Irreantum 3:2, Summer 2001

Summer 2001 issue.
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IRREANTUM
EXPLORING MORMON LITERATURE
MAGAZINE OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR MORMON LETTERS

SUMMER 2001 • $3.00
Anne Perry, novelist

Also featuring Paris Anderson, Darin Cozzens, Brian Evenson,
Jack Harrell, Gordon Laws, Scott R. Parkin, and Matthew Workman
Poetry, reviews, literary news, and more
Summer 2001 issue.qxd 8/14/01 8:56 AM Page 2
IRREANTUM
MAGAZINE OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR MORMON LETTERS
E D I T O R I A L S T A F F
Christopher K. Bigelow . . . . . . Managing editor Marny K. Parkin . . . . . Speculative fiction coeditor

Gideon Burton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Associate editor and AML-List Highlights editor
Scott R. Parkin . . . . . . Speculative fiction coeditor
Tory Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fiction editor Todd Robert Peterson . . . . . . . . . . . .Essay editor
Harlow Clark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Poetry editor Jana Bouck Remy . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review editor
Tracie Laulusa . . . . . . . . . .Assistant review editor Edgar C. Snow Jr. . . . . . . . . Rameumptom editor
A M L B O A R D
Cherry Silver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .President Tyler Moulton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Board member

Gideon Burton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .President-elect Carol Quist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Board member
Marilyn Brown . . . . . . .Academic conference chair Neila Seshachari . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Board member
Gae Lyn Henderson . . . . . . . . . . .Board member Kathleen Woodbury . . . . . . . . . . .Board member
D. Michael Martindale . . . . . . . . .Board member
A M L S T A F F
Lavina Fielding Anderson . . .AML ANNUAL editor Scott R. Parkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Awards chair
John-Charles Duffy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Treasurer Benson Parkinson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Listowner
Terry L. Jeffress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Webmaster Melissa Proffitt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Secretary
Jonathan Langford . . . . . . . .AML-List moderator
IRREANTUM (ISSN 1528-0594) is published four times a year AML board members. This magazine has no official connection
by the Association for Mormon Letters (AML), P.O. Box with or endorsement by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
51364, Provo, UT 84605-1364, (801) 714-1326, www. day Saints.
xmission.com/~aml. © 2001 by the Association for Mormon IRREANTUM welcomes unsolicited essays, reviews, fiction,
Letters. Membership in the AML is $20 for one year, which poetry, and other manuscripts, and we invite letters intended
includes an IRREANTUM subscription. Subscriptions to IRREAN- for publication. Please submit all manuscripts and queries to
TUM may be purchased separately from AML membership for irreantum2@cs.com. If you do not have access to e-mail, you
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rates begin at $50 for a full page. The AML is a nonprofit P.O. Box 51364, Provo, UT 84605-1364. Except for letters to
501(c)(3) organization, so contributions of any amount are tax the editor, submissions on paper are discouraged. Upon specific
deductible and gratefully accepted. Views expressed in IRREAN- request to irreantum2@cs.com, we will send authors two com-
TUM do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or of plimentary copies of an issue in which their work appears.
Summer 2001 2 IRREANTUM

IRREANTUM
Summer 2001 • Volume 3, Number 2
C O N T E N T S
Letters to the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Reviews

Fishers of Men, Andrew Hall
AML News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 A review of Gerald Lund’s Fishers of Men . . 69
Love during Wartime, Morgan B. Adair
Interviews A review of Marilyn Brown’s
Anne Perry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 The Wine-Dark Sea of Grass . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Brian Evenson, Currents of Faith, Larry Jackson
interviewed by Todd Robert Peterson . . . . . . 30 A review of John H. Groberg’s
In the Eye of the Storm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Novel Excerpts Predictable Suspense, Jeff Needle
Come Armageddon, Anne Perry . . . . . . . . . . 13 A review of Clair M. Poulson’s
My People, Gordon Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 I’ll Find You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Expecting Adam, Andrew Hall
Personal Essay A review of Martha Beck’s
On Growing Up Tough, Paris Anderson . . . . . 38 Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth,
Rebirth, and Everyday Magic . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Stories Selected Recent Releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
The Darlington Girls, Darin Cozzens . . . . . . 44
Godsight, Jack Harrell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Within Limits, Scott R. Parkin . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Mormon Literary Scene . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Poetry AML-List Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

To Gylde Gaillard Ellis, in Memoriam,
Paris Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Rameumptom
To Belong, Mildred Barthel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
At Risk of Seeking False Gods, Blessed, Honored Targeteer,
Mildred Barthel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Matthew Workman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Her Funeral 1949, Her Legacy Continuing
Today, Mildred Barthel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Brother Kent, Lisa Ottesen Fillerup . . . . . . . . 55
Translucent Dragon Pool Lake,
Lisa Ottesen Fillerup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
How the Wind, Lisa Ottesen Fillerup . . . . . . . 79
The Bad Samaritan, Jane D. Brady . . . . . . . . 83
IRREANTUM 3 Summer 2001

L E T T E R S be on occasion—I guess that’s her issue—but

mostly I found myself able to partake more of the
IRREANTUM welcomes letters addressing anything joy of living when I started accepting the inherent
related to the magazine or Mormon literature in gen- goofiness that comes with being mortal. I still
eral. Unless the writer requests otherwise, all letters chuckle when I remember my daughters’ reports of
will be considered for publication. Please include how my friend referred to another lady at a girls’
your hometown and state after your name. Letters camp as “Sister High Blood Pressure” in reference
may be edited for length or clarity. Send letters to to her short temper and impatience. If this good-
irreantum2@cs.com or IRREANTUM, c/o AML, natured poking fun ever got back to Sister High
P.O. Box 51364, Provo, UT 84605-1364. Blood Pressure, I would hope she had the humility
to accept and appreciate it and even to let it be a
Responding to the Humor Issue factor for change.
The more I think about it, the more apparent it
I read virtually the whole spring 2001 issue of is to me that, like anything else, before we venture
Irreantum, and I enjoyed most of it. I feel per- upon a course of risk-taking in the humor depart-
plexed, though, about what I perceived as the pre- ment, we ought to first seek the Spirit and abide in
vailing notion that by and large we are a humorless it. I guess what I really want to say is that the gen-
people. This has never been my experience, and I eral membership of the Church is a good-natured
am a lifelong member. My experience is that we are lot, and that it is natural to be so by virtue of our
quite jocund and jovial. However, many of us membership. I found the prevailing attitude of the
(myself definitely included) take ourselves way too offerings in this most recent issue of IRREANTUM to
seriously and need to loosen up, the key to which be a little too sour in that regard.
is, I believe, humility and gratitude. I detected a And by the way, as my daughter said to a Utah
fair amount of cynicism and sarcasm in most of the teenager online the other day, what makes some of
humorous offerings I read, and frankly—while you you guys think that anyone outside Utah is inter-
may get some degree of satisfaction from seeing ested that you have the audacity to use profanity?
straight-laced members of the Church with egg on Virtually every time I read it in one of your pieces,
their faces—since pride is the problem, I don’t see I get the idea that the writer has some kind of
sarcasm as being really effective in remedying it. “authority” issue and is taking a rather adolescent
I appreciated Brother Snow’s examples of the pleasure in using profanity for shock value. I feel
Prophet Joseph Smith’s sense of humor in the intro- tired when I read it. I want to say, “Why do you
duction; I can’t imagine the kind of total good seek to interrupt my rejoicings?” I think the work of
cheer expressed in the quote about laughing “from the kingdom can go along much better without it.
the crown of his head to the soles of his feet,” shak- Linda Hyde
ing “every bit of flesh in him,” as being engendered Rosemark, Tennessee
by some piece of wry wit put forward at someone
else’s expense. Every example of good humor I saw Ed Snow responds: Linda, I’m grateful for your
in Brother Snow’s introduction was what I guess I review of and response to the humor issue. I was
would call “gentle humor.” It “uplifts and enlight- especially glad that you “enjoyed most of it.” If
ens” (D&C 50 is a great guideline for any kind of every reader enjoys most of an issue, I count that as
human interaction). a successful effort on our part in trying to put it
I have a friend whom I look upon as a kind of a together. IRREANTUM tries to appeal to the broadest
savior to me because she helped me lighten up at a possible range of Mormon readership, and by
time when I carried some very heavy burdens and doing that we know that some of our material may
felt to grieve unnecessarily over them. At first I make some readers wince a little on occasion. I’ve
found her humor a bit over the top, and it still may also tried to understand your concerns with some

of the humor in the magazine, and I’ve got some on the door asking for bread—that’s like prayer,
ideas for you to consider. Jesus says). Joseph Smith’s sense of humor later in
I think your main concern is that some forms of his life appears to be frequently aggressive and
humor appear to be “mean-spirited” or at someone often full of bravado. Some people see this as evi-
else’s expense, and you’d prefer humor to be more dence of arrogance on the part of the Prophet.
gentle. Humor, like most everything, is a matter of I view it as an extension of his sense of humor. I
taste, I think. Some people like boiled meat and hope to finish my essay on Joseph’s sense of humor
potatoes (think British), others like exotic culinary someday—I think it ran the entire gamut of
creations (think French), while others like it hot humor types.
and spicy (think Mexican)—and no doubt I’ve I remember hearing Grant Von Harrison rail one
offended someone with my stereotypical culinary week against sarcasm at BYU as a tool of Satan,
analysis. only the next week to hear Elder Hartman Rector
As you indicated, comedy serves many func- stand in stake conference and make a joke about his
tions. Satirists usually try to correct perceived soci- wife’s pot roast one night that he likened unto a
etal missteps through ridicule, or at least through “burnt offering.” Everyone laughed, even his wife.
exposing them for what they are by turning them And then someone gave the closing prayer, giving
into pratfalls that can be laughed at. And, as Twain thanks for Elder Rector’s remarks and then pro-
said, nothing can withstand the assault of laughter. ceeding to mispronounce his last name in a very
Satirists who aren’t careful can turn into Don Rick- funny way. Out of charity, no one laughed, but
les clones who forget their mission to correct per- after the prayer even Elder Rector himself was smil-
ceived wrongs and merely take pleasure in ing so wide I thought his face would crack open at
ridiculing others. Twain himself lost his way in his the seams. Surely God must laugh at these inci-
later years and ridiculed the entire human race. His dents, and I hope the angels are silent notes taking.
last writings are terribly dark.
Other humorists are introspective and self-dep- Regarding Signature Books
recating. This is a safe road to take since it is humor
at your own expense. Church leaders and politi- I read with interest Christopher K. Bigelow’s
cians prefer this method. Perhaps your mother review of John Bennion’s novel Falling Toward
might get angry at you for making fun of her Heaven in the spring 2001 issue. At the time John’s
child, but usually no one else will be upset. Other book appeared, I was employed by Signature
humorists like to share things they find funny as Books, his publisher, and am proud to have been
mere entertainment. This is my goal as a humorist. associated with John and his work. Christopher’s
It is an observational style of humor that reflects praise of it was both deserved and insightful.
sincere curiosity and stands in awe of the puzzles of On the other hand, I was disappointed at
our existence. Christopher’s swipes at Signature, particularly his
I don’t think any form of humor is per se better closing volley: “Frankly, I wish a publisher as
than any other. In fact, I think you can find most culturally polarized as Signature hadn’t published
forms of it in the scriptures. Amos the prophet uses this novel—I wish it had been published by some
some sarcasm when he comes down from the hills new Mormon publisher carving out territory for
and refers to the women of Israel as “kine” (cows!). intelligent, faithful readers dissatisfied by both the
Jesus engages in witty banter with a Samaritan foregone conclusions of popular Mormon fiction
woman and seems pleased with her comebacks and the excessively nonplussing fiction of the lit-
(remember the “even the dogs get the crumbs off erary elite.”
the table” discussion?). And some of his parables I’m sure Christopher knows that Mormon pub-
are humorous (remember the one about the guy lishing, especially contemporary adult Mormon fic-
who comes over at two in the morning knocking tion, is a fool’s errand in many ways. Printing costs
are high, profit margins virtually nonexistent. More
often than not, the negatives seem to outweigh the P O E T R Y

positives, and the primary—if not only—reason
for pressing on is the satisfaction you believe read- To Gylde Gaillard Ellis, in Memoriam
ers will derive from quality works you hope to (September 29, 1900–December 11, 1991)
make available. Christopher’s comments, regardless
of his intention, don’t make publishing Mormon jump over the stick, old man
fiction any easier. jump over the stick
Personally, I wish Christopher had been able to the spirits are calling
look beyond his own preconceptions regarding Sig- it’s time to go home
nature’s supposed secular agenda—which certainly you’ve taught me many things
is not borne out by an even-handed review of all of over the years
Signature’s publications—and been able to appreci- the dignity of humor
ate, if not celebrate, the contribution Signature has the dignity of labor
made to contemporary Mormon fiction. I’m proud the dignity of independence
that Signature has published such authors as Phyl- and of keeping accounts square
lis Barber, Shayne Bell, John Bennion, Rod Decker, now you teach me the dignity
Ellen Fagg, Michael Fillerup, Lewis Horne, Ron of enduring without a grimace
Molen, Larry Morris, Susan Palmer, Levi Peterson, your eyes are tired
Robert Raleigh, Linda Sillitoe, Marion Smith, your liver
Robert Van Wagoner, and Margaret Young. I doubt and kidneys have failed
that many of these authors’ works would have been your joints are stiff
published without Signature, and I regret that and your breath comes shallow
Christopher doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge jump over the stick, old man
that contribution. you still have much to teach me
Gary J. Bergera teach me the dignity
Salt Lake City, Utah of diving with eagles
of charging with bison
and prowling with tigers
teach me the dignity
of shining with stars
—Paris Anderson
Paris Anderson lives in Provo, Utah, with his wife

and three sons. He is a licensed massage therapist and
a children’s writer. He is the author of a series titled
Claire: A Mormon Girl and a soon-to-be-published
series titled The Recollection of Private Seth Jack-
son, Company D, Mormon Battalion.

A M L N E W S Writers’ Conference in November

Preparations are underway for the third annual
IRREANTUM Fiction Contest Winners AML writers’ conference, to be held Saturday,
The Association for Mormon Letters is pleased November 3, at Thanksgiving Point just north of
to announce the winners of the first annual IRRE- Lehi, Utah. Groundbreaking LDS filmmaker
ANTUM fiction contest: Richard Dutcher has agreed to be a guest of honor
First prize ($100) goes to Darlene Young for her and will conduct an extensive question-and-answer
short story “Companions.” According to contest period. Other guests are in the process of being
judge Tory Anderson, the story “is a sensitive piece invited.
exploring the lives of two young visiting teaching In the past, the conference has consisted primar-
companions. This story explores the distance that ily of presentations and panels discussing theoreti-
exists between human beings in the face of all that cal issues about writing LDS literature. This year’s
tries to bring two people close, such as marriage, conference will focus more on workshops in which
wards, or being companions in teaching the gospel. you can learn the nuts and bolts of writing. Multi-
‘Companions’ also explores the sources of hope ple genres will be represented. Representatives from
that exist to keep people searching for a way to LDS publishers will present information on being
close that distance.” published in the LDS market. In addition to liter-
Second place ($75) goes to Sam Brunson for his ature, there will be sessions on film, theater, and
short story “Tony Gwynn International.” This music.
story “deals with a stolen dog named Bob and kiss- Be sure to set this date aside and watch for more
ing a smoker. It’s a fast-moving story in a fast-mov- information. The AML writers’ conference is the
ing setting that explores unusual situations with only conference specifically designed for authors of
charm. In spite of the fast pace and the unusual sit- LDS literature. A catered lunch will be included in
uations, ‘Tony Gwynn International’ subtly keeps the cost of admission. Those who have attended
its ties to the Mormon culture, perhaps in ways previous conferences have been very pleased with
that are not wholly unusual in this day and age.” the results. Don't miss out on this opportunity to
Third place ($50) goes to Karen Rosenbaum interact with published, unpublished, and aspiring
for her short story “Price.” This story “explores the authors of LDS literature.
Mormon culture from what some would call ‘off
center,’ with faithful Mormon women who have New Board Member
not married faithful Mormon men. ‘Price’ explores, New AML board member Tyler Moulton
among other things, happiness and how it can exist describes himself as follows: “I am a relative new-
where some may think it shouldn’t.” comer to the LDS publishing world but have got-
All three winning entries will be published soon ten an abrupt education in the field as Covenant’s
in IRREANTUM, and next year’s contest will have a acquisitions editor over the last two years. I attend
probable entry deadline of July 31, 2002. Judge a lot of writers’ conferences and am getting fat tak-
Tory Anderson writes, “The entries in the first ing potential authors to lunch. I have lived in or
annual IRREANTUM fiction writing contest revealed traveled over a fair portion of this globe and am
both the ties that keep the Mormon culture intact constantly intrigued by what a fascinating planet
and the differences that keep the culture healthy. we’ve landed on. I received a Ph.D. in comparative
Next year we look forward to double the entries to religion from the University of Nottingham (Eng-
get an even broader and more in-depth look at the land), where I wrote my dissertation on the LDS
Mormon culture.” understanding of the atonement. I enjoy just about
anything involving mountains or the ocean—as
long as it’s not life-threatening. My wife, Heather,
and I have two children.”
I N T E R V I E W education had a great deal of effect on me, except

