A couple of months ago — shortly after my oldest son got back from his mission — I hijacked him for a day to go driving with me in the northeastern suburbs of St. Paul, about 45 minutes from where I live. He, unwary soul, neglected to ask the purpose of our expedition prior to departure. When eventually he did discover the purpose — to check out a neighborhood and high school that I’ve adopted as the model for the set of novels I’m working on at present — much eye-rolling was evidenced. (Note my clever use of the passive voice to clue the reader in to just how clever I am. For, um, using the passive voice. Yeah.)

I’m sure the only thing that made the experience bearable for my son was the fact that he didn’t have to interact with anyone himself and could therefore more or less ignore the embarrassing way his father was acting. Later, when I told him about emailing a vice-principal chosen at random from the school website with questions about the school — and then showing up in person one day just as school was getting out — he made a comment the precise content of which I cannot remember, but the sense of which was that (a) I’m really quite weird, and (b) the publishing industry does not have enough money in it to persuade him to go out and be nosy and intrusive and chat up complete strangers. Which, I pointed out, was kind of an odd comment for him to make, given that he’d just spent two years talking to strangers about religion. That, however, was Different. Or so he informed me.

I concede nonetheless that he has a point. Being a writer, I’ve found, frequently puts me in situations where I act in ways that push the boundaries of my comfort zone — and leave my family’s far behind. I’m reminded, for example, of the time I showed up at a community PFLAG meeting for No Going Back (Parents and Friends of Lesbians And Gays, except that now they’ve expanded it beyond the acronym to include other categories such as transgendered). I felt intensely uncomfortable going into the meeting — but I did it anyway, because I thought my writing would be better if I had actually experienced some of what I was writing about. And I think it was.

Part of the reason for my embarrassment, I suspect, is that I lack confidence in myself as a writer. Perhaps this will be different once I get a few more publications under my belt. When I say, “I’m doing research for a book I’m writing,” I feel very much a fraud, even though it’s nothing more than the truth. It’s a truism that if you act as if what you’re doing is perfectly normal, others are likely to treat it that way too.

I admit in this respect to a certain jealousy of Shayne Bell, a member of my old writing group Xenobia who (together with Dave Wolverton) was among the first to break into professional writing. Shayne had a remarkable ability to approach total strangers with what appeared to be absolutely no embarrassment when it came to requests related to his writing. So sincere was his demeanor, so clean-cut his appearance, so reasonable and modest his approach, that he could charm pretty much anyone into doing pretty much anything — or at least, so it seemed to me at the time. Shayne was a dangerous man, or at any rate could have been had he chosen to use his gifts as a con artist or politician instead of storyteller. Perhaps I’ll develop more of that kind of confidence when/if I have more published titles under my name.

#######

The day I showed up without prior notice at the school, I first drove around the neighborhood. My original intent had been to drive back and forth in front of the school several times (I wanted to observe while kids were getting out of school), but after a couple of passes, I decided that was a little too stalker-like. So I parked in the nearby district office lot,  walked over to the school, and then talked to someone at the school office, who in turn called out the vice-principal I’d been communicating with. We talked briefly. She said I wouldn’t be able to stay there and observe without talking to the principal first, and encouraged me to email her to set up something.

So that’s what I did. I thought about it for a couple of weeks, then decided that what I really needed was a tour of the school — ideally while students were there, but I assumed it would be less disruptive and easier to arrange after school. I composed an email to the  vice-principal, specifying the types of areas I wanted to see (halls, commons areas, auditoriums, etc.) and explaining that it wasn’t so much a matter of wanting specific information about the school but rather of wanting to get a feel for the school — which is both older and larger than the one my own children attend, and with a somewhat different student demographic. I also was careful to trot out my credentials as an actual published author, one who had even received a short review in one of the local Twin Cities newspapers, and listed my website. I then had to do the same for the principal — and was rewarded with a message asking me to schedule a time for a school tour with the principal. Success!

So that’s what I’m set to do tomorrow morning (the Tuesday before Thanksgiving — this part was originally written a week ago). I’m looking forward to it. Part of me wishes that I had been more self-assured from the start — it was kind of awkward talking to the office staff when I showed up without any kind of appointment, saying, “I just want to stand somewhere and watch the students going out the doors.” But comfortable or not, the fact remains that I actually did it: another small-but-real challenge surmounted in my quest to write my stories.

#######

So. I went into the office, spent about 10 minutes waiting — which was actually kind of nice, since I got to watch students going back and forth during one of the breaks between classes — then spoke with the principal. He had concerns about confidentiality, but when I explained that what I wanted was all in the nature of background and that I wasn’t planning to share any specifics about their school and its students, it seemed to allay those concerns. I also gave him a copy of No Going Back — don’t know if he’ll read it, but it seemed like the thing to do. (Note to self: remember to record the cost of the copy as a research expense…)

After we had talked, he fetched a counselor to show me around for about 20 minutes. We got to see open areas, the library (er, media center), the lunch area (with students eating lunch), the gym, and the halls. I took some notes — more as an immediate aid to memory then as anything else. I took in the ambience. And then I went home.

Back when I was in college, one of the best things I ever did was join Xenobia, an sf&f writing group. It was a great experience. I didn’t do much writing back then, but the process of reading, giving critiques, and listening to other people’s comments taught me a lot about both writing and what I value as a reader. For several years, it served as one of my primary social groups. Some of the people I met there have become longtime friends — people I’m still in contact with today.

As a writing group, Xenobia is no more, alas. (It still exists as a kind of email list where people share news and encouragement from time to time.) And I truly regret it, because now that I’m finally trying to get my own creative writing going again, I find that I need both readers to react to my work and people I can bat ideas around with.

This occurred to me again the other evening as I was thinking about the teenage empath in my current YA science fiction novel. I want him to be able to sense other people’s feelings (not their thoughts), but also physical sensations as well, such as pain or lust. I’ve been trying to figure out whether those are two truly separate things (in which case one might conceivably develop into the other), or if physical and emotional sensations can’t really be separated. That’s exactly the type of question we could have had a good discussion about back in Xenobia days. But I don’t really have a place to start that kind of conversation nowadays.

#######

I didn’t feel the lack of a writing group with No Going Back, partly I think because I knew that even without one, I’d be able to find people who would give me good feedback. And I did. Part of that was because of the kind of story it was — people had an intrinsic interest in the subject matter, and were relatively eager to give feedback on a book that was exploring new territory in Mormon fiction. Another part, I think, was because I’d been fairly engaged already in the community of Mormon letters. To some extent, AML, A Motley Vision, et al., were my writing group.

It’s different now. Partly that’s because no one has any community investment in the kinds of stories I’m working on right now. Mostly, though, I think it’s because I’m working in a different genre (YA science fiction). I feel the need to talk to people who read and write the kind of stuff I’m trying to write and get their take both on my writing and on the ideas I’m trying to make work.

