SUNSTONE
BOOKS
MORMON NOVELS ENTERTAIN WHILE TEACHING LESSONS
by Peggy Fletcher Stack Tribune religion writer
This story orignally appeared in the 10 October 1998 Salt Lake Tribune. Reprinted in its entirety by permission.
The world of romance novels seethes with heaving bosoms, manly men, seduction, betrayal. Mormon novels have all of that and then some-excommunica- tion, repentance, prayer, re- demution. In the past few years, popular Today's wxnovels deal with serious topics-abuse, adultery, date rape- fiction-romance, mystery and but they have Mormon theology-based solutions. historical novels-aimed at members of The Church of Jesus Too, such books are peopled they are getting something out of Since then, Weyland, a Christ of Latter-day Saints has with recognizable LDS charac- it." physics professor at LDS-owned been selling by the barrelful. ters-Brigham Young University 100 Years: The first Mormon Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, Anita Stansfield has sold more students, missionaries, converts, popular novel may have been has written a dozen more, many than two hundred thousand bishops, Relief Society presi- Added Upon, written by Nephi of them almost as successful. copies of her work. Jack Weyland dents, religion professors, home Anderson in 1898, Cracroft says. "The ones that have done the routinely sells between twenty schoolers. It told the story of an LDS best are all issue-related," says and thirty thousand novels And they are laced with theo- I couple who met in a pre-Earth Emily Watts, an associate editor aimed at the LDS teen market. logcal certainty existence and agreed to get to- at Deseret Book who has worked The hbrk and the Glory, a "Lots of Mormons feel they gether in mortal life. with Weyland on several of his nine-volume saga of the fictional can't go to the movies or watch "This is doctrinal conjecture," books. Steed family, whose generations TV They are starved for a kind of Cracroft says, "but it struck a re- Watts points to the plot of live out their days against the entertainment that carries with it sponsive cord in the Mormon au- Michelle and Deborah as an ex- backdrop of Mormon history, has a light didactic pressure," says dience." ample. Two high school friends sold more than a million copies. Neal Kramer, president of the The book, in its fifty-ffth take dramatically different paths: And now there's a new kind of Association of Mormon Letters. printing, has never been out of one walks on the wild side, with Mormon fiction beginning to Much of it is "fairly superficial print. And Anderson went on to drinking and carousing, while garner sales: millennial. moralizing," he says. "But it is write nine more novels, many of the other chooses a temple mar- In a market that has tradition- consistent and rings true to the which were similarly successful. riage. The book explores how ally distrusted fiction, why the first level of defense most Such novels continued to 1 their choices affect their lives. explosive interest? Mormons feel." trickle out into the Mormon "You can gve a lecture on LDS women like romance as The storvbook romance ends market, but took off in the 1970s 1 chastity to LDS teens or have sixty an escape as much as others, says with a wedding, "but always in with the work of writers such as thousand of them read this book JoAnn Jolley, managing editor at the temple," says BW English Shirley Sealey and Jack Weyland. 1 and get the same message,. she Covenant Communications who Professor Richard Cracroft. For some years, Weyland 1 says. oversees the company's romance Many Mormons read fiction 1 tried unsuccessfullv to market Beyond Sugar-Coated: writers. as an enjoyable but practical way Charly, a tale of passion and early I Anita Stansfield's first novel, First "If they can get it and feel of learning something, says death that broadly imitated the Love and Forevel; was repeatedly good and clean about it, all the Cracroft, director of the Center popular Love Story, by Erich I rejected before Covenant Com- better,"Jolley says. for Christian Understanding in Segal, for an LDS audience. munications picked it up in These novels have some "sug- Literature at the LDS Church- Finally, the Church's pub- 1994. gestive scenes" but also "show owned school. lishing arm, Deseret Book, took a Stansfield was told that the how the gospel can bring life and "A lot of Mormons don't want 1 risk on Charlv, and it eventually LD~romance market had dried light into a person's life," she anything to do with fiction," he sold more than one hundred up. And, to some extent, she says. says. "Those who do want a sense thousand copies. agreed.