perhaps the learning of Latin because it is an excel-
Anne Perry lent discipline in the use of language and logical
thought. Informal education is another thing
Born Juliet Hulme in London in 1938, Anne Perry altogether. To read and learn for the love of it is
suffered ill respiratory health as a child and was sent like opening a window onto the world, not only as
to live in more favorable climates in the Bahamas and it is now but as it has been at any time you care to
New Zealand. After her involvement in New think of.
Zealand in the 1954 murder of her best friend’s
mother, who was trying to separate the two fifteen- IRREANTUM: Talk to us about your involve-
year-olds, Perry wasn’t allowed to testify at her own ment in the mystery genre and who your main
trial, which one reporter called the O.J. Simpson trial author influences are.
of its day. She was incarcerated for more than five Perry: I wrote historical dramas for years without
years. At the time of the murder, Perry was taking success, but the first mystery I wrote, The Cater
medication that was later banned for its judgment- Street Hangman, was accepted in 1976 and pub-
altering qualities, and she believed her friend would lished early in 1979. A mystery enforces a better
commit suicide if she didn’t help her. A 1994 movie plot structure. Naturally I made the second book as
about the relationship and murder, titled Heavenly much like it as possible, and the third, etc.—until
Creatures, was directed by upcoming Lord of the the eleventh, when I changed publishers and at last
Rings director Peter Jackson and starred Kate Winslet. got books contracted in advance and began to feel
In 1967 Perry moved to California, where she some stability and confidence in my career. By then
joined the Mormon faith, and some years later she I was known for mysteries, and that was what the
returned to the United Kingdom. Before she broke publishers offered to buy.
into publishing mysteries in her late thirties, she sup- What keeps me in mystery? Mysteries are what I
ported her writing vocation with jobs such as air am contracted to write! It really is as simple as that.
stewardess, limousine dispatcher, and insurance I love fantasy and historical drama, especially with
underwriter. In 1999 she published Tathea with a political or religious theme. However, only one in
Deseret Book, an epic fantasy and allegory of the plan twenty published authors make a living from writ-
of salvation; the sequel, Come Armageddon, will be ing, which means that the other nineteen have to
published later this year and is excerpted in this issue do something else as well in order to survive. It is a
of IRREANTUM. Today Perry lives alone in a converted, buyer’s market, not a seller’s. The lack of freedom
twelve-room stone barn on two acres in the Scottish to change is the only problem. Most of us like a
village of Portmahomack. Her website, which includes little variety and to try new things.
a bibliography of her more than thirty mysteries and I think the main influences—on my mind, at
other works, is at www.anneperry.net. least, if not my style—are fantasy or philosophi-
cal writers, such as G. K. Chesterton, Charles
IRREANTUM: Tell us about when and how you Williams, and other poets of the early twentieth
came to be a writer. What early experiences and century. I believe Dante to be one of the greatest
influences shaped you to be a writer? writers and thinkers in Western history. I admire
Perry: I have always wanted to be a writer as far profundity of thought and feeling and marvellous
back as I can remember. My mother read to me skill with the music and the meaning of language.
often and also made up her own stories to tell me,
full of imagination and humour. As far as I can IRREANTUM: Trace for us some highlights of
recall, my own earliest writing was very episodic your professional writing career. Have literary
and more for my own entertainment than anyone agents played an important role? What is your
else’s—possibly best forgotten. I don’t think formal best advice for aspiring fiction writers?

Perry: I made my first sale by at last writing a to that likelihood but will not try to make you
story with a properly crafted plot line and by write what you do not believe.
acquiring a literary agent. The only real test in my
career came with changing my U.S. hardback pub- IRREANTUM: Tell us about your writing habits
lisher around 1990, but it has been a steady rise in and processes. What other duties and pleasures
sales, a little more with each book over the years. do you balance your life with?
There are no enormous leaps. Foreign sales are dif- Perry: How often do I write? Eight in the morn-
ferent. The Germans have published seven editions ing until eight or nine in the evening every day but
of Face of a Stranger! I don’t really know why, but Sunday. Writing is a job, not a hobby. Of course,
I am delighted. My total number of books in print I break for meals and walk now and then, and it
in 2000 was approximately ten million. includes every other thing apart from just the
I have had only the one U.K. agent, MBA Liter- actual work of writing a chapter. There is mail to be
ary Agents, Ltd., but three different people there answered, the office management to direct (I have
over the years. Since April 1984 it has been Meg a very competent person to do the work), telephone
Davis, and her role is pivotal. She discusses the out- calls, etc. Other than that, there is research, plan-
line of a book before it is begun, is always available ning, and individual small problems to deal with.
for comment along the way, then, when it is fin- But I spend all day working, like most other people.
ished, discusses the book again and offers com- It takes me about four months to do most books,
ments for whatever rewrite is necessary after my longer for Come Armageddon. This is necessary
own two or three drafts. Of course, she also does because delivery dates don’t wait—being late is
the selling and legal work and gives advice on any unprofessional and will make for failure (some
other matters arising. publishers can cancel the contract if delivery is
I also have a foreign rights agent in the same late), and it is also unfair to the publisher. They
agency, Susan Smith, to deal with languages other have plans and schedules to meet too and cannot
than English, which at present are German, do their jobs if manuscripts are late. I publish two
French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Japan- books a year, plus I do short stories, a little editing,
ese, and Russian. I have a United States agent in articles now and then, interviews, and tour Amer-
New York, who is extremely important. His name ica usually once a year. I also go to France, Spain,
is Donald Maass, and he deals with U.S. and Cana- and Germany now and then to promote books.
dian rights and is also a very good friend and I do the occasional signing, conference, and so on
adviser on stories. He sees the outlines in advance in the United Kingdom. (I am actually writing this
and offers suggestions and help. in a hotel in Edinburgh—I’m here for a signing.)
My best advice for fiction writers: write what That fairly well takes up the year.
you care about. If you don’t know, you can always Rituals or conditions in which to write? It’s a job!
find out; but if you don’t care, why should anyone All I need is a good pad, a good pen, and some-
else? Be prepared to rewrite as many times as nec- where to sit. My study is the best, but an airport
essary. If you can find a friend who is a good, con- lounge will do! Or a hotel room, or anywhere I can
structive critic, read aloud to him or her. It catches sit still. One learns to ignore other conditions or
a remarkable number of simple errors. Encourage- people around. I don’t use a computer, but my
ment is marvellous, and we all need it. But some- secretary does, and I do second and third drafts
one who will tell you what is wrong is helping you from the printed pages—but again by hand. I just
far more. We don’t go to the doctor for what is fine! prefer to.
And get a good agent! That is, one who will help A book usually takes me three drafts—except
you to write in a better way what it is you want to Come Armageddon, which was six or seven. Since all
write and then be able to sell it for you, if that is my mysteries are historical, a great deal of research
possible. Find one who will be honest with you as is needed. It doesn’t happen all at one time. There

must be a certain amount done before I begin, in most fond of Come Armageddon because it is the
order to make sure the story is historically accurate most complex and the one in which I have said
and feasible. After that there are specific incidents entirely what I believe about the nature and pur-
and facts to check. By now, after thirty-five books pose of human life and man’s relationship with
on Victorian London, I should know the general God. It was also the most difficult to write, for
facts and atmosphere. that reason.
I outline every scene, where and when it takes
place, who is present, and what is to be accom- IRREANTUM: How would you describe your
plished as far as the plot and relationships are two mystery series? How do you come up with
concerned. It usually runs to approximately a legal- your characters?
sized, single-spaced page per chapter, and there are Perry: The two mystery series differ from each
between twelve and fifteen chapters to a book. other in setting by about twenty-five years; there-
Come Armageddon was an exception, where there fore, social conditions are different. The earlier set-
were forty-one pages of outline. ting was actually the later to be written and is a
Other duties or pleasures? Church callings, little darker, dealing with more complex principal
friends—that’s about it. Reading, music, the gar- characters. It concerns mainly legal, medical, and
den, and so on get fitted in during the odd break. military subjects. The other series, in which there
Reading is necessary, music can be played while I are more books, is set at the end of the nineteenth
work, the garden I walk around, but someone else century, when there was more freedom for women
works it (there are two acres—it is a full-time job). and more glamour and excitement, and deals with
social and political issues.
IRREANTUM: Most fiction is a combination of The creation of characters is a subconscious
three elements: what the author has experi- thing, built on faces and impressions and on hard
enced, observed, and imagined. How do those work in creating their backgrounds and motiva-
three elements work together for you? tions. I identify most with Pitt and at times Hes-
Perry: I think this is true, but in my case it is not ter—I think! Great-aunt Vespasia is in many ways
a conscious blend. I draw on imagination, but it my favourite.
must be prompted by experience and observation.
I start at a known point and work from there. If it IRREANTUM: Tell us a little about how you dis-
seems honest to what I know and feel and is right covered the LDS Church and what role it plays
for the story, I use it. If you’re not writing what in your life today. What Mormon literature have
you felt, experienced, and know in some form or you read?
another, you’re not writing honestly. It may be Perry: How did I discover the Church? I was
greatly transmuted, but you’re writing who you are. looking—the whole story would be an entire article
in itself. Why did I join? I knew it was the truth.
IRREANTUM: Which of your titles are you most When? April 22, 1967. As far as the role it plays in
proud of? Which of your novels has been the my life today, if you believe a religion to be true, it
hardest to write? has to be the driving force of everything and at the
Perry: If someone I had just met were to ask core of who you are. I am sure you don’t want a ser-
which of my books to begin with, I would suggest mon on that!
Face of a Stranger because it is one of the best and I have read a number of Church-related books,
the beginning of a series. The beginning of my but almost entirely factual. I particularly favour
other series was written eleven years earlier and was Hugh Nibley. I think I have all his works. As far as
my first published book. I am least proud of my literature is concerned, I presume that means fic-
earliest works, because I hope I have improved tion, poetry, etc. I am afraid that is pretty well a
since then. If not, I have wasted a lot of years. I am blank. Remember, I live in the far north of the

Scottish Highlands. We do not even have a temple gradually, and I only pulled out the first draft, from
in this country; the nearest is in England. And of my bottom drawer, and wrote the forerunner to
course no Church bookshops. that story a few years ago, which turned into
Tathea. The story itself was profoundly changed
IRREANTUM: What are your observations and and became Come Armageddon.
hopes regarding the Mormon culture as a lit- It was exciting and frightening to publish in
erary marketplace and audience? How do you another genre, but, as you see, it was not a depar-
feel about portraying things that are dark and ture but a return. I enjoy fantasy when it extends
gruesome? How do you feel about the concepts the mind and is deeply moral, as a lot of it is.
of happy endings and entertainment value in It is one of the oldest forms of storytelling—and
fiction? teaching. Look at the myths and legends of any
Perry: I have thought quite a lot about my hopes civilization.
for LDS culture and the LDS literary marketplace.
As a people we sometimes miss the point that really IRREANTUM: What kinds of responses to
good fiction will deal with a great and universal Tathea have you received from LDS readers? Has
truth about human nature. If a story is entirely the novel reached non-LDS audiences?
pleasant and comfortable, raises no disturbing Perry: I have received some wonderful responses
issues, does not make you think or feel anything to Tathea from LDS readers, including one person
you have not experienced before, and all ends as who wrote to me: “It is not a book, it is the book.”
you would like, then it is hardly worth bothering It has not reached as many people as I would have
with. It is comfort food for the mind, but it feeds liked, but it is not yet in paperback. It has reached
nothing. And still in the food analogy, it is so sweet a general audience, and their response has been
it is likely to do you some harm. Too much sugar good also, although it is not an easy book because
not only rots the teeth, I think it rots the mind also. it makes fairly plain that the path is upward and
Neither the Bible nor particularly the Book of steep and there are no guarantees of reaching the
Mormon are free from the gruesome, and the top. As you know, the sequel is already written and
Book of Mormon has the least happy ending I have will be published in Britain in November 2001.
ever read! When it will be in America, I do not yet know.
To be really good, a work must be original and
not derivative, and that calls for a lot of courage, IRREANTUM: What can Mormons learn from
because there is always the risk in breaking new the mystery novel? How have you consciously or
ground that you will make mistakes and be criti- unconsciously introduced LDS themes and
cized and misunderstood. The comfort zone con- beliefs into your mainstream writing? Do non-
tains no growth—and I think no good literature, LDS publishing professionals and readers seem
because there is nothing profoundly creative in it. to have any special reaction to your being LDS?
Of course, it may be very competent and comfort- Perry: What can Latter-day Saints learn from
able in that it tells you what you want to hear and mystery books? That depends on the nature and
what is already familiar. It requires no effort of quality of the book. If it is a well-written, fairly
mind or emotion to read, and there are times when serious one, then we can learn a great deal about
we all need that and times when we don’t. human nature, how tragedies happen and how we
deal with them, possibly even what can be done to
IRREANTUM: Tell us about how Tathea prevent them in certain instances, and perhaps a
evolved. What was it like to move into the fan- deeper understanding and compassion for other
tasy genre? people in a variety of situations where we ourselves
Perry: I began Tathea, at least in concept, even may never be. If nothing else, we could learn to
before I found the Church, but it developed judge less swiftly, to hate the sin but not the sinner,

and to recognize that many sorts of pain can be large subject. I think I’ll settle for equal before the
learned from. law and equal opportunities to have the education
Yes, LDS thoughts must permeate everything I you can and will use.
write, because that is who I am, but most of it is of
a fairly subtle nature. I care most about issues like IRREANTUM: What’s ahead for you? Have any
the fundamental value of agency, responsibility, not of your books been made into movies, and are
exercising unrighteous dominion, compassion for any in the pipeline? Have you been or will you
those who are different from oneself, and the belief ever be involved in other literary sidelines, such
that we can govern our own lives more often than as reviewing books and teaching writing?
we think. They are deeply LDS, but not overtly so. Perry: The Cater Street Hangman was made into
I have never had a comment on my religion a two-hour television pilot, and I hope more will be
from a publisher, but more readers than I can count made in time. Period film is always expensive, for
remark on my values, even if some of them do not obvious reasons, but we have an excellent script
know where they originate. My mystery books have for Face of a Stranger and are hoping for the neces-
even been used in high school ethics classes. To me sary finance, etc. I have been for many years
that is the ultimate compliment. involved in writing short stories, occasional articles,
a little reviewing, and some short-story anthology.
IRREANTUM: One of your readers posed the I have never been invited to teach writing but
following question on AML-List: “Does she would certainly consider it seriously if I were.
have it in for the upper classes? I’ve read only a
few of her books, but the villains are always
aristocrats who consider themselves higher life P O E T R Y
forms than the rest of us.” Another AML-Lister
argued that your most insistent themes “are To Belong
about faith in the value of honest human rela-
tionships and in the possibility of a society in What will become of you
which all citizens have equal rights.” Are these twelve-year-old
comments on target, and how would you poverty stretching your tight skin
respond to them? in a scowl across your forehead
Perry: The question about the upper classes! Yes, parchment over your chest
the person concerned has certainly read only a few so taut that deep breaths
of my books! All classes have their heroes and their risk breaking ribs.
villains, but in shades of gray, not black and white.
But it is a fact of writing about all classes that it What will you be with your voice
gives the reader no satisfaction to find that the per- restrained, handouts rejected
son to blame for a crime is someone they have not hand-ups misunderstood.
known throughout the story or someone whose cir-
cumstances largely explain what happened. It is I still believe you can become
also a convention of mystery that you cannot blame but for today, and tomorrow,
the butler! without heroics, or malice
I don’t know about a society in which all people your hungers must be fed.
have equal rights—before the law, certainly, and —Mildred Barthel
equal opportunities as far as that is possible. We
are not all equally clever, beautiful, talented, or Mildred Barthel is a widow moving to Utah to
loveable. Nor are we all equally brave, diligent, retire and be more active than ever in church and
honest, compassionate, or generous. It is a very community.