#######

Thinking about what kind of a writing group I’d want to be a part of, I find that I’m a bit… picky.

As I indicated above, one of the things I really want is people who have first-hand knowledge of the genre I’m trying to write. It doesn’t necessarily have to be as a writer, but at least as a thoughtful reader. Indeed, in many ways a thoughtful reader might be an even better reviewer than another writer. Unfortunately, the way these things work, there’s very little most writers (including myself) can provide in pay to their readers — except an exchange of comments, something that has value only to another writer.

The underlying economy of a writing group lies in the exchange of comments. If I want to get good comments, I have to be willing to give good comments. That’s something I’m pretty good at, based on past experience — except that I’ve gotten a lot slower at it in recent years.

Back about 15 years ago, I reviewed a book manuscript from a friend of mine who’s a professional writer. It was an excellent story. I put in about 40 hours looking at the manuscript and making comments, which he told me were more valuable than what he got from the editor at his publishing house. It’s an experience and an accolade I treasure to this day. I have also never been able to make myself read the published novel, nor the stories that were its sequels (though I’m hoping that will change someday).

For me, writing stories and reading/reviewing stories by other writers occupy much the same (highly exhausting) mental territory. I could easily see myself putting energy into critiquing other people’s stories that should be going into my own writing. But I know that if I want to make my stories as good as they can be, I need good comments — which means that I need to be willing to give them in turn.

That being the case, I would ideally like for the people in my writing group to be on a level that’s more or less comparable to my own in terms of skill and/or knowledge. Working with people who are still trying to figure out how to write sentences and paragraphs is likely to prove frustrating for them and me both. On the other hand, I don’t think I belong in a writing group with the professionals either. I’m still learning too many of the basics.

This is a problem that solves itself naturally when you get into a writing group early in your writing experience. To some extent, all of you in the group get to grow along with each other, with people dropping out along the way (as I did) if they aren’t ready to go there yet. Unfortunately, I took a 20-year detour between college and the start of my creative writing career, so I need to start over at this point more or less from scratch with respect to finding a writing group.

The other thing I don’t want is people who think it’s their job to fix my story. Mostly what I want is people who will tell me what worked and didn’t work for them, how they reacted to things as they were reading them. An articulate and intelligent test audience, as it were. Then once a problem has been identified, I may want to throw it open to the group for discussion. That’s a point where suggestions from other experienced writers could be highly valuable. Most of the time, though, I want to try to fix it first myself.

It also turns out that I don’t react well to theoretical or model-based criticism, by which I mean critiques that start from some particular model or theory of what a story should be like rather than from a reader’s perception of what worked or didn’t work in a particular story. Basically, I don’t react well to appeals to authority in any form, aside from the authority of the reader to describe his or her own experience. I can easily see where this tendency on my part could give (and take) offense in some contexts.

#######

So where does that leave me in the quest for a writing group?

Up to now, this has been something I’ve thought I could defer until such time as I have a more complete manuscript and am ready to show it to someone. Basically, as I’ve commented elsewhere, I need to do my best to do the things I already know how to do before I go out and collect other people’s opinions about what I need to be doing better. And in terms of motivation, I know of old that involvement in a writing group is far more likely to function as a (highly enjoyable) social distraction from writing than as a stimulus to produce more.

Despite all of which, my frustrated wish for someone with whom to talk over the logic of my story serves as a reminder of the potential benefits of writing groups, even before my manuscript is ready to show to people. Maybe it’s time for me to start looking.

Every minute of every day, each of us has to choose what he or she will do next.

Okay, maybe not every minute of every day. Practically speaking, most of the time we’re in the middle of tasks we’ve already started, and so not really actively thinking about our options. I suppose that technically, even at those times we’re choosing to continue what we’re doing by not choosing to do something else, but that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is the times when we pause at least briefly between two or more options. So maybe every 15 minutes, or every half-hour if we’re particularly focused or stuck in a meeting or something. Then again, who knows what we’re actually doing mentally while we’re in those meetings? (For the purposes of this paragraph, I’m choosing to ignore all those hours we spend sleeping, in comas, being experimented upon by aliens, etc., on the grounds that they’re not relevant to my point. Not relevant, I tell you! Bad reader! No milk bones for you.)

Ahem.

Anyway, it occurs to me that one very simple definition of a writer is someone who — among all the myriads of other things he or she could be doing — chooses to write often enough to actually produce something. The rest, as Einstein might say, is details. (And don’t you just want to whap Einstein upside the head when he says that? And people like me when they quote him?)

I like this way of thinking, because it puts the emphasis at a level where I find it manageable. I’m not the sort of person who can decide to sit down and write something for four or six or eight or twelve hours, five or six days a week, until I get it done. What I can do is choose to write in this particular moment — sometimes — and see what follows from there.

#####

Science fiction author Robert Silverberg (so I’ve heard) can produce 25 pages of text a day when he’s in writing mode. (Pause for all the writers and would-be writers to contemplate the pleasant thought of taking out a contract on Robert Silverberg.)

I can’t do that. Okay, maybe I could do that, if I was high on the Mormon equivalent of speed (and when you find out what that is, could you tell me?), but anything I produced would be garbage. And after two days of that, I’d be useless for the next month.

Much of the process of being a writer consists of strategies to increase the likelihood of choosing to write at any particular point in time. The process is illustrated admirably (both literally and figuratively) in Edward Gorey’s very brief story, The Unstrung Harp; or, Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel, which by the way I highly recommend for all the writers on your gift list, assuming that they have the right kind of offbeat sense of humor to appreciate Gorey. (But then, they’re writers, which ups the chances significantly.) I quote: “For writing Mr Earbrass affects an athletic sweater of forgotten origin and unknown significance; it is always worn hind-side-to… Mr Earbrass belongs to the straying, rather than to the sedentary, type of author. He is never to be found at his desk unless actually writing down a sentence. Before this happens he broods over it indefinitely while picking up and putting down again small, loose objects; walking diagonally across rooms; staring out windows; and so forth. He frequently hums, more in his mind than anywhere else, themes from the Poddington Te Deum.”

Some writers have routines. I highly recommend that, if you can pull it off. I have bad habits, which I’m constantly trying to evade for long enough to be at least a marginally useful human being. In the case of writing, rather than trying to write at a set time, what I’m learning to do is try to recognize those moments when story ideas and writing impulses are tapping on the window of my brain, and then go and let them in rather than run screaming into the night.

