show realistically what we need to be rescued from, they aren’t really showing us the power that Jesus Christ can have in our lives.

Teenagers, as much as any of us, live in a fallen world and fall victim to it in a variety of ways. Despite that, they too are capable of receiving grace through spiritual realities such as prayer, scripture study, personal pondering, and service in the priesthood. In order to show the power of the spiritual side of things, I felt that I needed to include a small (and fairly tame) dose of the cruder realities of high school as well — in order to demonstrate that the Spirit can operate in the conditions of real teenage life.

The process of change and healing that comes through the Atonement often takes a long time. I think showing it all happening at once makes the Atonement seem like less than what it is — and has the potential to make readers despair when they realize that the reality of the lives they lead doesn’t match what they’re reading. And it can make the rest of us less compassionate by reinforcing a sense that other people’s trials aren’t as challenging as they really are.

I believe that short of God’s ultimate healing, the single thing that helps us most in getting through the trials of life is the support, understanding, and love of other people. I think that’s particularly important in the case of teenagers for whom God is (let’s admit it) largely an abstract concept, and for whom the notion that they might change 10, 20, 50 years down the road provides little if any comfort. Even more than my book is about God and spiritual healing, it’s about the comfort that can be provided by other people — and the damage that can be done when others aren’t supportive and understanding.

There’s a lot that doesn’t happen in my book that I’d like to see happen in the life of a teenager who was struggling like Paul. There’s a lot I’d like to say to him myself, if he ever happened to wander into my ward or family. I hope that by reading my book, other people will be more likely to say those positive things to the Pauls in their lives, or at least to understand a little better what they’re going through. If my book is real enough to do that, I’ll be content.

No Going Back is a coming-of-age novel about a gay Mormon teenager who is torn between his feelings and his desire to stay in the Church. The cover blurb reads:

“A gay teenage Mormon growing up in western Oregon in 2003. His straight best friend. Their parents. A typical LDS ward, a high-school club about tolerance for gays, and a proposed anti-gay-marriage amendment to the state constitution. In No Going Back, these elements combine in a coming-of-age story about faithfulness and friendship, temptation and redemption, tough choices and conflicting loyalties.”

(A side-note: Does anyone know the logic that Amazon.com uses in deciding on the size of the discount it offers? My book is now selling for $11.53. Rift, by Todd Robert Petersen, released just a few weeks ago by Zarahemla Books, is selling for $13.22. Both have a cover price of $16.95. Chris Bigelow says he doesn’t know the logic, either.)

A couple of months ago, I was listening to an interview on NPR with someone who was talking about the death of mass marketing and mass media. I can’t really do justice to the man’s arguments — I didn’t hear the whole thing, and besides, I was paying more attention to the thoughts inside my head, some of which I may write up someday as a post about the future of book publishing.

The other part of my thinking had to do with marketing for my book, which — now that the book is wending its way toward actual publication, past the editing and desktop publishing process — has been taking up an increasing share of my mental attention, as to my dismay I realize all over again that publication notwithstanding, Books Don’t Sell Themselves.

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First, the relevant facts:

My book is being published. Yay! Hurrah for me. I need to cheer, you see, because aside from family and friends, it’s highly unlikely that simply publishing my book will really excite that many people — especially if they never know it exists.

My book is aimed at a Mormon market. I flatter myself that it’s acceptably written and might be accessible to some non-Mormon readers. Still, it seems pretty clear that most of those who’d ever want to read or care about the story will be Mormons. (I’ve had some people suggest trying to sell it to a national market — but no one, so far as I can recall, who’s actually read the story.)

My book will almost certainly never be carried by most LDS bookstores, due both to the Deseret Bookstore “inappropriateness” policy (my book is at least a PG-13) and the fact that DB and Seagull prefer to work with multi-product vendors and/or a developed marketing plan through established distributors. I’m giving it a try, but I don’t hold out much hope.

My book is on a topic (Gay! Teen! Mormon!) that is likely to push most of my target audience (adult, relatively orthodox Mormons) away. As my brother-in-law put it, after reading and enthusiastically enjoying my manuscript: “But you know, if I saw a book about this topic on a bookstore shelf, I’d put it back again without a second glance.”

What does all this tell me? Basically, that any attempt to sell to the Mormon market has to get past problems of access and initial perception.

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One thing I remember from that NPR show is the notion that social connections are coming to mean more to many people than traditional marketing. In this era of Internet communities, people increasingly choose what to buy based on what their friends tell them, not what book publishers and sellers tell them.

This, as I see it, is mostly good news as regards my book, since it confirms that shelling out mega-dollars (which neither Chris Bigelow — owner and operator of my publisher, Zarahemla Books — nor I possess) in some kind of ad campaign probably wouldn’t work anyway. Especially in light of the concerns mentioned above, word of mouth is pretty much the only way my book is ever likely to sell to most Mormon readers.