N O V E L hungry or sick and went uncared for. Justice

E X C E R P T
was swift, but anyone might plead their cause
before the king and be heard, although a few
regretted it!
Come Armageddon This beautiful city of Tyrn Vawr had been built,
By Anne Perry and artists and poets, philosophers and dreamers,
architects and musicians lived here, dined and
Following are the first two chapters of the sequel to talked far into the night in Sadokhar’s hall. The
Tathea, Perry’s 1999 novel that U.S. publisher learning and the wit of the world found their way
Deseret Book billed as “both an epic fantasy and an here at one time or another.
exploration of the eternal battle between good and Four years ago had come Sardriel, Lord of the
evil.” Titled Come Armageddon, the sequel will Lost Lands, to pledge peace with the King of
be published in the United Kingdom in Novem- the Island. Sadokhar had liked him immediately,
ber 2001. drawn to the love of truth in him. Tathea had watched
his quiet face with its high cheekbones and cool,
Chapter One intelligent eyes, and seen the passion in the curve of
his mouth. She felt in him a strength of the spirit
Tathea looked at Sadokhar beside her, then at and a fire in the mind, and she grew increasingly
Sardriel and Ardesir opposite. All the tables in the sure that he was one of the warriors foretold in the
Great Hall were crowded with the scores of war- dim days of her waiting, who would come in
riors and advisers who served the castle and city. the evening of time to fight the last great war.
The torches in the hall burned low, casting shadows Sadokhar had read the first hieroglyph on the
on the coffered ceiling and sending a golden glow staff when they were still in Hirioth, as she had
onto the bronze of half-empty bowls of fruit and known he would. “When the man of courage
the curves of wineglasses. The sounds of laughter enters and leaves where I am not.” He had looked
and conversation filled the air. The embers of the at her, his grey eyes puzzled, aware only of mystery.
fire faded and the dogs stirred hopefully, looking Many times since he had asked her to explain, but
for scraps. finally he had understood that it was something
It had been twenty-eight years since Tathea had that could be grasped only when the knowledge
left Hirioth, bringing with her only the staff and was already in the heart.
the golden Book of the word of God. Sadokhar was One quiet evening a year after Sardriel had
a grown man and he had accomplished all that she come, when Tathea had glimpsed the patience in
had promised Mairin he would, and all that she had him and the swift, secret moments of loneliness as
dreamed for him herself. Some of it had been sav- well as the brilliance of mind, she had shown the
age war and reprisal. She still shivered at the mem- staff to him. He had taken it in his hands, turning
ory of Cunaglass’s rebellion and how Sadokhar had it over, marvelling at the workmanship of it, and he
hunted him down and in his rage at the needless had read the third inscription—“When the man of
ruin and death he had caused, the betrayal of those truth hungers for a lie, and casts it to the deep.”
who had trusted him, had slashed off his head with He had said nothing. He was older than
a sword, and painted his name across the fortress Sadokhar had been, less impetuous, and she did
walls with his hair dipped in his own blood. If not need to tell him that only time and battle could
Sadokhar regretted it he had never said so. teach him to understand it. Now that battle was
But the Island at the Edge of the World was already darkening the horizon.
united at last after two centuries of strife. For nearly From that time onward he had returned to Tyrn
ten years there had been peace. The old and the Vawr every few months, leaving the stewardship of
young walked in the open without fear. No one was the Lost Lands with his cousin and ally.

A year after Sardriel had read the inscription, “Because that one is for you,” Sadokhar had
Ardesir had come from Shinabar, and before that answered. “As the first is for me, the third for
from the southern deserts of Para. When Sardriel, and the last for Tathea.”
Sadokhar in his wilder youth had for a space “And the others?” Ardesir had asked.
rejected the high calling he felt Tathea had placed “We don’t know . . . not yet, but we will.”
upon him, they had quarrelled, and she had left “When?”
him on the Eastern Shore with his mother’s “Before the final war with the Great Adversary.”
people. She had gone back to the centre of the “Before its beginning?” he had asked. “Or before
world alone, and then on to Shinabar. It was then its end?”
she had met the younger Ardesir, still afire with “I don’t know,” Tathea had said, barely above
ideas, a man of laughter and imagination, an a whisper.
architect who held visions of building palaces, Now they were still waiting for the last two war-
arches and towers of the mind as well as of stone. riors, but Tathea felt the urgency grow within her
He sought in the perfection of form and purpose that time was brief.
a meaning that could be held in a single grasp. She looked from one to the other of them as they
They had been friends, savouring together the sat talking now, Sadokhar telling a story, his face
subtlety and laughter of Shinabari art, the long animated, on the edge of laughter, Sardriel listen-
desert evenings, the smell of the night wind off ing, his lips curved in a slow smile. He knew he was
the endless sands, sweet wine and bitter herbs, the being teased and the acceptance in it, the knowl-
intricacy of the old ways. edge of his rational scepticism was part of the joke.
Then she had returned to the Island, knowing “I feel we have little time left,” Tathea said aloud.
that she must try again with Sadokhar. The lesser Sadokhar stopped his tale and looked at her with
part would never be enough for the hunger in his sudden gravity.
soul, no matter how it glittered before him now. “We have two of the inscriptions still unread,”
He had stood before her a little abashed, uncer- Ardesir reminded, but apologetically, his face ten-
tain how to acknowledge the change in himself, der. “And Ishrafeli has not yet come.”
and yet his eyes were shining with joy to see her. It was the one thing Tathea could not ignore or
He had asked softly for another chance, but she reason away. It was the single, bright certainty she
knew that he would have wrested it from her had had clung to all the long centuries. Awake or asleep
she not given it willingly. They knew each other so she had waited for him.
well! “He has not come to us,” she said quietly. “But
Then years later, when the Island was at peace we don’t know that he is not alive somewhere.”
and its fame spread wide, Ardesir had come to Tyrn “There are other things,” Sardriel said reason-
Vawr and found the perfect field for the arts he had ably, his voice soft so that those at the further end
perfected since. of the great table would not hear him. “It grows
It was Sadokhar who insisted Tathea show Arde- dark, certainly. Every new word from the east
sir the staff. brings more news of the barbarians attacking, but
“I can’t read it!” he had said with confusion. the great empires still stand. Asmodeus does not yet
“Can anyone?” walk the earth again, and most of all, we cannot
Tathea had felt a plunge of disappointment. But open the Book.” His eyes were steady, not wavering
before she could answer, he had looked at it again. from hers.
“Except this one!” he went on. “‘When the man of “I know, but it will be soon. We must prepare.”
faith embraces terror to himself ’! What does that She turned to Sadokhar. “You said Kor-Assh of
mean?” Then his face had paled and his voice the River covenanted with you to come to Tyrn
dropped to a whisper. “Why can I read that, and Vawr. When?”
not the others?” “Lantrif is not an easy land,” he answered, his

eyes careful and bright. “He cannot leave until he ago. Its golden stones, its teeming streets and cypress-
has made all provision for its peace in his absence. crowned hills had been her home in the days of the
But we have yet to speak with Ulfin of Kharkheryll height of the Empire. It had sheltered her when her
also. Knowing all you have taught me of the Fla- own land had cast her out. “Yes, send for him.”
men belief, I am sure he will be with us. They “Bring the traveller Eudoxius,” Sadokhar ordered.
above all others love the earth. How could they not The page he had addressed bowed and went
join in the last war to save it from Asmodeus?” to obey.
“If he comes then we will be five, and if Kor- Within minutes an old man walked the length of
Assh does also then all six,” Ardesir agreed, turning the hall from the bottom table. His head was high
a little in his chair towards Tathea. “But that is not but his body gaunt and round-shouldered, his fea-
Ishrafeli, nor does it open the Book. Without that tures battered by wind and sun. Only as he was feet
we don’t have the knowledge of God, we under- away was the humour clear in his faded eyes, and
stand only a shadow of the truth and it won’t be the bitterness about his lips.
enough! We dare not start until we have every “Sit with us and take wine,” Sadokhar directed
weapon and every shield!” him, indicating one of the vacant high-backed
He leaned across the table, his elbow against the chairs opposite.
empty pewter bowl where the sweetmeats had “Sire . . .” The old man obeyed, but he did not
been. His face was pale. “We fight not only envy, incline his head. He was a citizen of the world and
ignorance and evil in the world, but the forces of he was bowing to no Island king.
hell and beyond from places unimaginable. We will “Tell us of your travels,” Sadokhar continued.
be tested to the end of all we have.” He looked at “What news do you bring of the world?” He was
each of them. “Don’t go into the last conflict as if courteous, but there was no mistaking the com-
it were something we cannot lose. We can! All eter- mand in his voice.
nity depends upon us. Every step must be with “You have fed me well,” Eudoxius replied. “And
prayer, and certainty that we are obeying God, not given me shelter. What would you hear?”
our own impulse.” “The truth!” Sadokhar snapped. “When I want
What he said was true, and yet it did not dispel tales I will send for a bard and have them to music!”
the conviction inside her that the Enemy was Eudoxius’s weary eyes opened a little wider, and
closer. It was not faith like Ardesir’s, reason like there was an instant’s black laughter in his face,
Sardriel’s, nor courage like Sadokhar’s, it was mem- and then it was gone again. “Shinabar is ancient and
ory in the soul of wars lost in the distance of time, rotten to the core,” he said very quietly. “They deal
the touch of darkness closer than the skin. in bribery and lies as other men deal in bread. No
Sadokhar leaned back in his seat, resting his man knows what another is doing. Camassia still
elbows on the arms of his chair, watching Tathea. has a coating of civilisation, and a kind of spurious
“We need more news of Camassia, and of Shinabar. vitality that is thin as the colour wash on the walls
Are they preparing for war? Are they even aware of a tomb.” He glanced at Ardesir’s dark, desert
that the threat is real? Or do they imagine it is no face. “Painted scenes of the dead, for the comfort of
more than the sporadic troubles they have had for the living who know as surely as sunrise tomorrow
centuries, and it will all die down again as it has in that they too will one day inhabit those same man-
the past? There are travellers among us, especially sions of oblivion. The barbarians of the flesh are
one old man who has recently come from the City at the borders, pressing closer with every season,
in the Centre of the World. Shall I send for him?” but the barbarians of the heart are already there.”
It was a courtesy that he asked, he needed permis- Tathea looked at Sadokhar and saw the shadow
sion of no one. cross his features, the merest tightening of the lips
“Yes,” Tathea said immediately, not certain what as if the words had touched an old understanding
she expected to hear. She had loved the City long inside him, memories of things she had taught him

long ago. It was another shard of prophecy fallen long a soldier, left too many good men on bloody
into place. fields, to weigh lightly a word of it.
“Is that new, sir?” Sardriel asked Eudoxius “The Emperor has been told,” Eudoxius contin-
gravely. His courtesy never wavered. He would ued, watching Sadokhar’s face. “Word comes
have considered that a gross weakness, a betrayal of almost weekly, but he chooses to disbelieve it. He
the inner self. But neither did he stay his hand in says our armies have never been beaten and it is
pursuing reason to the end. To have done that treason even to think they could be now. But they
would be to insult both speaker and listener. “Or are untrained for anything but garrison duty, and
are you merely referring to the nature of mankind, parades. They have never seen war. If Irria-Kand
perhaps darkened by your own exile?” he pressed. falls and the barbarians reach the great forests of
“Forgive me, but I perceive that you are much trav- Caeva to the west, they will find nothing there for
elled, and yet you bear no embassy nor do you them, and they will turn south into Camassia. Who
carry the goods of trade. You are past the years of wouldn’t? The whole land lies in front of them, all
being a soldier and your bearing suggests you serve but unprotected! Hundreds of miles of wheat and
no master, and yet you have the marks of both vines, orchards and woodlands there for the taking,
hunger and ill-use.” all the way to the City in the Centre of the World,
“You observe well,” Eudoxius said without self- and the sea.”
pity, but there was a bitterness in him. “But my No one had interrupted him. One of the dogs
path is self chosen. I have no desire to live in stirred briefly by the embers of the fire.
Camassia any longer.” He looked beyond the few “Leadership requires that your first debt is to the
dark plums left in the burnished dish in front of demands of honour,” Eudoxius continued. “If you
him. His voice lowered a little. “What I saw in are not prepared to do that, if you must be praised
Camassia was not honest greed, as in the long past, at all costs, then step back and leave the crown to
it was evil pretending to be good.” He twisted the someone who will.”
stem of the glass goblet in his fingers, the light red His eyes did not leave Sadokhar’s. He did not see
through the wine. “The Emperor is weak. He loves the sorrow in Ardesir’s eyes, nor the flash of pity in
the glory and the praise of men and in his eagerness Sardriel’s. “We overlook faults we should not, because
to satisfy the crowds he has forgotten any beliefs of we are too afraid of invasion to admit that it could
his own. He appoints his friends to power, and happen.” He waved away a servant with a bowl of
accounts it loyalty to protect them at any cost.” honey cakes. His voice was thick with an anger he
“In what way?” Sadokhar asked sharply. no longer tried to conceal. “The barbarians will cross
Eudoxius shrugged. “He does not stop corrup- the borders one day. We shall be conquered and all
tion or incompetence if the perpetrators are his the beauty and sophistication, the buildings, the art
friends,” he replied. “No one admits fault any and the inventions of a thousand years will be lost
more. There is little honour left.” He looked from under the tide. But perhaps we will drown our-
one to the other of them, his expression suddenly selves in our own filth before that, and when the
darker and openly edged with fear. “Irria-Kand lies savages come they will find only more savages, no
directly on our northern borders right from the far better than themselves . . . merely different.” Then
east across to the forests of the west. It is not a he smiled suddenly, but there were tears swimming
united empire but a series of city fortresses and in his eyes. “Only I will not live to see it.”
already half of it has fallen to the barbarians sweep- A coldness filled Tathea, as if she had swallowed
ing in from the lands on the rim beyond.” ice. Could that be what Armageddon was? Not
No one interrupted him. Sardriel sat motionless. consuming war at all, but the corrupted heart eaten
Ardesir was tight-lipped. Sadokhar leaned a little away, until when the barbarians came in the end,
farther forward, his attention total. This was mili- there was nothing for them to conquer but decay?
tary news of the gravest kind, and he had been too Was the end not violence at all, but a living rot?

Then what were all their preparations of wis- beach, and over them all she heard laughter, cruel
dom, self-discipline and the arts of strategy worth? and soft, not in the ears but in the heart. She knew
The Book of God could not be opened, but his voice. He had cursed her before, and promised
Tathea remembered much of it and had written it he would never forget the injury she had inflicted
out again, disconnected, precept by precept, but on him, once, long ago, nor forgive it.
still a light to the soul. At every step they had “Tathea.”
prayed in humility, and retraced each mistake and It was a sound almost without meaning.
sought to mend it. “Tathea!” Now there was anxiety in it.
For a decade Sadokhar had ruled so that there She blinked and forced the room into focus again.
was a surplus of food, and safety from violence or Sadokhar was staring at her, his grey eyes clouded.
need. There had been space for thought and to learn, Should she say that all was well? He would know
to take months apart from daily tasks in order to she was lying, he always had, even as a child. Habit
enrich the soul. He, Sardriel and Ardesir had forced her to smile back at him, put off the
argued and discussed, explored the natures of good moment. “I’m sorry,” she apologised. “I was think-
and evil. They had ridden together, built, known ing of what Eudoxius said of Camassia.” She
failure and success, quarrelled, tested each other and turned to the old man. “Is Shinabar like that also?”
forgiven. There had been experiences which had He bit his lip, equivocated. “I have not been
winnowed the wheat from the chaff, refined the there lately, my lady. They have barbarians on the
compassion and the integrity. Each had in one southern borders, but then they always had.” He
manner or another walked an inner path which had shook his head. “In half a millennium they’ve not
learned his courage of the soul, and found it enough. been conquered, not since Ta-Thea returned with
They knew who they were, not only in this mor- the Book. Perhaps the fear of it hasn’t given any-
tal life, but from eternity to eternity, children of one the power to abuse, as it has with us.” His face
God on the wild and dangerous journey home. gave no reflection of the fact that he had uninten-
Each had committed himself irrevocably to the tionally permitted himself to be Camassian again.
conflict and forged his covenants with heaven. Sardriel leaned back in his chair. His expression
The servants moved around Tathea, fetching and gave nothing away, but Tathea knew him well
carrying. Light winked on polished metal and glass. enough to be aware of his contempt for evasion.
The sound of chatter came dimly and she barely “Do you know if they are mobilising armies?”
heard it. Ardesir asked, frowning and pushing his hair back
Where was the war? What weapon was there to unconsciously with his fingers.
strike an enemy which was a nameless horde a Eudoxius shook his head. “No more so than
thousand miles away? usual. The army is a good career, especially if you
She looked at Eudoxius sitting opposite her, and have no land.” He smiled fleetingly. “There is
saw the torchlight shine through his thin hair, always a kind of comfort in having someone else
and the marks of age on his skin. Once he had been tell you what is right and wrong. It saves all the
as young as Sadokhar, in the prime of his strength. energy of thought, and the blame for any decision
Now he was already too tired to fight. that turns out badly.”
For all their passion and courage, even purity of Tathea did not argue. She had seen the reality of
mind so they could face any evil, Asmodeus had war herself and knew that even a battle won is ter-
the ultimate weapon against which there was no rible beyond the imagination to conceive. And she
defence. Time. He needed only to wait. had no certainty what kind of war they were facing
The room swam around Tathea in a haze of now. Surely it would be more consuming than even
flame and shadow, golden reflections on pewter the clashing of gigantic armies, tens of thousands
and shining wood. The familiar faces blurred. wounded or dead? It would be weapons of the
Voices were a sea of sound like waves on a shingle spirit as well, the blinding and maiming of souls.