And then (to push the metaphor a bit) I do my best to jog along with my visitor as far as I can, until he/she/gtst vanishes into thin air or goes off in some crazy direction or leads me on until I drop, exhausted, by the side of the road. Not that crazy directions are necessarily bad, mind you. But it’s important to distinguish between crazy-good directions and crazy-falling-off-cliffs directions. At least, once one has fallen off the cliff, it’s important to be able to recognize that you and your story did just go over a cliff, and maybe it would be a good idea to get back up, climb out, and choose another route.

A certain degree of courage is required. Or, as the common misreading has it: “let no spirit of discretion overcome you in the [writing] hour.” The point is that you move. You do something. You write. Without that, nothing else one says or thinks or does as a writer is really important.

#####

Story writing (as I believe I may have written in a previous post for this series) requires a variety of self-induced monomania. Unfortunately, in my case at least, the tricks I use for throwing myself into that state are likely as not to backfire. Sitting down to “get to it” increases the pressure, and thus the urge to run away. Easing into it by doing other related things (such as writing a blog post about writing) can quickly become a substitute for the thing itself. At this point in my life, I find advice and experiences from other writers depressing rather than motivating. And the last time I tried to tell my wife and daughter about a story idea, they told me to go away. (The idea, so they informed me, was too embarrassing for them to listen to.)

The best and most productive times, I often find, are those occasions when the impulse to write sneaks up on me en route to doing other things. I can’t quite make myself believe that scribbling story scenes during sacrament meeting is a sign either of my own spirituality or the worth of my stories. (Indeed, logic rather suggests the reverse.) But writing moments are too precious to sacrifice, whenever they come.

It’s my hope that someday, once I’ve proven to the muse (and to myself) that I can be trusted to write at the times I’ve set aside for writing, that it will become possible for me to create and keep a real writing schedule. In the meantime, my goal is simply to find time to write, on a frequent if not regular basis, and see what happens.

Actually, I have to admit that I’ve always hated the push toward concrete, outcome-based goals in Mormon culture, considering it something of an unpleasant borrowing from the power-of-positive-thinking, success-oriented culture of corporate America. Far more sane, in my view, to set process-oriented resolutions: I will focus on this, I will remember that. Come to think of it, this may be part of why I have such a hard time giving firm time- and cost-based goals to the people I work with…

Be that as it may, I have set some writing goals for 2011. So here’s the deal: I’ll share mine, and then you can share yours. And then at the end of the year we can pretend we’ve forgotten everything we wrote here look back on all we’ve accomplished over the past year. Deal?

So I guess I need to actually put down something…

The amount of time I get to spend on personal projects is highly unpredictable, depending as it does on how much freelance work comes in. Nonetheless, it’s a pretty firm desire on my part to get back to fiction writing this year, putting in time on a regular basis, and to complete at least one and hopefully two YA sf&f novels this year. I’m not planning to get them to the point of submitting, but at least to the point of a complete initial draft, as good as I can get it without soliciting extensive feedback.

Last year I took a deliberate time out from writing fiction. It served me well: I was able to catch up on some things, spend whatever time could productively be spent promoting No Going Back, and figure out whether writing fiction was really something I wanted to keep doing. The answer to that last question turned out to be a definite yes. So now is when I have to figure out if writing a novel is something I can replicate (hopefully in a more commercially viable direction), or if I’m pretty much a one-trick pony in terms of fiction writing. It’s going to be tricky actually making this happen, since things have gotten complicated in terms of home and family life (we have a disabled relative coming to stay with us for the first half of the year) — but if I never make the attempt, I’ll never know how back I suck. Wait, that wasn’t what I meant to say…

And now it’s your turn. (I’ve shown mine; it’s only fair for you to show yours.) What are your writing goals for 2011 — process-oriented, outcome-based, or whatever?

Reviewed by Jonathan Langford.

Note: I received a free review copy of this book from the editor.

A good personal essay is like an evening spent in front of a fireplace with a longtime friend. It’s not about drama and high emotion. Nor is it about polished literary style — though there is a style and a demanding literary craft to writing such essays well. The essence of that craft lies in the achievement of a clear, intimate, authentic voice, as if the author were indeed a close and trusted friend. The satisfaction we as readers take from the experience springs in large measure from that sense of connection.

The other key to a good personal essay is the quiet insights it provides into ordinary life. Personal essays are the genre of the quotidian, focused into insight and clarity (there’s that word again) through the lens of an author’s mental reflection and then offered up for the reader’s recognition and acknowledgment. The underlying ethos of every personal essay is our essential similarity as human beings. As Jane D. Brady (author of one of the essays published in this collection) puts it: “There’s not a chasm between normal, functioning human beings and the bums on the street with no job and no life. There’s one hair’s breadth. Disaster is one step off the sidewalk. It is one migraine away” (p. 198). Personal essays persuade us of this truth (just as applicable to miracles as disasters) through a combination of narrated occurrence and quiet observation. We ponder the writer’s insights, resonate with the writer’s experiences, and feel that we know ourselves better as a result.

Adventures of the Soul: The Best Creative Nonfiction from BYU Studies makes accessible 25 high-quality contributions to this genre, well suited to the tastes of orthodox Mormons who enjoy thoughtful reflection on what it means to be Mormon and what it means to be human. The essays — ranging from memories of World War II among the Latter-day Saints in an Australian branch to insights interwoven with recuperation from back surgery — are organized into the 4 categories of International Vistas, Family Views, Gospel Reflections, and Introspection. Truthfully, though, all of the essays strike me as being in some sense about family, self, and gospel, each set in its own specific geographical, cultural, and temporal frame.

Personal essays in venues such as Dialogue and Sunstone often explore what it’s like to be in the boundary areas of Mormon experience. The essays in Adventures of the Soul, in contrast, stay away from the edges but drill down deep into what it means to be a thoughtful mainstream Mormon in a range of life circumstances. There’s no controversy, but plenty of fodder for reflection and sharing.

The presentation of these essays matches the quality of their content. The book is beautifully composed and typeset, featuring grayscale photographs of waterfalls that harmonize with the thoughtful and reflective tone of the content. Overall, it’s an ideal gift for the thoughtful, believing Mormon on your Christmas, birthday, or Mother’s/Father’s Day list who may not care for fiction but who likes to read and think about human experience.

I do have a few minor quibbles. The Introduction (by editor Doris Dant) provides thoughtful teasers about the specific essays included in the volume and how they fit within the myriad potentialities of the personal essay form. However, it doesn’t supply any information about how essays for this particular “best of” anthology were selected — and from how large a pool. I couldn’t help but notice that only two of the personal essays dated from prior to Volume 35 (published in 1995-96). Does this reflect a change in frequency of publication of personal essays in BYU Studies starting about 15 years ago, or an editorial process that found more recent essays to be of higher quality?

It would also be interesting to know how many personal essays BYU Studies publishes in a typical year, and who is eligible to submit them. Members of the BYU community only? Alumni? Anyone? What types of essays are they looking for? This kind of information is likely to be of interest to many of those who might read the anthology.