PAGE 66 DECEMBER 1998 SUNSTONE
"Mormon women were fed up depth. create plot lines that slightly ter- with trite, sympy romances," she says. Instead. Stansfield offers her readers a variety of realistic dramas, including emotional abuse in a temple marriage, date rape, adoption, cancer, second mamages, miscarriages and diffi- cult teen-agers. "The romantic element keeps you turning pages," she says, "while the characters offer con- crete lessons in faith and hope." Mormon readers are more likely to read a novel about such problems than an essay In Return to Love, JannaLyn Blackwell plans two more vol- Hayne tells her bishop that her husband, Russell, is routinely beating her. Russell is an active the world of scholars " churchgoer with a prominent po- sition in their LDS congregation, and the bishop does not believe JannaLyn. When Stansfield talked with counselors at a center for do- mestic abuse, she was told that most of the women in their care had been to an ecclesiastical leader who did not believe them. "It doesn't make that leader a bad person," she says. "It just means that they don't know what they are dealing with." Though Stansfield's novels are I NOVE filled with such problems, there Here is a sampling of novels written by Mormons for the LDS are always Mormon theology- based solutions. And, of course, Michele Ashman Bell: An Unexpected Adrian Gostick: Impressing Jeanette happy endings. ;An Enduring Love (Covenan (Boolkcraft) "In national romance novels, sin just happens," Jolley says. "In StansfielcI: First Li we and I=orever; Shelly Johnson Lilies ant j Clove (Boolkcraft) Anita's books, people sin but Love,-. St ?cond .Ch ances; -N ow . and- they know better. So they suffer Fore ver; try Love aria tirace; A YrOmrce,. ,,,WW ".nr Janette! Ralliso~n: Deep Blue Ey es and the consequences and become Fore ver; Retur n to Love ? Again; Other Lies; Dakota's R'evenge (IDeseret better for it." Whe,n Forever Comes (C Book) Historical Fiction: Gerald Jennie. . Lundk multivolume opus, The Mac;3dy; Some Sweet Day; Rui rl Away (Desc wet Book]I Work and the Glory, has been Horne; Journty Home,; ComingI Home soundly condemned by literary Jack Weyland: Brittany,: Lean (In Me; (Covenant) Michelle.,'- ana..' ue~oran;-L ~narrv--LA.., .I.__,__ critics as having one-dimen- sional characters. But that is be- Rachel ~rrana,,fhe Makir 79 of a Kimberly (Deseret Book) side the point, Cracroft says. Quet a: A Gifl' Most P recious; Dean Hughes: The Childri?n of the I ;--. I -..a "Historical novels seldom are Ariar w Beainn~rru.- ". LOV~ to the (3 vols.) (Deseret Book) Highest Bidde~.(Covenar lt) great in the same sense as Moby Orson Scott Ca Tables (Deseret Dick," he says. Pam Blackwell: Ephraim's Seed; Jacob's Book ) While Leo Tolstoy's War and Cauldron (BF FUUIIDI3s.kl;-himrr ... -. Peace is the exception, most his- Joni Hinon: AS me wara Turns; Aru lurid the torical novels are more like Gerald Lund: Th re Work ar 7d the Glotry, VOIS. Ward in 80 Days; S Home Irving Stone's books: long on his- 1-9 ('Bookcraft ) Evenings (Covenant) tory, short on psychological
DECEMBER 1998 PAGE 67 Nevertheless, serious literary fiction within Mormonism is on the rise, a rise marked by Signature's new anthology of con- temporary Mormon fictions, In Our Lovely VARIOUS ATMOSPHERES: Bozo and Elvis Deseret. Editor Robert Raleigh observes in his POEMS AND DRAWINGS are exactly the same age- preface that when we "see the word by Alex Caldiero 'Mormon' on the cover of a collection we Signature Books, 1998 That's the answer have some expectations, however vague." 59 pages, $10.95 I received when I enquired One of the many expectations is unfortu- as to the best course of action nately (although in many cases accurately) Reviewed by Brian Evenson to take in my life. that the work, though admirable in many re- spects, won't measure up aesthetically This BORN IN SICILY, As a performer, Caldiero has an uncanny expectation does not come because raised in Brooklyn, ability of managing to couple the insightful Mormons are without literary sensibilities; somehow thrown into with the strange, and when performed or rather it results from the Church's tenuous Utah, Alex Caldiero is even dramatically read out loud, much of his relationship with serious, faith-challenging hardly your typical poetry gains a level of insight and depth that writers. Be serious, the Brethren command, Utah writer. Nor is is difficult to convey on the page-certainly but be uplifting; seek to edify others, just Various Atmospheres his performances are worth attending. At the don't damage their faith. In the wake of such your typical book of same time, however, the poems of this collec- a conflict, an anthology such as In Our Lovely Utah poetry Indeed, it tion have been chosen with sufficient care Deseret becomes vital for development of a seems more indebted that they generally stand well on their own. true and serious Mormon literature, not be- to language poetry and performance tradi- One of Utah publishing's rare excursions into cause all the stories are sterling examples of tions than to anything to do with Utah or the larger world of poetry, Various contemporary fiction, but because it lays the Mormonism. Atmospheres is a sometimes quirky, some- artistic and aesthetic groundwork for that The poetry collected here ranges from the times moving collection of poetry that is de- first great Mormon novel when its day finally comic to the insightful, often using one to serving of support. B does arrive. lead to the other. In "I enjoy reading the bi- BRIAN EVENSON is a professor of English at Though this collection is uneven, it is a ographies of suicides," for instance, the fairly complete example of the current lit- speaker talks of reading such biographies Oklahoma State University and the author ofthe novel Father of Lies. He may be contacted by erary production of Latter-day Saint writers. backwards, watching death bloom back into e-mail at
PAGE 68 DECEMBER 1998 richer because it), not necessarily because of "Beyond a Certain Point," Lee Anne ries will be accepted in the forums of the the LD~doctrine and world view as such, but Mortensen's "Not Quite Peru," and Levi larger literary scene as well as within the because of their attention to mystery and Petersen's "Durfey Renews an Interest in body of the Church. This new anthology is a faith. Few contemporary writers deal with Rodeo" are beneficial to a collection of good start on the uphill side of that long and these issues, and those who do, address them Mormon fictions. But the best LDS literature twisting road. D will not be for Mormons alone. As Mormons, in narrow evangelical terms. TODD PETERSEN is a Ph.D candidate at Brian Evenson's "The Prophets," chroni- we need to tell ourselves important and chal- Oklahoma State University in creative writing cles the darkly comic exploits of a recently lengng stories, but we also need to share and critical theory. He may be conctacted via e- apostate man who disinters President Ezra them with the world or Mormon literature mail at DECEMBER 1998 PAGE 69 -