Eudoxius was given leave to depart. The torches wide, curving stairs to the upper chambers. They
guttered against the sunset-coloured walls. Others followed her in silence, hearts pounding.
departed also, friends and guests, among them the She unlocked the doors to her apartments and
eleven Knights of the Western Shore who had kept went in. They followed, Sardriel closing the doors
the faith whole since Drusus and Merdic five hun- after them. Inside was full of warm, golden colours,
dred years ago. Finally there were only Ardesir, deeper now in candlelight, shadows like burned
Sardriel, Sadokhar and Tathea left. earth. She crossed the floor to the far wall and the
Sadokhar was looking at her, his gaze unwaver- alcove, and with a key from around her neck
ing. The flickering lights picked out the fine lines opened a heavy cupboard door and lifted out an
of his face with its strong nose and broad mouth. object about a foot square, and wrapped in a blue
She felt the strength in him, the purpose that silk cloak. All three watched her as she carried it
through all the horror of battle and the grief of per- across and laid it on a small table.
sonal loss had become fixed. Nothing in him now Sadokhar moved one of the candlesticks closer,
rebelled against the weight of his task and the the flame wavering with the trembling of his hand.
hideous certainty of it. He was quick-tempered, He did not take his eyes from the blue silk cloak.
arrogant at times, but never a coward. He faced any The Book inside it had come from Tathea’s journey
enemy no matter how powerful, and any truth, the of the soul to the world before this, where God and
bitter with the sweet. A warmth filled her, and sud- devil had fought face to face for the future of man.
den tears sprung to her eyes. She remembered Again he was in awe of her. Her familiar face he
Asmodeus walking away from her on the edge of had seen in a thousand moods, her marvellous,
Hirioth the night Sadokhar was born. She saw again fierce, dark eyes which knew they had seen heaven,
the swagger in his stride, and heard with a chill of and forgotten it . . . except in sudden agonising
the flesh, his laughter. Now she understood it. and sublime moments, and partaken something of
“Eudoxius believes he will not live to see the bar- hell also, and the memory of its shadow lay across
barians conquer Camassia,” she said quietly. “We’ve her.
thought of defence against all kinds of weapons She reached forward and her fingers lifted the
Asmodeus might use against us, and prepared to face fold of the silk and pulled it back. It fell easily, slip-
them—but we have no shield against time.” Her ping on its own smooth surface.
voice was raw with the edge of despair. “We might Sadokhar held his breath, his heart hammering.
be here with sword in hand and hearts ready for a The gleam of the beaten gold shone, chrysolite
war which never comes. He knows we cannot wait.” burned like diamonds, catching the milk-white
They stared at her, horror dawning slowly in purity of pearls.
each of them as they grasped the terrible meaning Then he heard Tathea give a long, shuddering
of what she said. sigh, not wonder but strangely, fear, and he saw
“There must be a way!” Sadokhar protested, his them the moment after she did, resting on the
voice thick with defiance. “We are meant to fight! gleaming gold, long, black keys, as dense as night
God has chosen us for it and we are covenanted! and yet subtly iridescent, casting no shadow. He
It’s years since you’ve tried to open the Book. Try heard Sardriel draw in his breath.
it again!” Tathea’s face was stiff, eyes blank with fear as if
She rose from her chair, the room swimming she could not believe what she saw. Her hands were
around her. rigid and she began to shake.
“And if you succeed?” Ardesir whispered. “What Her fear flooded into Sadokhar as if he were still
then? Armageddon?” There was faith in his voice, a child at her skirts and his life depended upon hers.
and fear also. He was not blind to what it meant. “What are they?” Ardesir said hoarsely, panic in
She did not answer, but turned and led the way his voice.
out of the hall, through an antechamber and up the “Keys to what?” Sadokhar whispered.

For a moment it seemed she could not reply. Her the promises of the light and glory of eternity. It
throat convulsed, choking. Her skin was white, no could not be wrong! Those who believed in it had
blood in it. She started to move backwards. to win, however long the struggle or how hard or
“To what?” Sadokhar shouted, stepping forward, high the climb, in the end there had to be that
although he had no idea what he meant to do. heaven which was the soul’s dream, the passion, the
Tathea staggered a little, losing her balance. love beyond all others.
He caught her in his arms. There seemed no “Tathea!”
weight to her, her body was weak and so thin he But she did not answer, even with the slightest
could feel her bones through the fabric of her movement.
gown. He looked at her in horror, his skin prickling Sadokhar looked up and saw Ardesir’s face ash-
and cold with sweat. The face he saw was old, with- pale, and knew the fear in him as if he could taste
ered and all but fleshless, the eyes blind, the hair it in his own mouth. His body was rigid and it was
lank and blasted with white. seconds before he spoke.
“No.” A long, moaning cry of denial broke from “Asmodeus has never defeated her before,” he
him. The woman he held was alive, but only in the said gently, forcing his voice to be steady, even
beating of her heart. The spirit was gone, the courage warm although it trembled a little. “He won’t
and the strength that had carried her through five now—not with us here too.” He put his slender
hundred years was shrivelled away, her mind hand on Sadokhar’s shoulder. “We’ll keep vigil, and
wasted in senility. pray. Our faith will be strong enough, but it is a
Ardesir stood as if paralysed, unable to believe. bitter test.”
Sardriel bent forward as if he would help, then Sadokhar felt a tiny seed of calm within himself,
stopped, not knowing what to do. He rose to his feet and carried Tathea through to
Sadokhar held Tathea gently, his arms locked, her bedroom and laid her on the bed. Ardesir and
body aching. He began to rock her back and forth, Sardriel followed and they all kneeled beside her,
as if she were a troubled child. He wanted to say each asking in his own words for the help of God
something. But what could bring her back and to restore Tathea as she had been, and give them the
undo the horror of the last few moments? What power to fight in His cause.
would make it as it had been? But as the night deepened she did not move, nor
He held her more closely, feeling her body did she as dawn came, and sunrise.
almost weightless, as if she were slipping away, even “You must go and wash and eat,” Sardriel said
in his arms. Her breath rasped in her throat, strug- quietly as the light broadened across the room,
gling to fill her lungs. showing their faces gaunt with weariness and
“Don’t,” he said hoarsely. “We’ll fight. We’ll shock. “Sit in the judgement hall as usual, speak to
make the war happen, I promise!” It was a cry of people, receive visitors.”
desperation. He had no idea how, no plan. “We’ll Sadokhar’s body clenched in denial, but he knew
win! We’ve got to. It is what we were born for.” Sardriel was right. This was the first blow against
That was not true either. It was what he was born them, and already he was prepared to let the world
for, not she. But he could not do it without her. see it had drawn blood. He stood up slowly.
“Tathea! Come back!” he cried. “We can’t win “Yes . . . of course. I’ll return when I can. Send
alone! We don’t even know what it is! Help us! We word to me if there is any change.”
don’t understand it!” Sardriel and Ardesir both nodded silently.
He moved to try to make her more comfortable, Sardriel went with Sadokhar as far as the outer
and knocked his leg against the table. The candle- chamber. For a moment it looked as if he were
stick swayed, spilling golden lights and shadows about to say something more, some word of hope
across the gleaming surface of the Book. He knew or grief, the emotion was in his eyes, then it was
that inside it was the word of God to His children, concealed again, and he merely said goodbye.

The day passed in duties performed with half the “He’ll overcome it,” she whispered, not even
attention, and the night in vigil, with snatches of sure if her voice was strong enough for him to hear.
sleep. The second dawn brought no change but a “Everybody with intelligence and imagination
deeper bending together of resolve, a few words of knows fear. It’s what you do with it that matters.”
faith, brief because there was too little to say. “And Sardriel will retreat further and further
from the pain of feeling,” he went on. “Until in the
From the moment the darkness closed over end he feels nothing at all. No love, no pity, no
Tathea, she was sucked from all she loved into a laughter, no hope. He will become a brain without
place of isolation and chaos. She knew with terrible a heart.”
certainty who it was she faced. His presence was “No he won’t! There’s no point in being alive if
around her more surely than the whirling rubble in you can’t feel! The purpose of being is to have joy!
the air or the choking clouds of dust. He knows that!”
“They will fail without you!” he said from “He knows you said it!” he jeered. “Words, and
behind her, his voice as intimate as a touch to the where are you now? Silent and cold in a bed! They
skin. “The people will return to their old ways. The watch over you and hope and pray—but for
faith you taught them was only skin-deep. Come how long?”
the first cold winds withering their prosperity and “Until I return!” she cried, swinging round to
they’ll go back to their old superstitions. I can send face him, the blood pounding in her body till she
stones to drown their coasts, blight on their crops, shook with the force of it.
rains to flood their valleys. Rock their comfort, He stood there proud and terrible, familiar as
make them afraid and you’ll see the truth of their eternity. A smile curved his lips. “And even
mettle.” Sadokhar, especially Sadokhar, will fail. His
There was nowhere for her to set her feet. She courage will turn to savagery, his justice to
was drifting. vengeance on those he thinks betray him—which
“Some will, but there will be more who won’t,” they all will, in the end. He will cease to be king
she argued. “Destroy things and they’ll rebuild. and become tyrant, drowning in the blood of his
Afflict them and they’ll find courage to fight back. own people.”
They’ll close ranks against you!” She refused to believe it, she could not! She
He laughed, a wild, hollow sound like the break- stared at him, defending the only way left by attack-
ing of ice. ing. “And what about Ishrafeli?” she demanded.
“They’ll turn on each other, every one for him- “You couldn’t beat him before. You shook the earth
self! Fear will kill all the seeds you’ve planted, it will and you blotted out the stars, but you couldn’t kill
strip away the thin paint of virtue and show the love in him! You can’t quench the light in any of us
heart of self beneath. Even those you think you unless we let you, and we won’t. I won’t!”
know, Tathea! Kor-Assh will never come to Tyrn Vawr. His eyes narrowed to slits of fire. “Oh yes, you
He will dither and hesitate forever, always finding will! Your human imagination cannot begin to
yet one more excuse to wait in Lantrif, outside the think what I will do to them. Time is mine, Tathea.
battle, until it overtakes him and it is too late.” They will grow old and die, waiting for a war they
Still he was behind her, but she could feel his will never fight and their souls will wither inside
breath on her cheek. them. In the end the earth will be mine, and every-
“And Ardesir will grow more and more afraid, thing in it, every bird and beast, every tree and
until at last his terror overcomes him and he runs blade of grass. And you will see it, exhausted, bitter
away. He is afraid. You know that! You have seen it and alone, to the last twilight!”
in him. The cold, sick gripping of the stomach
when pain is there in front of him, real pain, hor- Tathea’s eyes opened wide. She was lying on her
ror, failure.” own bed and Sadokhar was kneeling beside her,

tears on his face. Beyond him Ardesir was smiling, shimmered and dissolved, all except one key which
so widely he was almost laughing, and Sardriel’s slithered to the floor without a sound.
lips moved in a silent prayer, his eyes bright. Ardesir closed his eyes, blind for a moment
Sadokhar held her gently and she sat up, feeling with despair.
the strength returning, her hair black again where Sardriel stood rock still.
it fell forward over her shoulder. Sadokhar bent and reached for the solitary key
She saw the golden Book on the small table by on the floor, and felt its metal on his flesh. He
the wall, the dark keys still on its face. closed his hand over it, and it remained, solid as the
Sadokhar turned to follow her gaze. “What are key to the castle gates. It was not Asmodeus’s key to
they?” His hand tightened over her arm so she the world. It was something else, and as he kneeled
could not have reached for them even if she would. there a wild and terrible thought filled his mind,
“Asmodeus’s keys to this world,” she answered, the memory of a door in the ruined city of Sylum,
her voice coming between dry lips. “He showed a wraith-like man he had seen there, and an idea so
them to me the night you were born.” fearful he could not speak it aloud.
He understood. She did not need to put it all Tathea saw him and lunged forward, grasping
into mundane words for him. He would die. Arde- his arm, but she was too weak to hold him. Sardriel
sir and Sardriel would die, and Kor-Assh also, if he caught her as she swayed, holding her steady,
came. Even Tathea herself could wither with doubt. unwittingly shielding her with his own body as
She too was vulnerable if her faith slipped from her Sadokhar slipped out of the door, and the instant
and for the first time in his life he realised that it after she heard the heavy lock turn and knew they
could. He had seen the weakness in her soul as well were shut in.
as the glory, the burden of time—when she had
fought and waited alone, shoring up her strength Chapter Two
for the day of the last battle, always clinging to the
faith that they would win. Sadokhar stopped only long enough to dress for
Today she had been swayed by doubt that per- the journey, then he went to the stables, saddled his
haps they would not. Asmodeus would stay his horse and rode out into the night. The city was
hand, and without war the end would be not a asleep. The clatter of hoofs on stone was the only
cataclysmic battle in which they could be victori- sound that disturbed the darkness. He was long
ous, but a long watch until one morning they saw used to battles with the sword and he knew his own
the emptiness of it all, and realised they were skill, but this was different, unknown and unguess-
alone, and there was no prize to win or lose, only able, a war of the spirit, and he knew the weakness
the slow descent into oblivion. The whole journey within himself, the possibility of failure. It had
had been purposeless. They had endured all the been years ago, he had been little more than a boy,
agony and the sacrifice and the hope so Asmodeus when he had met the bear in the forest, before he
could mock them. And through them, God Him- and Tathea had left Hirioth for the Eastern Shore.
self! It had stood before him in the glade, a giant woken
“There is a way!” he said with more strength from sleep, and he had frozen with terror, incapable
than he thought he had. “I don’t know what, but of fighting or running.
I’ll find it.” It was Tathea who had rescued him, seizing his
“The keys,” Ardesir said softly. He knew the arm and scrambling, half lifting him up the great
prophecy, as they all did; Tathea must take the keys oak tree until at last the beast grew bored and
of this world from Asmodeus himself. shambled away. But Sadokhar had never forgotten
“No!” Sardriel reached out his hand, but he was that faced with the unknown, he could fail.
too late. Ardesir stretched forward and grasped Now he rode through the night past the guards
them, and as his fingers touched the leaden metal it at the city gates, and out onto the moonlit road
eastward. Last night had taught him many things.
Deep in his heart with an immovable ache was the would be somewhere else. Alone? And if not, with
knowledge that Tathea was vulnerable. Perhaps she whom? Spirits of those who had denied God and
was not immortal as he had always assumed, not everything He had made and loved? Even to imag-
incapable of any wound but that to the soul. Her ine it was unbearable.
body and her will could be broken. Armageddon He stared at the silver light across the arch of
must not wait. heaven, and the sleeping earth beneath.
Kor-Assh had not yet come. They had sent no If he did not go, if he stayed here, loving it, and
embassy north to Ulfin, but last night had also Armageddon came at another time, when he, Arde-
taught Sadokhar that the last words of the sir and Sardriel were dead and Tathea left alone and
prophecy meant exactly what it said. Before Tathea weakened by doubt and the waiting, the crushing
could take the keys from Asmodeus, he must walk disappointment, then Asmodeus might win. No,
the earth himself. They must be taken from his more than that. He would win!
hand, not some vision of them grasped so easily There was no decision to make. But if he gave
from where he had placed them on the Book. That himself time to think of all it meant then his
had been a threat, a gesture of his power. Sadokhar courage might fail him. Now that he had seen the
should have known it. Asmodeus would never have choices clearly he had no escape. It was not his
left them where could they be stolen so simply. mission to fight Armageddon as he had believed all
And yet Sadokhar had the one key that was not his life, but to provoke it. That was the great and
of this world, but of another, far more terrible, and terrible service he could do for the world he loved
if he used it then he could seek out Asmodeus, face so fiercely. It would demand from him the ultimate
him, and goad him into bringing the legions of hell sacrifice.
to begin the final war. He turned his horse and started to ride down
He rode hard all night, following the old Imper- again towards the sea. It was time to stop thinking
ial road from the Heartlands to the sea, as he and and just do it. Give fear no room.
Tathea had done when he first left Hirioth with her. It had been sunset when side by side he and
He passed villages and towns and saw the glow Tathea had first breasted this rise and seen the ruins
of torches in windows, the thousand peaceful homes of the great city below them, flushed with the
filled with laughter and pain, passion and triviality, colours of the dying day.
each one seeking untold dreams. He felt an ache of He remembered his in-drawn breath of amaze-
love for everything they were, and could be. The ment even now, twenty years after. At their backs
night wind was soft on his cheek, carrying the scent the west had burned in a sea of gold, shards of fire
of herbs and trodden grass, and the vast distances stretching across a scalding sun, feathered clouds
of the night. Far away, water gleamed under the like the vast underside of some world-folding wing
moon like the polished surface of a mirror. hung, closing in the sky.
He lifted his face towards it and felt his heart In front of them the pillared streets had been
tighten inside him. He could never love the beauty lent an illusion of beauty. It did not matter that the
of it enough. He had loved Hirioth with its ancient columns supported the empty air. The black scars
trees, its beasts, its millions of whispering leaves. of smoke melted into indigo, no more than shad-
He had loved the great bare mountains of the ows on the ochre, peach and rose of the crumbling
Wastelands arching up to the wind-driven clouds. walls. They had been too far away to see the wreck-
Above all he had loved the storm-racked, surf- age of pavements, or that the green was not the
booming beauty of the Eastern Shore with its end- gentle order of gardens but the thick riot of thrust-
less skies and pale, rib-streaked sands. ing weeds. Thistle heads were amethyst lamps in
If it really were hell which lay beyond the portal the sunset, ivy and bindweed strangled the last of
in Sylum, then he might never see the world again the unbroken columns and loaded the arches with
with its familiar, precious and terrible wonder. He clinging weights of vine.