An editorial point that annoyed me in reading the essays was the lack of any headnote or footnote giving the date of original publication: information that would have help create a proper mental context for my reading. Irritatingly, the About the Authors entries at the end of the book included volume and issue number for the original publication, but not dates.

These complaints, however, are minor compared to the many strengths and pleasures offered by this volume. My only real regret is that due to the fragmented nature of the Mormon market, it’s likely that many people who would enjoy this book will never have the opportunity to read it.

* For some particularly dubious values of “popular demand.”

For the complete list of columns in this series, click here.

They say that when you wipe out on a bicycle, the thing to do is get right back on and start riding again. At least, I think that’s what they say. Personally, it makes more sense to me to put on some bandages and let the scrapes heal first.

Be that as it may…

A couple of months after No Going Back was published last fall, I decided that I wasn’t going to try to write a novel in 2010. I’ve held to that, mostly. Instead, I’ve focused on my freelance informational writing and editing (which actually pays bills), reading and reviewing work by other people (a matter partly of paying off the karmic debt I feel I incurred by pushing my manuscript on other people for their reviews), working to promote No Going Back — which can be quite time-consuming — and generally catching up with things. More than once, I’ve congratulated myself on making a decision at once so wise (ahem) and so practical. Indeed, so nice has it been not to be writing a novel that I often doubted, during the first few months, that I should ever want to write another story. Alas, over time I started to feel that certain creative itch again…

During this past summer, I spent an hour one Friday morning in a local swimming pool celebrating the end of my younger son’s swimming lessons. (My older son hates swimming with a fiery passion, but the younger son is fortunately proving less hydrophobic.) He, of course, was off playing with his friends. Left to my own devices, I soon found myself observing my fellow swimmers, pondering their interactions, speculating about their internal motivations and mental processes, and generally thinking about them as inspiration for potential characters. That’s when I realized that pleasant fantasies aside, the habit of story writing has gotten too firm a grip on my soul to be set so easily aside.

Since then, I’ve been stumbling back toward writing, trying to figure out how and where to get started again. My hope is to reproduce the conditions, habits, and mindset that resulted in a completed novel, compared to the stalled efforts of years past. So far, the outcome is uncertain.

#####

Story ideas, for me, often start with the notion of a particular character in a challenging situation. Ideally, there’s also some general sense of where the story is headed and how it has to end. Usually, though, it takes work to get to that point. I’ve generated countless (because I don’t particularly want to count them) ideas and possible starting points that haven’t gone anywhere — at least, not yet — because they haven’t connected with enough other story pieces, of the right shapes and types, to make a decent narrative.

Back before my older son (the non-aquatic one) left on his mission, I sat him down and made him read some of the various fantasy story beginnings and ideas I’d generated over the years. As he did so, his frustration mounted. “They all look okay, Dad! You just need to choose one and finish it!” (Or words to that effect.) And yet most of what I’ve done in the last few months consists of trying out still more starting-places.

Part of the problem is that I’m simply too aware of the universe of possibilities each new story represents. Without any effort, I can envision myriads of possible directions for any given narrative. However, one of the things I’ve learned is that charging ahead at random isn’t a good strategy for me. Instead, I need to play around and wait for that faint inner click that signals an organic rightness to the direction I’m contemplating. Proceeding without that internal confirmation leads to wasted efforts and a sense of dissatisfaction and doubt in my own writing. Since the enemy (for me) is largely my own internal doubts, that’s an experience that’s best avoided. I also have to believe (though I have no firm evidence of this) that the story ideas that feel better to me also result in better final products.

#####

Young adult fantasy novels (which is what I’m hoping to write next, at least in part because I hold out some faint hope that they might result in a positive financial return) are pretty different from a realistic contemporary novel about a gay Mormon teenager. Still, I can’t help but hope that some of the lessons of my first novel might help give me a leg up on future efforts. Pondering on my experiences, I’ve distilled the following mix of declarative observations and imperative guidelines — tentative hypotheses about what works for me in writing fiction:

• In trying to write a story, it’s good to know where you’re going.
• Persistence over time can produce a novel, no matter how slow the progress seems to be.
• If I can tell I’m writing crap, it’s best to go do something else for a while.
• It’s important to get away from the computer from time to time to refresh my brain.
• On a related note, writing in spiral notebooks can be a useful strategy for putting in quality writing time.
• I’m more balanced and content when I’m writing regularly on a story, even if it’s only a little bit per day.
• When I get stuck on one scene, I can jump ahead to work on another scene.
• A lot can be figured out by taking the time to think about my characters and their situations in depth.
• When the writing’s going well, it’s best to run with it. Even if it’s in the middle of the night.
• When all else fails, (a) take a walk, (b) wash some dishes, (c) play with your kids, (d) grumble in your journal, (e) read a good story (by someone else), and/or (f) all of the above.

How all this applies in my current circumstances is a bit of a mystery. At present, I’m surrounded by fragmentary story ideas: characters, voices, setting. So far, nothing has jelled properly. Or maybe it’s just that I haven’t persisted to the point where one of my ideas starts throwing out roots and branches to become a real story.

In short, I’m floundering around. What I have to keep reminding myself is that I need to flounder. Floundering at least means I’m in the water (so to speak). Horrid and uncomfortable though it feels, to cease doing so means giving up — because all stories, based on my experience to date, lie on the other side of prolonged and profound discomfort. Floundering can ultimately lead to other things, if I gird up my loins (pull on my bathing suit?) and flounder in earnest. At least, that’s my hope.

I don’t know how the story ends. The interviewer was very careful not to give away anything about that. The reviews I looked up online after getting home were equally circumspect.

This is all quite admirable for those of you who think a book shouldn’t be ruined by knowing the ending beforehand. But I’m here to tell you that unless and until I know how that book ends, I won’t buy it. And I won’t start reading it.

Most of you will doubtless be horrified by this. To which I respond: Get over it. I’m a longtime reader, with a graduate degree in literature (if that means anything). My reading experience is just as legitimate as yours. I’m not asking you to read this way, but I’m not going to apologize for the way I process texts. Anyone who wants me to read his/her/its story will simply have to deal with that.

The question of just why I read this way has to do, I think, with how strongly I identify with the characters in the fiction I’m reading. I literally feel what they’re feeling — or what they ought to be feeling, in cases such as those of stupid teenagers who ought to feel more embarrassed than they do about their own idiotic actions. (This is one reason, by the way, that I shall never watch a Mister Bean movie.) This makes reading a very intense experience for me. It also means I have to be pretty careful about decisions about just what I’m going to read. Knowing what’s coming in a story helps me do that.