This, unfortunately, seems like a chicken-and-egg dilemma. How do people find out about the book in order to recommend it to other people? At best, it seems like a long, slow process.

A classic solution is book reviews, which are essentially word of mouth amplified. Zarahemla’s standard marketing effort, from what I can tell, consists largely of using press releases to generate interest, sending out review copies, and then publicizing the resulting reviews. Given the realities of Mormon small-press publishing, it’s hard to see how Chris could do much more than that — and even if he could, it probably wouldn’t do much good.

We have hopes that my book may catch reviewers’ attention since it’s on a hot-button topic that hasn’t been seen much in Mormon literature. It’s nice to think so, anyway.

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I’m also trying to expand on the notion of community connections and word-of-mouth in less traditional ways.

Due to a combination of factors, I wound up with a very large number people of manuscript reviewers — 34, by my count. The polite thing to do, I’ve decided, is send each of these a complimentary print copy of the book (assuming they want it). And if they wind up sharing their copies or talking about the book with friends, that’s all to the good.

As a member of the Mormon lit community I can probably count on a few sales there, at least if they don’t all wind up with complimentary copies. That’s an awfully tiny pool, though — especially when you consider that (a) we don’t tend to be terribly rich, and (b) all of us have dozens of other books we want to buy and read as well. I figure that based on sales from AML, AMV, etc., Chris and I could probably go out to McDonalds for lunch — if neither of us is very hungry.

I’ve also been attempting (somewhat clumsily) to approach various Mormon-related blogs about distributing online PDF review copies. In some ways, this is just an extension of the concept of book reviews into a new medium. But then I start to think about the implication of PDF distribution, which means I can give away as many review copies as I like without any actual cost to myself or my publisher. The issue of lost revenue, as I see it, doesn’t really apply to those of us on the bottom of the exposure scale. Anything that increases discussion about the book can only be a good thing. Heck, if there’s a group out there that wants to sponsor an online discussion of my book, I’ll gladly provide PDFs to everyone who wants to take part. The real problem is finding people who have an interest. After all, there are only so many Mormon bloggers — and how many of them will want to read my novel, anyway?

(I should also mention blog tours, which I’d never heard of until today’s email from Chris. Hey! I’m just living up to my billing here. Part of the amusement of this Writing Rookie series for the rest of you is watching me fumble around without any idea what I’m doing…)

Which brings me to the two-market problem: i.e., the large market I’d like to reach of Mormon adults with no special interest in the issue of homosexuality and Mormonism, versus the considerably smaller but more invested market of those who do have a stake in this issue: i.e., gay/same-sex attracted Mormons (SSAMs, for the purposes of this post).

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SSAMs, as I see it, aren’t the primary audience for my book. There is, I suspect, nothing my novel will have to say to them that they don’t already know. The most it could hope to do is capture, in a sharable way, some part of what they’ve found true in their own experience — something they might want to show bishops or friends or family members, perhaps.

I’m reluctant to rely too much on this audience. For one thing, there’s a huge range of human experience occupying the intersection of “same-sex attracted” and “Mormon.” What I’ve written isn’t a map to that experience, but one specific story — unlikely in the way that all specific stories are unlikely. SSAMs are likely to notice at least as many differences as similarities between this novel and their experiences.

On the other hand, that sense of built-in investment is likely to translate into a cadre of high-interest readers who could, if they like the book, feel highly motivated to share it with others. I’ve already had several positive responses along those lines: manuscript readers who’ve said that as soon as the book is available, they plan to buy and give away several copies.

This, if it can be made to work, represents a potential answer to the word-of-mouth problem. And so I’ve been contacting various SSAM-connected people and organizations. I’m now moving toward a position where I’m likely to provide a PDF copy to pretty much any SSAM who asks me for one — on the theory, again, that if their impression is a positive one, that’s likely to translate to both word-of-mouth and potential sales down the road.

There’s a politic to this, of course, as illustrated by the reactions of both Evergreen and Affirmation — two major organizations focusing on homosexuality and Mormonism — when I asked if they’d put out flyers for my book at their annual conferences on Sept. 19-21 (a juxtaposition that speaks volumes about the adversarial relationship between the two groups, but I digress). Both wanted a copy of the book to review before letting me know if it was something they’s be comfortable publicizing, even to the extent of putting out flyers. There are orthodoxies on both the right and the left — with a significant probability that my book won’t satisfy people on either side. But then, that’s the nature of community dynamics.

(As of Monday, Sept. 14, I haven’t heard from either group about whether they want my flyers. In at least one case, I know that’s because they haven’t had a chance to finish reading it yet. Ah, well.)