He had seen the tears on Tathea’s face, not “You told me you were the last priest of the
understanding then that those shattered glories Light Bearers.”
were the wreckage of a nation she had known “So I am.” There was the suggestion of a smile
and loved. on his lips, of pride in him.
They had gone down into it in silence together. Sadokhar looked around at the decaying stones.
He remembered a moth fluttering lazily past his “There’s no one here.”
cheek on silken shadow wings. The colours had “Oh, there are people!” Orocyno assured him.
deepened, turned to the violet of night. They had “Not here, not now, but one day.”
chosen not to sleep in the ruins, but rather in a “When?”
hollow in the summer grass near the top of the The smile was certain, secretive. “The future.
cliffs. The past. Time is not what you think. But I cannot
Now in the dawn light he gazed at the crum- tell you. It is forbidden.”
bling mortar, the cracks where the scarlet lichen “The gateway.”
and the velvet-soft, creeping mosses covered the Orocyno shivered, moving back a step as if
marble and the limestone. Tendrils pushed up Sadokhar had threatened him in some way. “You
through the ancient floors, lifting the tiny can’t use it! I found it and it is mine alone.”
coloured mosaic pieces a hair’s breadth a day, until “Into the past.” Sadokhar said gently. “Into time.”
they lay like so many bright, random pebbles on a Orocyno nodded, the widening light silver on the
shore. folds of his cloak, as if it were formed of mist. The
Here was the forum and the great state build- dry skin of his cheek seemed almost translucent.
ings. Sadokhar stared around him at the rows of “One door?” Sadokhar asked.
columns, the flights of steps, the arches. There to Orocyno shook his head. “Two.” His voice was
the left were the military headquarters, the courts barely a sigh. “I have not the key to the door
of justice and the libraries, the embassies of for- beyond, nor do I want it.”
eign princes. “I have it. Open the first for me, and I will open
He did not hear the soft footfall behind him, no the second myself.”
more than the rustle of night wind in the weeds. “I can’t!” Orocyno took another step back, fear
It was the voice that jerked him back with a stab making him waver like an image on ruffled water.
of fear. “Every time I use the portal it weakens it!”
“There’s little here except ghosts and rubble,” “But you do use it!” This time Sadokhar stepped
it said. “But perhaps if you listen at twilight you towards him.
will hear the echoes of a hundred thousand Orocyno shuddered violently. “I can’t help it! It
marching feet that have trodden the battlefields pulls me! I fight—but I lose. I swear I won’t, but
of the world.” always one day or another, I go through.” He drew
Sadokhar swivelled and stared at the man before in his breath.
him. He could see little but the dim orb of his Sadokhar closed his hand over the black key in
head and the outline of his robes. He was even his pocket. “Take me.”
thinner than he had been twenty years ago, almost “I can’t!”
wraithlike, and his feet made no sound whatever on “Yes, you can and you will.”
the pavement. Orocyno shrank away.
“Orocyno?” Sadokhar whispered, his heart “You want to be part of the Light Bearers?”
pounding. Sadokhar challenged him. “Do you want to be
Orocyno peered at him in the broadening light. remembered in the history of the world as the last
“I remember you,” he said softly, his voice like and the greatest of them?”
a sigh in the wind. “You came here before, with Orocyno’s eyes shone as if the fire of the dawn
the woman.” had been lit inside him. The sky was brimming

with light spreading a path of silver shivering across And in Sylum, what had the wraithlike Oro-
the sea. “What must I do?” his breath sighed from cyno found through his gateway? Eternity, or sim-
him in words barely audible. ply the past with its angels and demons, its good
“Open the first door for me,” Sadokhar answered. and ill?
“It will weaken the portal!” Orocyno said again. She had seen Sadokhar pick up the key from
“I know. Do it.” the floor and she knew he had taken it to open the
His head high, Orocyno turned towards the doors of hell and let it loose in the world—to force
light and seemed almost to float across the pave- Asmodeus’s hand in the beginning of Armageddon.
ment floor between the thistles, and Sadokhar fol- She had no need to think. She took the way
lowed him. Whatever Armageddon was, and he did eastwards towards the ruins of Sylum, and the por-
not know, it was better to be beaten than to have tal Sadokhar knew.
died without ever facing the Enemy and fighting It was dawn as she found the fork in the road
with all the energy of his soul. and followed it across the soft hillside, down the
incline, then over the last rise, and saw the city
It was over an hour after the door was locked ahead of her as the light streamed onto the silent,
that Sardriel and Ardesir managed to open it, and weed-strewn pavements.
Tathea rode after Sadokhar. Her eyes searched for sight of Sadokhar. Could
She knew evil as he never had, right from the she be too late already? The wind moved between
night five hundred years ago when she had awoken the pillars with a sigh, stirring the honeysuckle that
to find her child dead and the palace in Shinabar twined corrosive fingers deeper into the marble
overrun. That had been prompted by Tiyo-Mah, columns carved to honour battles long since for-
her mother-in-law, who had purchased the murder gotten. In the evening it would send a web of fra-
of her son and her grandson in order to keep her grance into the air as sweet as wine. Now it was
own power. scentless in the cold sunrise.
Tathea had been exiled, and years later returned Her eyes sought for movement. Surely at least
as Isarch herself, but she had had no vengeance on Orocyno would be here?
Tiyo-Mah. She remembered with a chill, even here But it was twenty years since she and Sadokhar
safe on the Island, how she had gone to the ancient had first seen him. Perhaps he was dead?
palace in Thoth-Moara to face the old woman, and She was ashamed for the thrill of hope that
found her there with the golden dwarf, and the surged up inside her. If he were no longer here,
room filled with the suffocating spirits of the dead, then Sadokhar would not find the door. Or if he
unrepentant and unforgiven. She had taken armed did, it would take time. How long had Orocyno
men with her, but Tiyo-Mah had gone down into been here before he had stumbled on its secret?
the underground chambers, and there in the treas- Decades?
ure storehouse had turned and walked into the She started to move down the hill swiftly in the
wall . . . and through it. broadening light, travelling easily. She was almost
The golden dwarf had said she had gone into at the first outlying villa, its walls crumbling out-
time, and would one day return for her own wards, thistles spearing through the courtyard
vengeance on Tathea, who had deposed her not stones, fountain filled with dust, when she saw
once but twice. He had taught her the arts of Sadokhar’s dark figure fifty yards to her left, and
necromancy, a raiser of the spirits of the merciless below her, in the sunken amphitheater. He was
dead, those who had looked upon the light, and walking slowly, head high and stiff. His fists were
chosen the darkness. clenched at his sides. She knew as if she could feel
Had Tiyo-Mah gone through the portal in it within herself how the fear choked him.
Thoth-Moara to bring back her terrible army? Was She dismounted, looped the horse’s rein over the
that what lay beyond it—not time, but hell? remains of a pillar, and started forward.

There was a movement to her left, little more She felt the warmth of the sun on her face and
than the shifting of a shadow across the stones. She the grief freezing her heart as Sadokhar and Oro-
turned, staring. She could barely make out the cyno turned and walked together to a great arch-
shape, the figure so insubstantial it could have way carved with laurels and lilies, and passed into
been a curtain blowing in the wind, without flesh its shadows.
or bones inside it, except for the head. There was She waited. The sky was blue overhead. The
no hair, only a gleaming skull with deep-socketed birds still sang. The air smelled sweet and dry.
eyes and fleshless lips. Orocyno, the priest who Orocyno came back. The wind blew his robes
had found a deadly secret, and used it until it con- and there was nothing inside them. He was alone.
sumed him. Sadokhar did not return.
Sadokhar was closer to her than he was. She Tathea stood still for long minutes, as if waiting
could call out to stop him. She drew in her breath could somehow change what would happen. Would
and the cry was half strangled in her throat. Oro- he find Asmodeus and lure him into starting the
cyno made no sign of hearing her. great and final war, or might he simply be lost in
But Sadokhar turned, staring directly at her. hell forever? To lose him to that would be the end
“Sadokhar!” The word was a whisper swallowed of laughter and peace in the heart, and a kind of love
in the wind. The sun was above the horizon now, a which was torn out of her as if from her own body.
rose-clear light over the shattered stones. Then she heard it, far away, beyond the stones
He stared at her, waiting. The question was in of the portal, a thin, raucous screaming, a fury of
his face. Was she going to stop him? Was that what voices that had once been human, as if for an
he wanted? To be relieved at the last moment from instant the door of hell had opened.
his terrible mission?
And what if she did not? Had he come trusting Sadokhar walked slowly through the archway in
she would follow? If she now let him do this irrev- Sylum, staring around him at the carved stone. It
ocable thing, would he understand? Or would the was cracked in places where ivies had eaten it away,
child in him feel betrayed? dark stained with the rain of centuries. Ahead of
She knew the fear in him as if he had spoken it him he could see a higher dome curving upwards.
aloud. Failure! It was the unknown beyond the The floor was smoother, protected under a still
doorway, the monsters of soul. unbroken roof, and the years had not marred it so
Her voice choked, and yet she found the words. deeply.
“You won’t fail,” she said with certainty. “You know Orocyno took a silver key from a pocket in his
yourself this time.” robe and fitted it into the lock of a great, coffered
His eyes lingered on hers for a moment, then he door, its panels rubbed satin smooth. It swung
turned and started to walk forward again. Ahead of open and Orocyno stepped through. Sadokhar fol-
him Orocyno moved soundlessly over the stone lowed and came into a long chamber.
steps as if his feet did not touch them. The air was warm and a little dusty. It smelled
Tathea watched and did not speak. She must not very old. The wall beside him now was archaic
take the choice from him. sandstone carved with signs, and painted with terra
Orocyno was at the bottom of the steps. He cast cotta and white, little pictures of figures like sticks.
no shadow. The sun poured into the amphithe- For a moment he thought he heard voices to his
ater like fire filling a bowl. It caught Sadokhar’s left, as if he were close to a vast room filled with a
robe and edged it with flame. The dust at his feet babble of sound. He saw massed people in rich and
was gold. muted colours, bright sunlight through glass, then
Sadokhar stopped. He did not turn to Tathea it dissolved. Orocyno was drawn towards it, his
again. She watched his face, the angle of his body, step quickening until the distance swallowed him
and the wraith of Orocyno yielding. and Sadokhar was alone.

In front of him was another door, darker, heav- open, and started to walk, not with purpose so
ier than the first, its surface mirroring changing much as to give himself the illusion that he still had
images as if some grotesque parody of life were some mastery of himself. He was not here in a
playing out in front of it, and yet there was no one wasted sacrifice, although the fear of that had
there but Sadokhar, and he stood motionless, the already entered his soul.
black key in his hand. He had been moving only a short while, the
The lock was plain, unscarred as if it had never shattered columns and the portal still visible, when
been turned. The decision was made. There was he heard a great shout, as if a thousand throats were
nothing to wait for. Fumbling only a little he put roaring some tremendous cheer, but it was word-
the key into the hole and turned it. It moved with- less, a senseless exultation.
out the slightest effort, the door swinging open at He started to run, floundering in the dust, send-
a touch. ing up clouds which clung to him, choking his
There was light in front of him. Flat, white light, breath, clinging in his nose and throat. He tried to
unlike the sun. There was something in its lifeless sweep it away with his arms and staggered against
glare which made his step falter. The air was still an outcrop of rock, tearing his skin and feeling the
warm, and he was not touching the stone, yet sweat sting.
inside he was chilled, as if he had swallowed ice. After a moment he started to climb a little
There was no sound at all. Even his own feet were through the defile in the rock, and had gone forty
utterly silent. They hardly seemed to carry his or fifty yards when suddenly the passage widened
weight on the smooth tiles. out. Ahead of him in a sunken amphitheater
He stood in the harsh glare of shadowless light. stood a mass of beings, men and women crowded
He raised his head, putting up his hand to shelter together so tightly their arms and legs seemed
his eyes, but there was no sun, only a white sky almost tangled. All their faces were lifted as one
stretching to the horizon without change. towards a single figure who stood high on a natural
Ahead of him the land sloped away, dry and ster- platform on the rock jutting out above them, only
ile. As far as his eyes could see there were outcrops feet away from Sadokhar. She was an ancient
of rock in the rubble and dust, and piles of broken woman, scrawny and almost bald, her black hair
stones as if they had once been buildings. The air pulled tight across her high skull. Her nose was
was motionless, clammy on the skin and it had a prominent, like the beak of some gigantic bird
peculiar, stale odour as if it had been long closed in of prey and her narrow shoulders were hunched
a dead space. like wings.
He could see no trees, no plants, not even any “I will lead you to be great again!” she told them.
driftwood or bones. It was as if nothing had ever Her voice had no power, no timbre, yet it carried in
lived here. There were no footprints of beasts of any the motionless air as if she had whispered in the ear
kind, no birds, not even insects. of each one of that throng. “Take the courage of
At least half the rocks seemed cut and piled by your wrongs and I will give you revenge upon those
art, long ruined now and holding not even mem- who have injured you!” she cried. “Think of all that
ory of beauty. But there had once been life here, you could have had, all that was justly yours!”
human life, at least. And human life did not survive Again the roar went up and she lifted her arms as
without herbs, trees, grasses of the field. if she would ride the wave of sound as a vulture
Where should he look for Asmodeus? He could would ascend on the currents of the air.
be anywhere! There was nothing to indicate in She began again, whipping up their anger, their
which direction even to begin. sense of self-pity and blame, their passion for
Sadokhar glanced back at the portal and for a vengeance to collect payment for every slight, every
moment an infinite yearning filled him. He choked defect and failure of life. Again and again they
it back, put stones against the door to wedge it returned the great cry of adoration for her.

Sadokhar knew who she was. The certainty of it in the Island at the Edge of the World, just as
crystallised within him with edges that cut his Iszamber foretold. The light still burns there, and it
mind. This was Tiyo-Mah, Tathea’s enemy from the always will. We have wine and fruit, timber and
birth of time to the end of it. She was promising grain, silk, precious gems of the earth. Travellers sit
these unpardoned dead some prize on the earth she at our tables from all the world and listen to her
could never give them. Unless she had foreknowl- wisdom.”
edge that one day someone would open the portal? “So you have left all of that to come here?” Tiyo-
Perhaps time had no meaning here, and whenever Mah said with grating disbelief.
he had come through he would have found the “I’ve come to find Asmodeus,” he replied, smiling.
same thing happening? Her hairless eyebrows shot up. “Asmodeus!”
The wave of sound filled the amphitheater again, Then she started to laugh, this time wild and hys-
buoying up the old woman as if it physically car- terical, soaring upward out of control, ricocheting
ried her. With a smile of triumph on her mouth, from the narrow walls of the cleft. It was a mania-
soft like perished silk, at last she turned away, and cal sound, and yet unmistakably human in this life-
in facing back from the platform she saw Sadokhar. less landscape.
Her surprise was unmistakable, though she Then abruptly she stopped. “Asmodeus isn’t
masked it as soon as she could. here, you fool! Erebus is his place, not this!” She
She walked through the cleft in the rock towards jabbed a long, crooked finger at the dust around
him, still just within sight of the mass of her fol- her. Then she started to laugh again, but there was
lowers, like a pale sea behind her. only malicious pleasure in it, quiet, back in her
“So you are going to lead them back into the control. Her eyes never left his face.
world?” Sadokhar said quietly. He knew she spoke the truth and his whole wild
“Fool!” she spat under her breath. “No one plan crumbled. The key to Hell had gained him
leaves hell till the world ends, and perhaps not nothing!
then. But there is a doorway into the past and I What could he salvage? What was there left to
can take them one by one. It is enough for their do? He stared at the fearful woman in front of him.
dreams.” She was staring at him, amazement grow- Surely there was evil enough in her to lead the
ing in her eyes and a shadow that looked like fear. forces of destruction, and then Asmodeus would
“The past?” he said derisively. “Is that all?” have to follow? He could hardly allow her either
Now the amazement was certainty. Her lips victory, or defeat!
parted in a smile of infinite cruelty. “Sadokhar! So “I’m sure you’ll do as well,” he lied. He looked
you are dead! You failed! Five hundred years in the beyond her to the throng of people still waiting for
waiting, and after all that, you are dead, and you her to return. “Keep your promise to them. What
fought no Armageddon!” She started to laugh, a is Queen of Hell worth, compared with leader of
dry, hideous sound gurgling in her throat, incom- an army on earth? And how long will you keep
parably coarse. them, with nothing to offer? Have they loyalty?”
“No, I’m not dead,” he said very clearly. “I came Now he was jeering and he saw the flare of anger in
here through the portal, as you did. Except I chose Tiyo-Mah as she recognised it.
it. No one drove me here.” “You serve Tathea,” she said softly now, her
Tiyo-Mah’s face flickered briefly with rage at the shoulders hunched, her head forward like an ani-
memory of Tathea’s victory long ago. mal’s preparing to leap. “Why would you want me
But Sadokhar had seen the place to taunt her. to enter the world?”
He put a little swagger into his stance. “There is He knew she would ask. He must offer her
no Armageddon, nor will there be,” he said. something she could not resist, bait to catch an
“Tathea is too strong. Asmodeus won’t win this angel of the Pit. “If Asmodeus will not come while
world—in my lifetime or any other. There is peace she is alive, then you must,” he replied. His heart