It’s not just a matter of eliminating stories that end badly. Very often when I flip ahead to find out the end of an intense story, even if the news isn’t good for the main character, I’ll keep on going. Knowing what’s coming helps me to get a grip on myself emotionally. It allows me to continue — though there are also times when, knowing where the story is going, I’ll decide it’s not worth my time. That’s my prerogative.

The other thing you have to understand is that for me, knowing the ending in advance doesn’t spoil a story. Pretty much any story that I like, I reread. Usually I like it better the second time around. Knowing what’s going to happen, I don’t have to race through, but can appreciate the journey. It’s like a first-time conversation with the person who’s going to become your best friend. You may click initially, but things get much better over time. First impressions are lasting impressions only if they’re so negative that you don’t bother to collect any later impressions further down the road. A good book is much like a good friend in that respect — for me at least.

The one exception I try to make is when I’m reading something to give revision comments to the writer. In those cases, I try to stick to a strictly linear reading, so that the writer will have the benefit of my impressions and misconceptions, uncontaminated by knowledge of what comes later. I’m not honestly sure that’s the best idea, though. Wouldn’t it be better to accurately reflect the kind of reader I really am, rather than imitate someone I’m not? But I try.

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God, we’re told, knows the end from the beginning, whether that’s through a kind of mechanical foreknowledge based on his thorough knowledge of the present, or some way of standing outside of time, or something else.

In wanting to know the ending of stories before I get very far in them, it can be supposed that I’m wanting the power of God — something we limited mortals don’t possess in real life. Each of us, after all, must live life as it comes to us. Isn’t it a form of cheating, of escapism, for me to demand something different in my reading experience?

Except that this isn’t the case. God, if you’re a Mormon, is someone you believe has indeed revealed the ending of the drama, though not all the intermediate acts. He tells us how things will end up so that we may trust him along the way.

Which, it occurs to me, really is what I want in my reading. When I read a story, I enter a world whose god — the author — is largely unknown to me. Before I venture into that world, I want to know whether it’s the work of one of those gods who delights in the pain of his or her creation: a god of vengeance, a god of mercy, a god of suffering, a god of indolence, a god of unjust power and cruel immorality. I want to know what kind of experience awaits me. This, it seems to me, isn’t too much to ask.

Author: Braden Bell

Publisher: Bonneville Books/Cedar Fort

Genre: Adult Mormon Fiction

Year Published: 2010

Number of Pages: 128

Binding: Trade Paperback

ISBN-10: 1599553562

ISBN-13: 978-1599553566

Price: $10.99

Reviewed by Jonathan Langford.

Note: I received a free electronic copy of this book from the author, in trade for a free electronic copy of my book, No Going Back.

Road shows are a familiar icon of Mormon life. The following passage from Braden Bell’s debut novel provides a horrible — and hilarious — illustration of the depths to which they can descend:

“Our last road show was a Sister Cartwright extravaganza about the Word of Wisdom. The big climax took place in the refrigerator — a showdown between the oranges and the junk food. Singing produce, dancing whole grains. I think I was a sentient Twinkie or something — one of the bad guys. We sang a song about fat and cholesterol to the tune of ‘The Lonely Goatherd’ from The Sound of Music. ‘Deep in the fridge were some evil Twinkies, la-hay-den with lo-hots of cholesterol!’” (p. 55)

Back when I was a deacon, I remember being cast as a member of the wimpy football team who uttered the line, “We don’t have a ghost of a chance” in one year’s road show. The rest of the drama, as I recall, centered around the competing interventions of two supernatural entities, “Ghost of a Chance” and “Spirit of Fair Play.” It was kind of fun (despite the grumbling aftewards by some of the adults about “that other ward” in the stake who always violated the guidelines but walked away with the awards).

Shortly after moving to my current ward some thirteen years ago. I was asked to be the adult leader (director? advisor? something like that) for that year’s road show. I had the distinct impression that the bishopric member was smirking as he extended the assignment — a more restrained reaction than that of at least one friend, who burst into loud peals of laughter. There’s some truth to the comment by one of Bell’s characters:

“I had to do a road show once. Longest three months of my life. They figure anyone who’s a little off the beaten path must be good at directing road shows. Anyone who is ‘artsy’ in any way must have some secret knowledge that allows them to whip up road shows out of thin air.” (pp. 54-55)

The experience turned out okay. In fact, I wound up enjoying it — and getting to know some of the youth in our ward, which was a good experience. I was particularly amazed at how some kids who acted shy and embarrassed during rehearsals turned into total hams during the performance.

Many of you reading this review doubtless have road show experiences of your own that you could recount. All too often, the production of an LDS road show becomes a drama in its own right, featuring elements of ambition, embarrassment, idiocy, stress — together (when it works right) with good humor, growth, and genuine bonding. My point here is that road shows are (a) distinctly Mormon, and (b) ripe for literary treatment in a Mormon setting.

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Bell’s novel telegraphs its direction from its short prologue, where five LDS characters are briefly presented, each suffering from some form of spiritual malaise: the adult male pornography addict, the depressed young mother, the ambitious father and businessman who feels spiritually sterile despite his apparent success, the lonely old woman with fibromyalgia, the alienated quasi-hippy who doesn’t feel that he fits in at church. Each scene ends with the character’s internal plea for help from God. And then we see an email message from a stake activities chairman, talking about the year’s road shows. The expectation is clear: all five characters will see their lives change and their prayers answered through involvement with the road show project.

It’s a promising beginning: straightforward, engaging, and providing a clear signal both that the story will deal with some tough themes and that the answers will come through application of the gospel of Jesus Christ and opportunities for service in the kingdom. And by and large, that’s what the book delivers.

The characters’ dramatic situations are well thought out, marred by an occasional tendency toward heavy-handedness. For example, the despair of a young graduate student about to be expelled from his theater program (the pornography addict) is well drawn, but the LDS department chair’s comments about him seeming to have regressed in knowledge and skill during the past year read less like realistic character development and more like an intended scriptural illustration. While I agree with the principle that spiritual malaise leads to problems in other areas of life as well, usually the effects aren’t that simple and direct.

Similarly, the exhausted young mother is well-depicted overall, but a bit too cliched (in my view) when she starts thinking about the glamorous future stage career she gave up and the romance she never actually had with a young man from the BYU Young Ambassadors who has since gone on to perform on Broadway. She and her circumstances would be more interesting (and sympathetic) without the crossed signals about whether her basic problem is chemical and/or exhaustion-based depression or conflicted feelings about lost opportunities and priorities.