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I’d like to be able to draw some general conclusions from all this. But what do I know? I’m still figuring all this out. The one thing I can definitely say is this: marketing my first novel — like writing it — is turning out to be more of a learning experience than I ever imagined. It’s a whole new world out there, Dorothy…

As we approach publication, I’m trying to round up people who might have an interest in reading and reviewing the book, not just for AMV but for any other venue (electronic, print, etc.) that might have an interest in the subject matter.

Apropos of which, here’s the back-cover blurb describing the book:

“A gay teenage Mormon growing up in western Oregon in 2003. His straight best friend. Their parents. A typical LDS ward, a high-school club about tolerance for gays, and a proposed anti-gay-marriage amendment to the state constitution. In No Going Back, these elements combine in a coming-of-age story about faithfulness and friendship, temptation and redemption, tough choices and conflicting loyalties.”

So far as I know, this is the first novel to address the issue of same-sex attraction/gayness within an LDS context for a general LDS audience. It doesn’t end in suicide (a question I’ve been asked more than once), and the main thrust describes a teenager whose goal is to stay in the Church, not one whose path inevitably leads him out of the Church. I consider the book as now edited to be roughly PG-13 in terms of language and sexually explicit themes. (Those of you who read the manuscript may be interested to know that the language is slightly toned down from what you saw.)

At this point, I can’t say for sure when print copies of the book will be available, though we are shooting for sometime in October. Electronic (PDF) files should be available for review before that. I think that both Chris Bigelow (my publisher) and I are inclined to be fairly liberal in the matter of distributing electronic copies for review, so long as the reader can promise to (a) at least attempt to read the book with a possible interest in talking about it afterwards in some vaguely appropriate venue, and (b) not to copy or distribute the review copy. Print copies, alas, we will need to be more chary with, due to the fact that neither Chris nor I is swimming in money. So your chances of getting a review copy are better if you can settle for PDF – and you’ll be able to get it quicker too.

FYI, those who read and commented on part or all of the manuscript will eventually be receiving a complimentary print copy of the book (with the exception of one reader who preferred a PDF copy). However, if any of you who read the manuscript would like a PDF version earlier so that you can look at the book as it actually turned out and review and/or take part in discussions, please let me know.

Anyone who is interested in a review copy should email me, Jonathan Langford, at Jonathan At motleyvision DOT org, with:
- Your name
- Your qualifications to review
- The venue where you might review/discuss the book
- Whether you’re requesting a print or electronic copy

Please feel free to mention this to anyone you think might have an interest. I’d also welcome any suggestions for additional places to contact about lining up reviewers. Thanks!

Just to let you know, we’ve received some very positive responses on the MS, including reviews from LDS playwright Tom Rogers and BYU English professor Steve Walker. The MS has been through several rounds of revision already. But we’re still hoping to make it better.

This is also, as Theric reminded me to mention, the book I’ve been blathering on about here at AMV for months now. For a list of my Writing Rookie blogs describing my writing process, click here.

I’m NOT looking for a proofreader/copyeditor (Chris will do that, after I’ve polished as much as I can). Rather, what I’m looking for is honest overall responses to the book, plus feedback about what works and what doesn’t work for you as a reader: scenes, character developments, plot events, stylistic irritations, etc.

Rather than going into much detail about the book here, I’ll simply jot down a few points of orientation. First, this book is about a teenager who’s trying to stay in the Church, and who by the end of the book is still holding to that decision, although he’s had a fair number of difficulties along the way. Second, I’d rate this as about a PG-13, both for language (though it’s less than what many teenagers use) and for a reported sexual encounter (which is, however, critical for the story).

My primary intended audience for this book is believing Mormons who are doctrinally orthodox but relatively liberal in their reading tastes and tolerances. I’m hoping the book will appeal not only to those with connections to gays (e.g., family members who are gay) but also to those (bishops, other leaders, and just ordinary folks) who may wonder about the kinds of challenges that those who are same-sex attracted face in the Church and how the rest of the LDS community can help support them.

Our plan is for the book to be released this summer. Chris and I figure that having more people read it in MS now will mean more good comments to guide my revision, as well as generating more publicity for the book itself. What you get out of it is a chance to read this groundbreaking book – okay, groundbreaking within the LDS market – for free! And possibly even have an impact on it and get your name mentioned as one of my readers on the Acknowledgments page! What more could you ask for? (Don’t answer that…)

Honestly, we really do want a range of opinions and perspectives. No literary credentials needed – just a willingness to read and give feedback. I may not take your suggestions, but I will listen to them carefully.

If you’re interested in reading the MS, contact me at jonathan@motleyvision.org for details.