shivered with fear. “Offer him Tathea, broken, world and we shall win, and then present him with
defeated in her strength, and all her warriors with the prize!”
her! He will make you his consort in eternity. You They began to cheer again, this time a rhythmic
will have won the right.” chanting of her name, mounting into a climax of
“Liar!” she said between her clenched teeth, but sound that was almost unbearable.
her eyes shone. “You will die, but she never will! Do As Tiyo-Mah lowered her arms the ground on
you think I don’t know that? She is as old as I am, which the people stood began to shift and heave
all but a few years.” She held up one rope-veined as six craters appeared, hollowed out beneath
arm, the flesh hanging loose, jerking her fingers to their feet, and they slithered and fell, howling, into
display her contempt for the moments of time the the depths.
difference represented. As they struggled they began to twine around
Now he taunted her back, blue eyes wide. “A few one another, fighting helplessly, first arms and then
years? Her face is smooth, her hair thick and black. legs, writhing together, contorting, backs arched,
She walks upright, dances, rides, wields a sword as mouths gaping in silent screaming as if they were
well as any man. She has laughter and life and compelled against their will. In hideous battle like
friends she loves. And when she does leave the a pit of snakes, they melted into one another.
earth, it will not be for this!” He too flicked his A stench arose of open sores, of rotting, pustu-
hand to indicate the arid waste around them. lant flesh. Intestines belched forth, slimed over
Tiyo-Mah’s face suffused with dark blood and with black blood.
her body began to tremble with a rage and hunger Sadokhar’s stomach gagged and he sank to his
that devoured her like a fever. The sweat glistened knees, overcome with nausea, but he could not
on the bald dome of her forehead and through the drag his eyes from the sight in case one of the mon-
thin strands of hair over her skull. strosities should come towards him.
“You think you can beat me?” she screamed. Eventually no more than six huge men stood on
“Fool! Imbecile! You know nothing. I’ll destroy the sand, their muscles still swelling and shrinking
everyone she loves, one by one, and she’ll watch, as the separate entities fought for freedom from the
and her soul will bleed.”
imprisoning flesh, and were trapped. The agony
Sadokhar knew he had succeeded, and he was
was unimaginable.
washed over with fear. She was more terrible than
Tiyo-Mah stared at them with a slow smile
anything Tathea had told him of, more than
the imagination of nightmare could have created, spreading across her face, then she lifted her head
because she was real. The remnants of humanity back and uttered a long, thin wail which filled the
were unmistakable in her, calling out like the most arena and rose to the flat sky above. It seemed to
hideous and totally familiar in himself. Had he hang in the air long after it had ceased, as if the
been less sickened he might have backed away; as it enclosing silence remembered it.
was he stood motionless, not in courage or defi- Then at each of the entrances to the arena four
ance, but paralysis. figures appeared, all mounted on beasts, one at
Then Tiyo-Mah turned and stalked back to the each gateway. Even Tiyo-Mah shivered at the sight
rock outcrop on which he had first seen her. The of them, but she did not retreat.
crowd broke into another crescendo of applause, “The portal to the world is open,” she said, not
and she raised her arms to them, letting the noise loudly, but her voice seemed cradled and magnified
thunder around her until it finally subsided and the by the rock. “We can go through into the days and
crowd stood waiting, faces uplifted. nights, into the colour, into the sounds and visions
“The time is come!” she cried out. “We are ready of the flesh.”
and the portal to the world is open. Asmodeus There seemed an endless wait. Then one of the
is not yet come, so I will lead you against the four figures came forward leading a white mule

dressed in colourless trappings, and stopped in sinking deep into the dust and leaving three-clawed
front of Tiyo-Mah. He was tall and slender, dressed footprints behind.
as a legionary of the old Camassian Empire, and After him came the man who had struck the bar-
his face was serene, perfect-featured, his skin gain with Tiyo-Mah. He rode a blue-roan horse,
smooth as sunrise. Only his eyes were brilliant with almost iridescent, like the sheen on rotted flesh,
desire. bruised dark. Watching motionlessly, Sadokhar felt
“Give me a body,” he said softly. “Let me taste as if at a touch it might fall away, corrupted to the
the wine and the peaches, let me feel the ground core. The breath strangled in his lungs. There was
under my feet or the wind on my face.” not enough air to fill them.
Tiyo-Mah hesitated. The fourth was a huge man with mighty shoul-
He turned away, as if to go. ders, bold eyes and thick lips. His hair curled richly
“Possess mine,” she said hoarsely. “For a day!” from his brow. He wore chain armour and carried
He stopped. “A day?” he said still with his back a long sword, unsheathed and stained with blood.
to her. The horse he rode was red as fire and vivid as
“A day each year!” she amended, holding out destruction. Its hoofs left charred imprints even in
her hand. the sterile dust.
He touched it incredulously. “Forever?” he Sadokhar knew them all from Tathea’s words in
breathed. his youth. The golden dwarf was Azrub, Lord of
“We shall win!” she said with scalding convic- Delusion; the ageless soldier, Ulciber, the Cor-
tion, snatching her hand back. “Then we shall have rupter of Souls; terror was the realm of Cas-
all worlds!” siodorus, his rage recalled from the journey of the
His shoulders relaxed and he turned back to her spirit. Tathea had not seen him in life, but his part-
smiling, and offered her the mule. She mounted it, ing words of hate had never left her.
hauling herself unaided into the saddle and turning Then came the six creatures from the vast
the creature’s head so she led the procession away throng which had filled the amphitheater, their
from Sadokhar, towards the portal. faces indistinguishable as they still melted into one
He slithered in sudden haste as he moved from another, forming and reforming in a legion of tan-
his place in the rock cleft back over the jagged gled spirits. One turned for an instant, and
stones and ran through the dust the way he had Sadokhar saw with skin-crawling horror the eyes,
come, breathless, the sweat streaming on his skin. terrible with the warring of souls and the knowl-
The horsemen seemed oblivious of him. He half edge that they were locked for eternity in an
crouched behind a pile of broken boulders, but not embrace of destruction.
one of the riders glanced right or left, but followed They were those who had lived with cruelty, filth
Tiyo-Mah onto the smooth surface like ancient and lies, unrepentant after death. Even in the pres-
paving before the arch of the portal. Never once ence of light and the gift of redemption, they had
did he see her turn to ascertain their obedience. chosen their darkness. They pressed forward now
Her face was lit with a terrible appetite as if her through the gateway into the world again, to
heart already tasted the vengeance for which she become Lords of the Undead.
had waited half a millennium. Last of all came a rider on a black horse. He was
The second one in the outlandish procession was clothed in black, a ragged cloak hanging like torn
a dwarf, squat and broad, dressed in a glittering wings from his shoulders, his hair a night shadow
coat of diamond-shaped panes, yellow as gold, over his head. His face was broad-nosed and thin-
shimmering even in this heatless light. His eyes lipped and the end of all hope was in his eyes. He
were agate-coloured, with pupils like a goat’s, and left no trace on the arid landscape, as if it were his
he seemed to be so immensely heavy that the sway- own and it held him so familiar it did not feel
backed creature that carried him staggered, its feet his passing.

This was he whom Tathea had faced and beaten I N T E R V I E W

off on the battlefield of the Western Shore, but
now he was renewed, the last and strongest of all Brian Evenson
the Lords of Sin, Yaltabaoth, who held the power
of despair. Interviewed by Todd Robert Peterson
One by one they passed under the archway and
disappeared until only Yaltabaoth was left. Brian Evenson is the author of three collections of
Sadokhar felt the black key in his pocket and his short stories (Altmann’s Tongue, The Din of Celes-
hand closed over it. He must wait until they were tial Birds, and Contagion), a novel (Father of Lies),
all through. and a fiction chapbook (Prophets and Brothers). His
Yaltabaoth hesitated and turned. He looked fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals,
directly at Sadokhar and his thin lips parted in a including The Quarterly, The Southern Review,
smile. He lifted his hand and in it was a key. He The Mid-American Review, and American Literary
held it up. Review. He has published two poetry translations and
Sadokhar tightened his own hand, and it was written an opera libretto and two radio plays that
empty. were adapted for the stage. Evenson received a
Yaltabaoth tossed his key into the air and it van- National Endowment for the Arts grant, and in 1998
ished, then he swivelled in the saddle and rode he was awarded an O. Henry Award for his short
through the archway and was gone, leaving story “Two Brothers.” With a Ph.D. in literature and
Sadokhar alone in the rubble. critical theory from the University of Washington,
he taught previously at Brigham Young University
and Oklahoma State University and is currently
P O E T R Y a professor of creative writing at Denver University
and an editor at Conjunctions magazine (www.
At Risk of Seeking False Gods conjunctions.com). His website is located at
With you in holies blessed1054.com/evenson.
of eternity, I am left with Interviewer Todd Robert Petersen received a Ph.D.
granite December marker in creative writing and critical theory from Okla-
as companion to flesh homa State University and now teaches at Southern
still in need of comfort. Utah University. He was formerly an associate editor
for Cimarron Review and is currently a nonfiction
I want, and am offered editor for IRREANTUM. His work has appeared in
supermarket nourishment Weber Studies, Cream City Review, Third Coast,
pursed out chocolate choices Dialogue, and Sunstone.
grandchildren’s basket of plenty
for sleepovers, all about them. Peterson: I’ve noticed that you’re wearing a
Warmth is too often oak and pine t-shirt that says “Thrill Killers.” [Laughter] Could
fragments of fireplace demands spark you explain yourself?
while I page my encyclopedia of doing. Evenson: [Still laughing] I’m not going to say
I want tiller-deep conversations anything about that.
and am offered someone else’s pew Peterson: In that case, I’d like to begin by quot-
two-thirds back on right of sacrament ing a previous interview you did with the writer
my shoulder heavy with holding my own hymnal Ben Marcus, in which you assert the following
and for inevitable aging, constant about yourself: “As a writer, I gather a useful ten-
admonitions to connect by serving. sion from the fact that I am a believer, but that
belief becomes imperceptible in my prose. I don’t
—Mildred Barthel

know why . . . Peterson: Basically.

I don’t think Evenson: Yeah, I suppose so. The one thing to
that writing, remember about adversity is that it can make you
real writing, stronger or it can kill you. I think loving strife and
has much grief because they’re for our good and experience is
to do with a way of saying “strife and grief aren’t really strife
affirming and grief; they’re symbols of something else, of
belief—if experience; let’s make them significant, process
anything it them into something less threatening.” I’m very
causes rifts dubious of symbols, especially symbols which mask
and gaps in the objects that are used to convey them. I think
belief which strife and grief are most useful when they’re per-
make belief ceived first and foremost as strife and grief, as not
more complex signifying something else, and we fully understand
and more tex- their potential to destroy us. If you can process
tured, more them after that into faith, I think it’s a much more
real. Good durable faith.
writing unsettles, destroys both the author and the Peterson: Can literature function at all as a kind
reader.” Could you expand on that? of training for adversity?
Evenson: It’s grounded in a notion of what writ- Evenson: I don’t know. It can in a way, but I
ing does. There is a camp that sees writing as think that to see it as exclusively that would really
mimetic, as describing the real, another that sees ignore almost everything I see as interesting about
writing as trying to convey a message or theme or literature.
point, another that sees it as necessarily a product Peterson: What does interest you about literature?
of its time. There is another that sees writing as Evenson: I’m interested in literature that is
anarchic, a challenge not only to the notions of transgressive, that crosses boundaries and chal-
order and restraint that impose themselves onto the lenges its readers’ sense of self, takes its readers
real but a challenge to the real itself. I have most apart and doesn’t put them all the way back
sympathy with the last camp, though I don’t think together again. I mistrust literature that has a kind
I fit into any camp completely. Writing, if it is of revelation or salvation at the end. I like fiction
going to be effective, will challenge standard that is conscious of form, very careful and accurate
notions of belief. It will tear open gaps and holes in its use of language, is well written. I like fiction
where there are weaknesses in the fabric, will call that addresses serious ontological and epistemolog-
into question received knowledge. But I also think ical questions, but doesn’t offer resolutions. Those
that such writing is finally an affirmation almost in things seem different than seeing literature as a
spite of itself. It tears holes, leaves you gutted, but preparation for adversity. I guess I see the literary
lets you know what won’t be torn. It makes things experience itself as potentially a kind of adversity
more complex for writer and reader, allows both to (though an adversity shot through with many other
move out of the artificial world of Pollyanna. pleasures), a challenge in and of itself rather than a
Peterson: Can writing work the way other expe- preparation for a challenge. Finally, literature can be
riences work? There is a habit in the church of lov- more productively challenging than anything in life.
ing grief and strife because they are all supposedly Peterson: How do you think the contemporary
for our good and experience. Is the same thing true literary establishment views writers with any kind
of literature? of religious affiliation?
Evenson: Do you mean the same sort of thing as Evenson: It depends on a great many factors.
“Adversity can make you stronger”? There has been a kind of notion that books about

religion are interesting to people and they sell, but more interesting dynamic in the long run than a
the work that gets designated as religious is pretty direct match between the writer and what is writ-
abysmal. I’m thinking of things like the Book of ten. More often than not, with writers of some reli-
Virtues or Orrin Hatch’s “I affirm my faith in Christ gious affinity, people seem to want their lives and
for political reasons” book. If I were in charge of work to coincide. This seems like an oversimplifi-
sending people to hell, those two would be among cation to me, one that benefits readers very little
the first to go. You might also add Paul Coehlo’s and writers not at all. LaBute is most fascinating to
pseudo-religious pseudo-mystic claptrap, Og me when I can think, “Okay, this guy is Mormon;
Mandino’s Greatest Salesman, the majority of the what is he trying to tell me?” This kind of approach
Mormon historical novels series that Bookcraft and opens up his work and his Mormonism in new
Deseret Book have foisted on the public (Gerald ways. Nevertheless, there are certain successful reli-
Lund’s work in particular), and the unconsidered gious writers like Andre Dubus, who is sometimes
tales gathered in Especially for Mormons. right on the money and other times he’s saccharine.
The flap copy for Altmann’s Tongue spoke about Evenson: Dubus is certainly one who sometimes
my Mormonism, which caused some readers to writes about religious issues quite well, though he
scratch their heads. “Hey, this guy’s Mormon, but too often ends up trading in a religious belief for
look at what he’s doing here. That doesn’t seem showboating and sentimentality. I think the more
Mormon.” That’s a result, I think, of a simplistic overtly religious stories are not always successful,
idea of what “Mormon writing” is, an idea very but a story like “A Killing” has genuine religious
much alive still at Brigham Young University. It’s feeling. I guess what I object to is when religion
one of those ideas that protect us from the truth of becomes an excuse to be sentimental.
things, shuttling us elsewhere, away from thought. I should say that people like Dubus and O’Con-
At that point you have the choice of either decid- nor, even though they are respected, are exceptions;
ing “This can’t possibly be a Mormon book” or you there aren’t a lot of writers like them. I see tradi-
can think “What does this text reveal to me about tionally a lot of writers who consider themselves
the interplay of writing and religion that I didn’t atheists who also see themselves as being very inter-
know before? How does it challenge me to recon- ested in ethics. I think that Sartre, for instance, is
sider my own notions about religion?” I think that very interesting in this respect. There are contem-
idea of challenge is still very central to the book of porary writers today who have similar interests, but
stories I’ve most recently published, Contagion. at the same time I think there hasn’t been as much
You know, I think the literary establishment genuine interest in ethics or morality, partly because
rejects religious writing when they see it as the of the superficial emphasis put on ethics back in
equivalent of missionary work. Otherwise, there’s a the ’50s and the ’60s. The search for Christ figures
certain interest about morality in writing that goes that went on in ’50s and ’60s criticism (and which
back to Flannery O’Connor, to Dostoyevski. In continued at BYU through the time when I was in
contemporary American fiction, because of school in the ’80s) was morally motivated, but it was
O’Connor, there is a belief that religion can be a also misdirected, superficial. I think that the drift
productive part of a writer’s experience—not only away from morality and ethics is part of the literary
as background but in the process of composition. process; there is a kind of turning away that takes
So even though I think there are very few writers place. There’s likely to be a turning back at some
who are genuinely engaged with religion, I don’t point, hopefully in more genuine and deep terms.
think it’s necessarily rejected out of hand. Peterson: Do you think that more of the kinds
Peterson: People have found the same incon- of moral and ethical concerns we’ve been talking
gruities that you mentioned in Neil LaBute (i.e. about appear in the work of international writers—
“He’s Mormon, but there are these horrible things for example, with someone like Chinua Achebe?
going on in these stories”). It seems like a much He is outspoken about his social concerns. Other