For the most part, the book follows through well on its initial promise. The resolutions are modest, believable, and appropriate to the situations of the individual characters. The exhausted young mother, for example, is rejuvenated by her participation in the road show — but also by going to the doctor and getting appropriate medication for post-partum depression, and also by realizing that she need to make an effort to reconnect to her husband and family. The pornography addict, as part of the most fully realized plot thread, both confesses to the bishop and exercises his will to resist temptation — and to avoid tempting situations before they begin. His success as director of the road show also plausibly (if somewhat predictably) paves the way for being given a second chance in his program. The lonely old woman experiences fellowship through her participation in the road show — and a physical healing on-stage in a scene I’m not quite sure works for me as a reader, though it’s as well done as it probably could have been given the premise. There’s no area where reader reactions tend to be more personal and individual than in response to literary/artistic depictions of spiritual manifestations and miracles. I give points to Bell for taking the risk.

I found the style clear, easy to read, and engaging. There’s a good sense of character voice. I also felt the author did a good job of communicating many concrete specifics of LDS life, though that’s a bit marred by the fact that each point-of-view character is shown at a point of quiet crisis. This focus means we aren’t directly shown what the gospel and Church involvement mean during regular times. That won’t be a limitation for the main intended audience, who as active members of the Church should be able to supply this for themselves; however, it makes the book less likely to satisfy non-LDS readers by providing a realistic and fully-sketched view of Mormon life. Interactions within the ward are nicely drawn, avoiding the kind of obsessively over-the-top, exaggerated behavior that some LDS writers rely on to add humor.

I very much disliked the book’s convention of using font style to differentiate between characters’ internal thoughts (regular italics), divine inspiration (italics in a more flowing script), and thoughts from Satan (darker italics in a kind of spiky font). For me, it was both distracting and intrusive. I would have preferred a more subtle approach, where we (like the character) had to tell the source by the content. The text was mostly clean from an editorial standpoint, although someone should have caught the incorrect use of tableaux for both singular and plural (singular is tableau). A quick glance at a dictionary would have fixed this.

#####

In short, I found The Road Show enjoyable, well-written, and likely to appeal to many LDS readers. However, I can’t really say that it’s a groundbreaking, memorable, or powerfully affecting example of Mormon fiction.

Part of the reason lies in the clear didactic purpose of the novel and the way that the story was structured to deliver that message. There’s never really any doubt about where the story is going or what the message will be when it gets there. This predictability — reassuring and possibly even necessary for the mainstream Mormon market, given the tough topics the writer is dealing with — is a strike against the story from the standpoint of literature intended to help us see life and its experiences with new eyes, which is (I believe) one of the prime purposes of really good fiction. Yes, the gospel message remains the same yesterday, today, and forever, but there’s always room for new instantiations that make us think about and experience that message in ways we had not done before. The Road Show, while enjoyable and even satisfying in some ways, didn’t do that for me.

On a stylistic level, I feel that the book often relied on preexisting expectations of the audience to evoke desired reactions, rather than earn those reactions through carefully selected original words and images. Good and bad influences and effects were telegraphed not only by the typographic conventions mentioned above, but also by echoing well-known scriptures and relying on details with a well-established iconic value (such as a mother not liking it when her children sing). On a related note, we see little of the characters outside the particular aspect of their lives that relates to the storyline. In some ways, the book reminded me of the drama presented on stage in the book’s final chapter, in which the actors enact well-known paintings and music describing events from the life of Christ. It’s well-done but all pretty familiar — and two-dimensional.

Part of the problem is the shortness of the novel. In 120 pages of text, it’s simply impossible — in my view — to do justice to all the stories Bell is juggling. Instead, he gives us the literary equivalent of three snapshots for each character (though spread out over more than three scenes): initial situation, worsening problem, and change point. The complexity and complications of real life are largely missing. A complete treatment of the characters’ varied situations could easily have taken three times the space of Bell’s novel. But then, a novel three times the size of The Road Show probably wouldn’t attract as many readers.

#####

All of which leaves me feeling somewhat conflicted about this novel. It’s easy to be confident in pointing out the flaws of poorly written fiction. It’s considerably harder to feel confident in pointing out ways that a well-written work falls short of what it could be, when I know that revising the story in the ways I’d like to see would probably reduce its appeal for its intended audience.

The simple fact is that a lengthier book with more character development, greater realism and detail in how its characters progress toward the resolutions of their problems, and more stylistic originality would probably not fare as well in the Mormon market. For that matter, I’m unsure whether the central story structure could have sustained a greater weight of text. And I’m quite sure Cedar Fort would have been less likely to publish it.

In sum, The Road Show won’t please those who look for innovation, original insights, or a high degree of gritty realism or literary polish in Mormon fiction. However, for readers who are open to a well-told, straightforward tale that delivers standard gospel answers while at the same time acknowledging real challenges that face modern members of the Church, there’s much here to like.

Author: Douglas Thayer

Publisher: Zarahemla Books

Genre: Adult Fiction

Year Published: 2009

Number of Pages: 384

Binding: Trade Paperback

ISBN10: 0978797175

ISBN13: 978-0978797171

Price: $16.95

Reviewed by Jonathan Langford

Note: I received a free copy of this book from the author, in trade for a free copy of my book, No Going Back.

Harris Thatcher has pretty much everything a 15-year-old boy could want, in his opinion at least: a perfect dad, a good family, and Luke, his best friend. He’s a good Mormon kid living in Provo, Utah, where his dad is a high school science teacher. It’s summer, with swimming and fishing to look forward to and high school starting in the fall. His only complaint is that World War II is winding down, so it’ll be over before he can be part of it.

And then things start going wrong. His dad’s diabetes, which he hasn’t been taking care of very well, flares up suddenly. His death at the beginning of chapter 2 brings harder times, as the same unambitious attitude that made Harris’s father spend time with his kids instead of trying to get ahead leaves them financially strapped. They take in a boarder, with Harris moving into a room with his younger brothers. Harris has to get a job at a local cafe, where he washes dishes and learns how to make pies. A little over a year later, his girlfriend dies of pneumonia. After graduating from high school, Harris serves a mission in Germany — and then he and Luke are both immediately drafted to serve in Korea, where Luke is killed and Harris becomes, in his own eyes at least, a hardened killer.

Coming home to Provo is hard for him, as he worries that he doesn’t fit there anymore. And then a fire while he’s at work kills his mother and two younger brothers, leaving him pretty much alone in the world despite the concern of Luke’s parents and the bishop and even the owner of the cafe where he works.

#####

So what is it that makes life worth living and belief worth hanging onto when you feel like you’ve lost everything that was important to you?

That’s a one of the Big Tough Questions. For someone like Luke, more religious than Harris, simple faith might be enough — though in fairness to Harris, it has to be pointed out that Luke doesn’t get put through the same things Harris went through. Luke’s father doesn’t die. Luke goes to Korea, but serves as a medic, his job not killing but saving lives. He dies heroically, trying to save others, while Harris instead must find a way to survive.

After the death of his family, Harris simply drifts, apparently unable to move out of the place he’s in. He stops going to Church. He moves into a one-bedroom apartment. He goes nowhere except work and visits no one.

And then his appendix bursts and he’s nursed back to health by Jennifer, an active Mormon girl who had been two years ahead of him in high school. They start dating. She asks what he wants out of life:

“Harris, look at me. This is serious. Do you want your kids to go to Primary and Sunday School? Do you want your boys to have the priesthood and pass the sacrament and bless it and go on missions and be Eagle Scouts and not drink or smoke or sleep around? Do you want your girls to be Mia Maids and Laurels? Do you want them to get married in the temple for time and eternity? Do you want to live in a ward and go to sacrament meeting and hear boring talks nearly every Sunday? Do you want your kids to grow up believing all the wonderful things you and Luke believed about God and Jesus and the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and eternal families and life after death and love that lasts forever?” (p. 365)

They talk. He tells her about the things that happened in Korea, the enemy soldiers he helped to kill. She tells him that doesn’t make him unworthy and urges him to move on and make things right in his life. Harris thinks a little, talks with the non-Mormon owner of the cafe — about as close to a mother figure as he has left at this point — and makes his decision. A few weeks later, he and Jennifer are married in the temple.

And then the following April, Luke’s body is found. Harris speaks at the funeral. Afterwards at the cemetery, Luke’s mother asks him:

“Oh, Harris, we’ll see him again on resurrection morning! Our boy will be so beautiful, so beautiful. We’ll all be here together once more, won’t we, Harris? And your family will all be here too, your dad and your mom, and Todd and Garth, and your grandmother, everybody, won’t they?” . . .

“Yes, yes,” he said, which was what he had to say, wanted to say, had enough faith for. Otherwise there was nothing, and there could not be that. And the suffering and pain had to be paid for too, somehow, the incredible loss, the waste, the incalculable stupidity, the hate, the greed. And there had to be mercy, justice, grace, redemption, but mostly redemption because, oh, sweet Jesus Christ, how the world needed to be redeemed! (pp. 371-372)

It’s a well-earned, quiet, but powerful and faith affirming resolution to a challenging and well-written story.

#####

I found Thayer’s style in this book took some getting used to. The story is told largely in short, third-person declarative sentences that reflect the wandering, free-associative pattern of Harris’s thoughts without a lot of the connecting verbal tissue that mediates the experiences of reading in the most common contemporary narrative styles. Paragraphs often feature apparently random shifts in topic, as in the example below:

Luke was his best friend. Harris had a warm, good feeling about Luke, which was something like he felt for his dad, so he knew how much he liked Luke, but he never told Luke because it would have been too embarrassing. Luke was the best player on the sophomore basketball team. (p. 45)

Or the following, though the connecting thread’s a bit more obvious here:

The house was frame; all the other houses in the neighborhood were brick. Harris knew that his mom wanted a brick house because it was safer, looked nicer, and cost less for fire insurance. Harris’s mom was more religious than his dad. She bore her testimony in fast and testimony meeting and said she knew the Church was true. His dad never bore his testimony. He’d lived in the Sixth Ward all his life, but he didn’t seem to worry too much about going to the highest degree of the celestial kingdom after he died. Harris wondered why his dad wasn’t more religious, but he didn’t ask. It was okay. He didn’t think his dad paid tithing. (p. 12)

Or more horrifyingly, the following paragraph after Harris has helped dig out two fellow soldiers in Korea who were killed by shelling:

Standing back in the trench in the rain, Harris looked down at his hands. The dirt was so worked under his fingernails and into his skin that his hands had turned completely brown. The rain did not cleanse his hands. He didn’t think he would ever get his hands clean again. He knew he still had blood under his nails. Gutting a deer, you got blood under your nails. He turned his hands palms up. (p. 315)

The effect reminds me of an impressionist painting, composed of thickly laid brush strokes that viewed close up form no evident pattern but seen from a greater distance coalesce startlingly into the intended image. Once I got used to it, the style was both intimate and effective.

Despite the age of the protagonist and the coming-of-age theme, this isn’t a book (as I’ve commented before) that I think anyone would label as a young adult novel, largely because of the writing style. Much of the story rests in the growth and change in Harris’s perspective and understanding over time. It takes an active and alert reader to pick out those details.

#####

Stories of missionary service represent one of the most distinctive categories of Mormon literature. The Tree House incorporates one of the best examples I’ve seen, partly because it doesn’t try too hard to amuse or inspire or typify or appal, and because the focus of the narrative remains steady on describing Harris’s particular experiences. That very specificity works better to depict the spirit of a mission (at least in my view) than a more self-consciously “universal” missionary story could do. Even though Harris’s missionary service took place more than three decades before mine, in a post-World War II Germany that was very different from Italy in the 1980s, I still found much that resonated with my own experience. I’m looking forward to sitting my son down after he gets back from his mission (in western Washington state) to see if those parts of the story resonate for him as well.

I can’t speak to the veracity of the war scenes, though like the rest of the novel they’re well-written, rounded out with the specificity of carefully drawn details. With quiet insistence, Thayer brings home the fundamental contradiction between war and the gospel of Christ, as in the following paragraph:

The body was so easily smashed and destroyed. After a day lying in the hot Korean sun it bloated and stank. It wasn’t beautiful, sacred. . . . War was an organized way for men to kill and wound each other. That’s what Harris had spent the last three weeks doing. In the Book of Mormon, the Nephites and Lamanites killed without mercy. Did Helaman’s stripling warriors kill without mercy and without regret? It didn’t say. (pp. 316-317)

Harris wonders if he had ever had the faith he thought he had while he was on his mission. Luke wouldn’t have reacted the same way Harris did, or so he thinks. “Others would have to pray for him; he was now incapable of doing that for himself” (p. 316).

#####

So what’s the value of a book like The Tree House?

A while back, I remember reading a comment about The Tree House from a Mormon reader who hadn’t liked it because it was so bleak. The hope of the gospel, she felt, was not there as an active force in the main character’s life.

I can understand that perspective, though it’s not one I share. Sometimes, I think, we are each other’s angels. Paul may have promised the Corinthians that we won’t be tempted more than we are able, but sometimes the way of escape is other people. To me, that’s a profoundly moving theme, though hardly an exclusively Mormon one.

One of The Tree House’s great virtues is its faithful, sympathetic, but ultimately tough depiction of a particular kind of experience. I believe this book has great potential to help non-Mormon readers feel and understand part of what it means to be Mormon, in a way that makes them see and feel the commonality with their own experience. As a Mormon, reading it made me feel that I know myself better as well.