African writers, like Dambudzo Marechera, are that in the last twenty years Mormonism has been
consciously trying to step away from identity poli- doing everything it can to move into the main-
tics and ethical issues in some cases. stream, not only to integrate itself but to ingratiate
Evenson: Someone like Achebe is often success- itself to middle America. When we were hunted, at
ful at raising certain sorts of social concerns, but I least we knew who we were. The last few decades
think that, finally, his tight focus on them causes have seen a Church leadership that seems com-
him to proceed blindly on many ethical issues. pelled to make us into a sort of product, to package
Marechera seems to me very savvy about ethical the religion. Though I know they have good
issues, and very purposefully provocative. I guess motives, I think this is a huge mistake. In most
he’s proto-ethical rather than ethical: while Achebe ways, Mormons are on the way to losing their cul-
wants to get a point across, Marechera wants to tural identity. I think that’s one thing to me that
pull the reader into the flux out of which ethical makes the ethical issues less interesting or com-
issues form. That’s where I want the reader as well. pelling in Mormon writers then they could be.
I suppose there is an immediate necessity, in cer- Peterson: You have also claimed that “for most
tain places and at certain times, to raising particular Mormon writers, religious belief comes into the lit-
ethical questions. There is a sense of necessity—at erary work superficially—the situations are Mor-
least it feels like there is—which makes the ethics mon, the responses are didactic, the stories are meant
and the politics important to African literature. to teach easy lessons.” What would a more subtle
One of the reasons that Marechera hasn’t received and less didactic Mormon literature look like?
as much attention is because he refuses to tap into Evenson: First, I don’t think good literature is
the given moment. He’s an ethical writer but not primarily, or even secondarily, didactic. I don’t
exactly a social writer. It feels like he’s still writing think good literature primarily conveys informa-
from necessity, but it’s not primarily the necessity tion; I think it allows the reader to enter into an
of his time; his necessity is something deeply inter- experience. I wish Mormon writers would stop try-
nal, often against the grain of his time. I don’t think ing to teach and just write; if you do so but still
you feel either that necessity or Achebe’s necessity have something to teach, it’ll come out subcon-
in more than a half dozen works by Mormon writ- sciously, much more naturally, much less woodenly,
ers. You know, a lot of people—a lot of Mormons, integrated in the prose. I’m of the opinion that if
a lot of writers—are comfortable in ways that you really believe something it will be integrated
impede their ability to be ethical. I think if you deeply into your patterns of thinking, and no
reach a point where you’re comfortable in a certain matter what you do, you won’t be able to keep it
way—maybe you don’t want to have that kind of a from expressing itself in one way or another. If you
challenge, you don’t want to listen to either inner resist expressing it directly, it will express itself
necessity or exterior necessity—that’s when you subtly, in a way that will reveal qualities of which
stop talking about ethics and probably also when you were previously unaware. I think that people,
you stop being ethical. through their actions and words, eventually reveal
Peterson: One of the things that strikes me who they are, no matter what they profess on the
about that idea of comfort is that, once upon a outside. I guess what I see in most Mormon litera-
time, Mormons were a hunted people—you know, ture is stories pushing easy lessons, that have a kind
with the exterminating order and so forth. Now of Sunday school response, which is a certain set of
we’re the über-suburbanites, at least in the popular answers that never change from year to year. You
imagination. I wonder if American Mormons aren’t can go into the worst Sunday school classes some-
too comfortable to consider ethical and social issues times—I know you teach Sunday school and I’m
with any real intensity. sure it’s not the case in your classes, so let’s take priest-
Evenson: One of the things which has been very hood. You go into a priesthood class; a question’s
damaging to the creation of a Mormon literature is been raised by the instructor; someone raises a

response to that, a kind of objection; and someone person who wants everything consistent and dog-
raises a counter-response. At one point you realize matic, you live in dire fear of genuine discussion.
that this is the same thing you heard when you were Peterson: Eugene England argues in his preface
twelve; people aren’t thinking, just regurgitating to Tending the Garden: Essays on Mormon Literature
rote information. We’re reading from an internalized that “Mormon theology . . . encourages a remark-
script which is keeping us from having to think. able and fruitful openness in relation to current
That’s not something I intend to participate in. controversies about the nature and power of lan-
It’s those easy responses that I think an effective guage—and thus of human thought and litera-
and subtle Mormon literature would really have to ture.” Is he right?
work against. It will require a willingness to just let Evenson: Well, I think it’s wishful thinking on
itself be Mormon. If you write and you’re Mormon Eugene’s part. I think there is a certain openness
and you honestly believe, it’s going to be relevant to available, but I don’t necessarily think that it’s a
the “Mormon experience” even if it seems far away remarkable one or even a fruitful one. Plus, I think
from that according to superficial consideration. the openness is only rarely drawn upon. I think what
I think Mormon writing has less to do with mak- Eugene would like to do, and I agree with him in
ing statements about Mormonism than it does with this, is to try to force it to be more open than it
having something integrally Mormon about it. It is actually is. Language is a powerful device; if it is to
Mormon in terms of the way language is handled, be effective it must continue to grow and develop.
in terms of the way the words exist on the page. I guess one other thing I would also say has to do
Peterson: Even the Sunday school manuals with the prohibition on R-rated movies we have in
make some attempt to override the reflex responses Mormon culture. There is an acknowledgment
you just mentioned, so there must be some recog- there that a certain type of imagery, or a certain
nition from Salt Lake that these thoughtless type of language when it is coupled with certain
responses are a problem. images, is powerful, but because it is powerful it is
Evenson: Yes, but at the same time we cycle also something to be avoided. I think that sort of
through those manuals every four years, so you’re power equates with immorality for some Mor-
right, there’s a certain progress made, but it’s a mons. So you have people who end up going to see
progress that’s made within the constraints, within mindless movies because they’re PG-13 rather than
the system of repetition. The attempt to override going to see something that is genuinely challeng-
gets worked into the reflex action after a few years. ing and interesting and provocative, like Neil
It’s the system that’s dogmatic. I think that system, LaBute’s movies. The PG-13 movie isn’t going to
which has nothing to do with the gospel—even is do anything for you one way or the other; Neil
counter-gospel in some senses—needs to be called LaBute’s movie, on the other hand, might make
into question. you reconsider life. It’s those kinds of easy solu-
Peterson: There could also be that differential tions, those blanket rules, that work against
between the Church and the members and the thought. It’s a problem related to the problem with
leadership at play as well. the Sunday school manuals.
Evenson: That might be true, but I think you Mormon leaders in the early days of the Church
give people too much credit. You might have intro- had a pretty good knowledge of what was going on
ductory classes which are more guided, but I think in literature. I think that’s changed—a lot. I think
you reach a point where the best thing to be done that the interests of the Church leaders have moved
would be to get rid of all manuals and say, “All away from good books generally. That’s not true
right, you have your scriptures, get together in a with all of them, but I also think that those few
group and figure some stuff out.” It would be who still read tilt toward the nineteenth century.
messier, but you’d start to have genuine discussions There are very few leaders who look actively into
about things. Of course, if you’re the kind of twentieth-century works that are interesting.

Peterson: There is one general authority who ful and progressive is that an equation is drawn
quotes T. S. Eliot from the pulpit in general con- between an artist’s work and their life. It seems that
ference and another who thinks that William E. many within the Church who are trying both to
Hinley’s “Invictus” is the greatest poem ever writ- chastise the vagaries of artists and, in some cases, to
ten. In fact, Joseph F. Smith, Orson F. Whitney, and lay a critical hand to their work, see the work itself
Boyd K. Packer have all quoted from that pretty as equal to or coinciding with the life.
terrible poem, some on more than one occasion. Evenson: I believe in what I do, and I don’t want
Evenson: Well, okay, T. S. Eliot, who was born to avoid any kind of responsibility at all for that,
in the nineteenth century and died a year before I but there’s not a one-to-one equation between life
was born. That’s a start. But can’t we do any better and art. One lives according to a certain moral
than that? What about what’s gone on in the last code, but if I live by that code and am comfortable
forty years? with it, why shouldn’t I try to understand the whole
Peterson: Lyotard says in his essay “What Is range of codes that people live by? I see the work of
Postmodernism?” that “a postmodern artist or art as engaged in a dialogue with a reader, com-
writer is in the position of a philosopher: the text pleted by the reader. It allows a certain interaction
he writes, the work he produces are not in principle to take place with readers that makes them rethink
governed by preestablished rules, and they cannot aspects of their beliefs or aspects of their lives, but
be judged according to a determining judgment, by I think it is a productive rethinking, finally.
applying familiar categories to the text or to the Peterson: The first time I ever threw a party in
work. Those rules and categories are what the work your house, the people I had over could not believe
of art itself is looking for. The artist and the writer, it was the house of the guy who wrote Altmann’s
then, are working without rules in order to formu- Tongue. They weren’t ready for family pictures or of
late the rules of what will have been done.” Is there you and your wife in front of the Salt Lake Temple.
any way, in your opinion, for a faithful Mormon to The piggy-pig table manners instruction chart in
be truly postmodern or avant-garde? the dining room also threw them for a loop. It
Evenson: One can have preestablished rules in seems like they wanted it to be like coming to the
one’s life, and one can live according to a certain Addams family mansion, full of cobwebs, torture
moral code and still have quite a bit of openness in devices, and loose hair from Cousin It.
a text. With the Mormon emphasis on choice, Evenson: I don’t know that I was the one to
making choices, I would think the Mormon writer hang those pictures on the walls. My study is deco-
would feel compelled to write an open text rather rated differently, with reproductions of art by Sean
than a closed one. You can bring a set of rules to a Scully, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eduardo Chillida,
text and impose them on it, or you can leave and Antonio Saura, to name a few, and piece or
enough openness that the formulation of the text two by outsider artists I admire. That’s where I
may lead you to a new series of possibilities. That’s work, and that’s probably the only room which
something that Bakhtin discusses in the Problems of I decorated.
Dostoyevski’s Poetics. He talks about introducing, Peterson: In another essay entitled “Art and
within the work itself, different ideas without con- Morality,” D. H. Lawrence said, “What an apple
trolling or managing them in advance. In a dialogic looks like to an urchin, to a thrush, to a browsing
text, different ideas, different utterances will knock cow, to Sir Isaac Newton, to a caterpillar, to a hor-
against one another, will be expressed fully, allowed net, to a mackerel who finds one bobbing in the
to live and breathe. In a monologic text, an author sea, I leave you to conjecture. But the All-Seeing
imposes a meaning upon a text. I am much more must have mackerel’s eyes, as well as a man’s,”
partial to texts that are highly dialogic. which is his way of showing us the pride in think-
Peterson: It appears to me that at least one of ing that the human way of seeing things is the way
the concerns for writers who are trying to be faith- things are. Thus to shade things in a particular

way, even against the way that they are, is to do hands-offedness—[laughter] if that’s a word—to be
some violence and injustice to God’s vision of things. able to make it work. I do think most Mormon
Evenson: The notion that Mormons should writers have been guilty of tipping the scale. They
look at the happy side of things is incredibly dam- allow themselves to become propagandists. Some
aging. A good percentage of the world as a whole, are more subtle about it, but I think all but a small
but especially Mormons, go through their life never handful do do it. There are a few who avoid that.
really thinking much about what they really I don’t want to name names because I think there
believe, or thinking about it only along predeter- are so very few. I think we’re guilty, as Mormon
mined channels. I think that a good Mormon liter- writers, of transforming the world into cardboard.
ature would have to push readers beyond that. It’s Peterson: It seems that a lot of writers are also in
not going to be something like: “Here’s a guy. He search of that Holy Grail of “uplift.” But I haven’t
has some doubts—oh, he prays—oh, it’s okay, now figured out what uplift is.
it’s all right. Maybe he still has some doubts but he Evenson: I don’t know what it is either. Sorry.
can handle them. He’s going to be all right.” These It has something to do with hair, I think. I think
pre-formulated situations are no good. Good liter- uplift is a desirable quality in a haircut.
ature has to take the risk of destroying both char- Peterson: If uplift is merely what makes us
acters and readers. I think that’s what it comes happy, then there’s a lot in Shakespeare and Milton
down to. You put a person in a position where they that we’re not going to read. King Lear’s not really
have to make a choice about what they think. That uplifting; neither is Titus Andronicus.
strikes me as a moral act. Evenson: I think Lear is uplifting. I think it just
Peterson: If you go a little into Mormon doctrine, depends on how you define it. What is uplifting? Is
a person can argue that a literature like you’ve been it something that makes you get tingly? If that’s it,
describing is much more like the plan of salvation then nothing I’m interested in is uplifting. King Lear
that Mormons are forever talking about: “There is something that makes you think very seriously
was this choice to come; we knew there would be a about all sorts of things and allows you experience
risk; we proceeded with full knowledge that every- the sublime. I define uplifting as coming to a more
one who was to come to the earth would not make complex understanding of the world. What’s
it back.” Agency in this form somehow took prior- uplifting about that for me is that it allows our
ity over enslavement even if it could guarantee one- understanding to move slightly nearer to God’s under-
hundred-percent results. It doesn’t seem to have standing. It’s a tricky thing, in a lot of ways, to try
gone that way with literature in Mormon culture. to work through all these notions, but I really think
Evenson: No, it hasn’t. that one of the big problems is that people fall into
Peterson: D. H. Lawrence saw morality in fic- formulas pretty easily. It’s amazing how easily some-
tion as a function the author’s honesty with his thing like change comes in most Mormon novels.
material. In his essay “Morality and the Novel,” he It’s also amazing how predictable the change is.
says that “morality in the novel is the trembling I see that as objectionable. If we have a cardboard
instability of the balance [of the world at large and notion of what grace is, we get cardboard grace.
the author’s predispositions]. When the novelist Change occurs very seldom, quite frankly. Clearly
puts his thumb in the scale, to pull down the bal- I’m a nihilist and a pessimist when it comes to that.
ance to his own predilection, that is immorality.” Peterson: Let’s see how your inner nihilist
Have Mormon novelists, Mormon writers, been responds to this: In 2 Nephi 28:20–21 we read that
guilty of tipping the scale in our representations of in the latter days, Satan shall “rage in the hearts of
ourselves and in our representations of those who the children of men, and stir them up to anger
are not members of the Church? against that which is good. And others will he
Evenson: What Lawrence says there is similar to pacify, and lull them away into carnal security,
what Bakhtin says. You have to have a certain that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion

prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth wrong. In terms of targeting people within the
their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down Church, I guess the thing what needs to be done is
to hell.” Are some Mormon writers guilty of claim- to teach people how to read and expose them to
ing that “all is well in Zion?” new sorts of work. The official publications of the
Evenson: Yeah, I think some of them are. I don’t Church don’t bother to do this—they enforce the
think they all are, but for some, that is certainly norm. You get stories in the official publications
the case. which are exactly the kind thing I’ve been objecting
Peterson: What effect do you think this has on to. How maddening: you have a forum that can
a Mormon audience? reach a good percentage of the Mormon popula-
Evenson: It’s harmful, finally, to claim that all is tion, and you use it in fairly banal ways.
well. I think it’s a larger issue than just Mormon There are magazines like Sunstone that try to
writers. I think we have a whole culture that is con- enlighten readers. Dialogue is something that tries
stantly telling us that “things are rosy; things are to do that as well. Both are mixed and often com-
okay. We have our leaders here, and nothing’s going promise themselves, but both deserve to be repeated.
to go wrong. You don’t have to worry about this; There was Wasatch Review International, also mixed.
you don’t have to think. Have a caffeine-free Coke.” There are several new magazines that seem at least
Peterson: Okay, that said, I’d like to pitch a potentially interesting, though it’s probably too
change-up: do you think there’s room for satire in early to judge them.
the Church? Not from our perspective, but maybe Peterson: What will it take for Mormon litera-
from the Church’s perspective. ture to assume a place in the culture the way that
Evenson: I don’t know; you’d have to ask Irish, Native American, and Jewish literatures have
the Church. since World War II?
Peterson: From your own point of view then. Evenson: A number of things. First, people have
Does Brian Evenson think there’s room for satire? got to stop thinking of Mormon literature as a mis-
Evenson: Sure I do. I’ve written satirical work— sionary tool. I don’t think literature can be a
the “Prophets” story, among other things, about some- missionary tool and still be literature.
one trying to dig up Ezra Taft Benson’s corpse so as Second, I think it is also going to take another
to resurrect him and get him back in charge of the two or three hundred years, because Mormonism is
Church. Yeah, I’d like to think there’s room for relatively new as opposed to those other groups
satire. The Church is an institution, and I think you’ve mentioned. There’s been an Irish identity for
that satire is essential for institutions. It helps them centuries now, Native American cultures as well.
progress. And Jewish literature has been thriving for a long,
Peterson: The problem is, I guess, that Mormon long time. Compared to all three of those cultures
audiences don’t cotton well to satire and irony. In and what they’ve gone through, Mormon “persecu-
fact, this incapacity kind of keeps run-of-the-mill tion” is laughably insignificant. We can’t measure
Mormons from enjoying most real literature. up to the several millennia of persecution that Jews
What’s it going to take, in your estimation, to cre- have gone through.
ate audiences for serious Mormon literature? Third, the Church has got to stop moving toward
Evenson: In any population the percentage of the mainstream. I think that we’re coming closer and
serious readers is going to be relatively small. It’s closer to fading into the general background. As long
hard to get around that. If you wanted to get past as that movement persists, we will have a hard time
that, you’d have to have leaders who were willing to defining a Mormon identity in a way that will be
take much more active roles in encouraging people visible, finally, or interesting. Mormons are losing their
to think, in encouraging people to read good faces. They’re assimilating in a way that will make
books, to go beyond what’s easy. I don’t think that’s their literature no longer unique. If we really are a
ever going to happen, but I’d like to be proven peculiar people, then let’s embrace our peculiarity.