There’s a point in Thayer’s novel when Harris, in Provo waiting to ship off to Korea following basic training, thinks back on all the stories Jack, his trainer in piemaking at the Starlite Cafe, had told him in years past about his own experiences in World War I:

Jack stood silhouetted in the lit doorway as Harris drove off. They both waved. Harris understood how all of Jack’s stories had helped prepare him for being in the army. Basic would have been a lot harder if he hadn’t had Jack’s stories. Harris was grateful. A boy needed a man’s stories to help prepare him for his own life. (p. 267)

I’ve never been to war. I hope I never have to, or (worse yet) watch my children do so. And yet I feel as if, reading Thayer’s book, I’ve managed somehow to take a portion of his character’s experience into my own life. I’m a better man as a result.

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It’s wonderful that Chris Bigelow and Zarahemla Books published The Tree House. In a way, though, it’s also a shame, because Zarahemla isn’t positioned to publicize and distribute this book the way it deserves.

There’s been a lot of talk over the years here, on AML-List, and elsewhere about the importance and difficulty of writing literature that is intensely Mormon, that speaks in an authentic Mormon voice while at the same time communicating that experience in a way that will resonate with nonbelievers and those without firsthand experience of Mormon culture. This book does that. I wouldn’t hesitate to push this book on anyone with a taste for fiction in the realist tradition. It stands up to the best of Willa Cather, which is the highest compliment I can imagine for a work of this kind. (I’ve read some reviewers who compare it to Stephen Crane, but since I don’t much care for Crane, that’s not a comparison I really want to make.)

This is a book I think could reach both Mormon readers and a general non-Mormon readership — including the kind of readers who hang out in university literature departments and creative writing programs. Unfortunately, I doubt they’ll ever know about it. Who reviews literary novels these days? It might be worth trying to get them to take a look at The Tree House, though I personally don’t know how to go about doing that.

I don’t believe in the Great Mormon Novel, partly because I think stories can be great for different audiences and purposes, and partly because I believe there is no singular Mormon experience that can be captured in one novel. But if I were making a short list of candidates for the position, The Tree House would be on it.

The question of who gets to define Mormon literature, and what is good and bad within it, is an area where it seems to me that this kind of conflicted perspective is common. We here at A Motley Vision don’t see ourselves as a center of power and authority in the discussion of Mormon literature: rather, simply as a place where some of us get to hang out, shoot the breeze, talk about things that interest us (and that usually have nothing to do with our day jobs), and spout opinions that generally encounter as much disagreement as agreement from other posters (as witness the reaction to that same review). But to others, we are a bastion of The Establishment in Mormon literature — or so I suddenly perceive or guess. It is (would be) to laugh, if it were not also such a sad commentary on the state of Mormon letters.

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We used to run into the same thing at AML-List, which was sometimes characterized by others as a kind of monolithic and elitist Mormon literary establishment, intent on imposing its taste and values on the entire field. As list moderator for several years, this perspective seemed ludicrous to me, partly because I was so often forcefully reminded of just how diverse opinions on the list really were.

The other thing I saw as moderator was just how easy it was for people on any side of a particular argument to feel beleaguered, misunderstood, ignored, or even silenced — while at the same time their own actions led to similar perceptions by those with whom they were disagreeing. Each side was seen as the power holder by the other(s). And then people would leave the list or lurk without commenting and then talk (elsewhere or on the list itself) about “the AML-List mindset,” usually based (so far as I could tell) on two or three people who happened to agree with each other in some particular online discussion.

Of course, the only power we typically possessed on AML-List — or possess here at A Motley Vision — is the power of our own comments. Most of us didn’t and don’t run bookstores or publishing houses, teach classes on Mormon literature, or exercise any other variety of power that extends beyond our own (thin) wallets and keyboards. Apparently, that personal power strikes some people as a rather larger thing than it seems from the author’s side of the keyboard, where you hope (often in vain) for comments as evidence that someone has actually read what you wrote.

The same thing has happened with AML the organization (a very different body from AML-List), which people from outside sometimes see as some kind of statutory body upholding a specific canonical vision of Mormon literature. Those on the inside, in contrast, see the organization as both pretty powerless (how can any group possessing the kind of institutional power its critics suggest be constantly scrambling just to get the renewal notices out?) and highly diverse, staffed by an “aristocracy” of the willing.

I’m sure that similar perceptions of gatekeeping power are held by some with respect to Irreantum, the Whitney Awards, Chris Bigelow and Zarahemla Books, the editors and book-buyers at Deseret Book (stores and publisher), Gideon Burton and the Mormon Literature and Creative Arts Database, the LDS Publisher blog sites, and basically anyone else who writes, teaches, talks, or makes decisions that touch on Mormon literature in any setting, no matter how limited. Heck, I see the editors of BYU Magazine as literary gatekeepers just because they cut Richard Cracroft’s positive mention of No Going Back (though I’m assured that positive mention by Richard Cracroft does not, in fact, translate into mega-sales. Alas).

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The simple fact of the matter is that there just isn’t that much power anywhere in the Mormon literary world. Fantasies that it does exist Somewhere Else are, I suspect, based in a wish that there might be something more to the community of Mormon letters than there really is — coupled with a full awareness that wherever such power might reside, it sure as heck ain’t here.

Part of the problem is one of scale, where market is defined in terms of “small,” “tiny,” and “tinier,” while “large” (or even “reasonable”) practically speaking don’t exist. Case in point: Dave Farland (a friend of mine) was complaining recently about the fact that Deseret Bookstores probably won’t restock his Whitney Award-winning novel In the Company of Angels, due in part to a whispering campaign by some who feel the book is too critical of some early Church leaders. My response (more or less) was along the lines of commenting that at least his book was there for a while, as opposed to No Going Back, which has never had any presence in LDS bookstores (and has now been removed from the shelves of the BYU Bookstore) and which has sold to date only about 200 copies. And then I was complaining about that to Johnny Townsend, a nationally published short story writer who decided to go the self-publishing route, who responded that from where he was sitting, 200 sales sounded pretty good. It made me feel rather small.

What it comes down to is that in a market so small, all of us really are literary gatekeepers, whether we feel particularly empowered or not. This is particularly hard to see when whatever power we may possess consists of something we created and have maintained purely on our own iniative, in some area where no one else seemed interested, where we’ve put in long hours without much in the way of praise or external rewards. All too often, it seems like those asking for a piece of our (laughably small) pie are quite thoroughly competent to bake their own, thank you. It can be quite startling to realize that some people think of us as “the big boys.”

So what’s the solution? Better understanding and a measure of charity and forbearance all around, I suppose. A recognition that there is no “them” in Mormon literature, and that each of us, no matter much of an outsider we may feel, actually embodies a perceptible portion of the communal gatekeeping power. And perhaps a hope that someday our small efforts might make way/prepare the ground for —  possibly even metamorphose into — something larger.