P E R S O N A L shotgun. Firecrackers like that were illegal back in

E S S A Y
the States. We shot them all, except for one dud,
which Mark put in his pocket. Then we walked to
the retaining wall at the shore to go home. We
On Growing Up Tough started to climb, and I was still laughing, still
By Paris Anderson amazed and tickled.
A man with a chrome-plated gun in his hand
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was waiting for us on the other side of the wall. He
sent me there—to Argentina—and still I’m bewil- wore the clothes of an old wino or a river rat. But
dered. Actually, they called my father to be mission his gun looked new and expensive. He motioned
president and sent him. I just went along—too for us to drop to the ground, then spread-eagle
young to be left alone and too young to have an against the wall. We did, and he frisked us. He
opinion. I just went along, and some strange things demanded our guns. Of course, Mark argued, say-
happened while I was there. Some of the things hurt ing we had none, and even took the dud out of his
and left me too scared to even ponder the incident. pocket. The man, who I had concluded was Secret
Some things tore at my soul and showed the unsa- Police, searched us again. Then, sure we were dumb
vory end of the beast we call humanity. I was too kids and not bloody anarchists, he let us go.
scared to wonder then, but now—and for the past Mark whispered as we walked, saying it might
twenty-five years—I have occasionally been able to be wise if we were to stick to busy streets instead of
confront those memories. And occasionally I’ve taking short cuts through vacant fields. Because, he
wondered about the whole thing. I’ve wondered said, it was possible that we would be followed, and
whether it was fair or not; I’ve wondered if it vacant fields are not a good place if you’re being fol-
was all right; I’ve wondered if it was profitable and lowed. And he suggested that we not go directly
if so, how so? home. So we took the long way, and I laughed as
It started out innocently enough—I was an we walked. Having faced a gun and the Secret
American and I played football. There is nothing Police, I was indeed tough.
more innocent and beautiful than an American boy My school, an American school, started soon after
who plays football, except maybe one that is tough, I arrived, and months went by before I found a
like James Dean or Butch Cassidy. Those guys were chance to prove my toughness. One day in a rather
so great—full of mystery and danger. Doing exactly boring class, a popular girl started flirting with me.
as they pleased. A girl whenever they wanted one. Naively I played her game. Someone warned me
I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be tough . . . about her boyfriend, but I was tough, and thinking
and in a beautiful and innocent way, I was. of James Dean I ignored the warning. Later that
But in Argentina, I was introduced to a new day the boyfriend found me and pummeled me. Of
kind of toughness, one that isn’t so innocent and course, I was filled with malice toward the beauti-
beautiful. It was a darker sort of toughness, one ful coquette who played at my expense. Five days
with a purpose. Like the first day in Argentina, later the coquette’s father—Thompson was his
being held at gunpoint. I went down at the river, name—was kidnapped by anti-American terrorists.
Rio de la Plata—which was really a freshwater And I felt vindicated.
bay—with the son of the mission president my Five months went by, and still Thompson had
father was sent to replace. I think Mark was his not been released, though the ransom had been
name. We ran through vacant fields and climbed an paid. The mood at school was very gray. All of my
old wire fence to get there, each with a handful of classmates feared for Thompson. And everyone in
firecrackers. And we walked carefully across mossy the American community felt threatened. But I
rocks to the tide pools. One by one we set them off. knew Thompson would survive. He was American.
They were great—fat as my thumbs and loud as a He too was tough.

But his daughter, the beautiful coquette, wasn’t and uncovered. Mike said he stood around for a
so tough. She collapsed mentally and was sent to a while, but no one came for the flaccid corpses.
“hospital” back in the States. And suddenly the He said he went back to the station toward dusk,
malice in my heart turned to guilt. like a dog returning to its vomit, and the corpses
Thompson was released soon after his daughter were still there. By then they had frozen, and
went to the hospital, and almost half a year passed someone had dragged them into a corner, leaving a
in relative peace, though there were random inci- trail of dry blood. Their stiff eyes were already
dents of chaos. I became a petty hoodlum, riding dusty and sunken. Mike tried to chuckle, but his
the trains without a ticket. At a party one night, the voice was shaky, and his eyes looked like the devil.
kids from school tried to impress each other with Everyone was unnerved by this story. And I, per-
dangerous stories about the trains. My bad friend sonally, was glad to see their uneasiness. It may
from Philly was one of the first to speak. have been perverted, but I took strength from their
He talked about the time we broke into an reaction. It was soothing to see that other tough
abandoned house together. He had been in the people were frightened too. It was comforting to
house before and had discovered several crates of realize they too found this foreign society grotesque
party supplies stored there. We both grabbed as and surreal.
much as we could carry, then bolted. But as we were Of course, everyone already knew this story. Sev-
about to leave, the owner drove up and found us eral other Americans had seen the corpses and had
carrying the booty. He chased us in his car. My bad talked about them at school. Mike and I had dis-
friend recalled that we ran to the tracks when the cussed it well. And, after his third purging night-
barricade was down and had to dart a few meters in mare, together we decided not to break into
front of a speeding train in order to escape. abandoned buildings anymore. It was fun, but we
Everyone chuckled at his story, because it really both knew what happened to criminals.
wasn’t very dangerous at all. At the party that night, I realized I had to be
Another kid and his brother told about waiting tough. I realized I had to rely on my toughness in
by the tracks for a train to pass, and a lady walked order to survive. No more of this Butch Cassidy crap.
into it. Her head popped. Blood splattered on the Around that time, Mike’s father was transferred
older kid’s shoe. Her body was quickly dragged away. back to the States, and I discovered heads among
Everyone was solemn at this. my classmates. I believe that was in my second year.
I finally spoke. I told how I was coming home I discovered that everyone at school was either a
from the center one afternoon, and the train head or a Jesus freak. Fear is so much easier to swal-
stopped about a hundred meters from the station. low when you’re high or when Jesus loves you.
In about twenty minutes the train lurched and They both kind of insulate you into an island in
started rolling slowly. I looked out the window and the tortured sea, completely untouchable.
saw a woman’s forearm and hand draped gracefully For a while I tried to be a Jesus freak. I tried to
over the rocks a few meters from the tracks. Obvi- enjoy reading scriptures. Sometimes it was like a
ously, I said with a hollow ring in my voice, a piece gentle breeze, a holiday from toughness. And I
had been overlooked. tried to enjoy the company and the stories of the
My bad friend spoke again. His face was ashen. missionaries, the good shepherds. Sometimes I
Mike was his name. He spoke in a very solemn thought maybe I wanted to be like them. But other
tone. He said a few months previously he was wait- times I couldn’t help thinking the world was differ-
ing at the station when three young men carrying ent for them. Their American friends were also
bags ran onto the platform. Cops ran after them. shepherds who never saw death, who never knew
The cops started in with their machine guns and fear, whose fathers were never kidnapped. And I
tore the three apart. Blood splattered endlessly. The couldn’t help thinking it was all very unfair. That is
cops just packed up and left, leaving the bodies still when I began to feel uncomfortable at church.

So I forgot religion and turned to drugs. Drugs became too strong. But the American church
were easier, faster, and more certain than religion. workers and their children stayed, whether Mor-
Every time it was like a gentle breeze. Every time it mons, Methodists, or Southern Baptists. They
was a holiday. Every time it felt a little like freedom. stayed, thinking they were making a fine sacrifice
Besides tranquility, drugs gave new friends, and for the Lord, like St. Paul.
with Mike gone that is what I needed most. These I learned to be tough, and that was good,
new friends were several years older and discussed because it prepared me for the day when the world
feelings and problems, rather than comic books caved in. The rolling, boiling, sinister undertow
like my old friends. Their emotions were often very one day came to the surface. And from that day,
deep, and they had to be very tough to compen- everything was blood, everything was fear.
sate—just like me. But sometimes, when these new Walls that once announced upcoming rock con-
friends were high, they went bat shit. certs or endorsed political candidates were painted
Once a Canadian, whose father was with Parker with anti-American slogans. The police began to
Pen, went at his wrists with a broken beer bottle. rub their guns and threaten Americans. It seemed
Another head, an Englishman, had to knock him like every day another American company would
out to stop him. I thought this was funny when I receive a threat. And it seemed that every day a few
heard about it. I even laughed at the Englishman’s more friends would vanish.
broken knuckle. And I quietly accepted the inci- That is when I realized I belonged to the enemy.
dent as a part of being tough. I quietly accepted the That is when I cried, because I never wanted to
notion that it is important to take care of your fight. And that is when I realized I was dirty. I real-
friends even if it hurts. ized the fight and the fear were useless. There was
A few months later the same Englishman fell no hope in it. And no hope would come from it.
asleep with a cigarette burning between his lips. The species was mindless, and I resolved not to
The bed caught on fire, and he was burned pretty participate.
bad—half of his hair was gone. I laughed at that That is when my heart began to plead the
too. I laughed, but I felt dirty. unspeakable words that all saints and martyrs know
And then my friends’ families were transferred, well. That is when my heart began to yearn for that
some to Australia, some to South Africa, some to imperceptible light. That is when my heart con-
Europe. It didn’t matter much where they went. ceived a prayer.
Every place meant away. Every place meant I would Is it any wonder that when sanctuary finally
never see them again. Every place meant something came, I blessed it? It came disguised as an accident,
like death, except there was no body to bury, no a massive head injury that left me in a coma—still
grave to visit. I blessed it. A quiet moment withdrawn within
When the girlfriend of the Canadian with the myself—I blessed it. I was an island, permanently.
wrists was transferred, the Canadian became a Never again would fear touch me.
cause for all the heads. We all spent time with The moment I arrived at the hospital, a nurse
him, hardly left him alone for three days. I accepted cried because I was so young and beautiful and so
this duty as a part of being tough. And I was care- likely to die. The moment I arrived at the hospital,
ful to learn—as the Canadian never did—that I the doctors said morning would never come for
would ultimately be alone. I learned to form only me. They were astonished when a few weeks had
loose bonds that could be easily and painlessly sev- passed and the coma started to wane.
ered. I learned to hold in emotions. I learned to But this strange, unkind thing I called sanctuary
ridicule those I loved. I learned to be tough. And was, in reality, a very dangerous creature. It did give
that was good. me a place to hide, but it demanded a very heavy
Not everyone who left was transferred. Some price. It left my body, mind, and spirit moribund.
received threats. Some ran when the terrorists But even that deathly state had its charm. It meant

for me this insufferable world would never be the and speak like a man with a mouthful of mud. But
same. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be either. the United States had changed. It was no longer the
The slow process of regaining rational thought beautiful and innocent place I remembered. Per-
was the hardest part. I was terrified, like an animal haps it was that I no longer played football. Perhaps
in a cramped cardboard box. There was no way it was the limp and stagger and the mouthful of
for me to tell those mystical beings who wore uni- mud. But something had changed.
forms and hovered around the foot of my bed I didn’t like school anymore. I could hardly
about the horrible pain. Whenever they rocked write. I could barely read. There were times when,
my body or touched my right wrist, shafts of white- walking between classes, I lost my balance and fell.
hot pain rifled through my arm and into my shoul- And even if I was hurt, I had to laugh about it.
der. I couldn’t move to make signs or show them There were times when the jocks and studs beat
where it hurt. me. And even if I laughed about it, it still hurt. But
But time passed, as time always does, and slowly, this pain was different. It was simple, and I could
slowly a small bit of reason came to me. I came to understand it. No one was going to bleed. No one
a vague understanding that I, like those who wore was going to die. And there were times when the
uniforms and hovered—the caregivers—I too was cops arrested me for public intoxication. But they
a human. Time passed, and the caregivers came weren’t Secret Police, and their guns stayed in their
to understand that my swollen arm wasn’t just holsters. It was easy to laugh at them.
sprained. They created a cast and, as if by an act of Those high school years were all humorous—
magic, took away the pain. And I was astonished at bitterly humorous—but is it any wonder the years
their power. I had spent in Argentina became a monster to me?
Time passed, and a large bit of reason came to Is it any wonder the Church, the only reason I even
me. Questions I had never before been forced to went there, also became a monster? A soft monster
consider became paramount in my mind. First I that caused warm feelings to come to my heart, but
confronted the question of my own identity. still a monster. Is it any wonder that my peers—in
Unable to answer that one, I set on the question of fact, most people—also became monsters? All
how I might have arrived at such a place and in monsters I tried to avoid.
such a state. That too was impossible. Colors still In my twenties unpleasant things began to hap-
made sense—they hadn’t changed—and the fine pen. One night a girlfriend came over to my house.
art of spitting. It had become very laborious, but She saw a portrait of me and asked about it. I said
the technique remained the same. Lines of drool it had been done in Argentina a few months before
soon tiger-striped my pillow. my accident. She asked what my house in Argen-
Time passed, and I began to recognize some of tina had been like.
the caregivers. They were my mother and father. I sat for a moment, trying to remember . . . try-
Others were my sisters. Others I didn’t recognize, ing—trying. Then suddenly everything came back,
but I could tell that they looked different from each everything the unkind sanctuary had hidden from
other and even seemed different from each other. easy recollection. The trains, the bodies, the blood,
More time passed, days and nights, and slowly, the guns and threats. Friends who disappeared and
slowly things came back and people came to visit. I gave up for dead. Everything came back—flash-
Slowly, slowly I constructed a past, but it was no backs, they call them—and I started to live those
longer relevant. There was serious work to be done, episodes over and over like a broken record. I saw
and learning to walk and talk is not child’s play. and felt them. From that moment on, those
I did my very best and did remarkably well. unkind memories were always with me, riding me
By the time I returned to the United States, I like a savage horseman.
had learned to limp and stagger about quite well. But this time unkind sanctuary was beyond my
I had learned to scratch words with my left hand reach. The price was too high. I still had a terrible

limp and speech impediment. I still wrote like a worthy. I began to meet people who spoke in a very
monkey. Unkind sanctuary was out of the ques- strange way regarding health. They proposed that
tion. I tried to remember how to be tough. And in spiritual health, emotional health, and physical
my heart I began to sing that long mournful song. health were all very related, and they all affected
I dropped out of school and moved far away, each other. These ideas didn’t make much sense to
never staying still for long, never in one place. The me, but I had never required rational proof before
next five years I spent as a vagabond, laughing at I accepted odd, abstract ideas.
pain and forming only loose bonds that could eas- I started with a regimen of physical exercises that
ily be severed. I became a painful loner and avoided challenged my sense of balance. After a few months
any situation where emotion might be required. of daily repetition, a strange sense came to my
But this time the facade of toughness required body. I noticed a growing degree of respect and dig-
too much strength. There were many times when it nity. There was a warm, comfortable feeling that
slipped or cracked and my terror and impotence seemed a little like . . . love. Strangely, my emotional
showed through. There were many times when the stability was affected as well, and slowly, slowly my
facade slipped and the savage memories rushed in. thoughts became more coherent. It wasn’t long
Finally, a dear friend gave me a hundred dollars before matters of the spirit became more stable.
to go to a doctor. The doctor referred me to a I continued with these exercises and others like
mental health clinic, where I was given medica- them, and in less than a year I was able to leave my
tions. I recognized from the start these medications medication. There appeared a glimmer of hope in
merely covered up the symptoms and left the real every aspect of my life. It occurred to me then that
problems still festering. But the symptoms were the key to my emotional well-being and spiritual
unbearable and at times seemed excruciatingly well-being was the degree of happiness in my phys-
dangerous. And to remove them allowed me to ical body, that warm, comfortable feeling of
walk among people without agonizing terror. respect, dignity, and love.
Self-preservation was no longer a primary concern. As an experiment I went to get a massage to see
This was solace. And I began to hang out with a if that would make my body happy. It did. And
few people. that very day I decided to go to a school that taught
It wasn’t long before I met a brave young woman massage. This made my wife happy. The one I
who was very meticulous in her thoughts. I didn’t chose was in Salt Lake City about fifty miles from
quite understand this quality, but strangely it made my home. I decided to take the bus back and forth.
me feel safe. And my heart stirred as if it recognized One afternoon while I was sitting in my car
a different sort of sanctuary. This brave, young waiting for the bus, a newscast came on the radio
woman made me laugh. With her, everything was about a young man from Pleasant Grove, Utah.
clever and light, and it occurred to me that this The announcer said the night before in Argentina
young woman carried a very strange and beautiful this young man, a missionary, had been shot in the
gift. This young woman was not offended by my head during a holdup.
ghastly stagger and childish scrawl, by my slurred Without thinking I reached forward to snap the
speech and the haunting memories. When she was radio off. Old familiar feelings began to seep back
a girl, this young woman had tied her father’s shoes into my heart. There was a dirtiness to these feeling
every morning and had learned to accept what was. and an old mournful song. Saints and martyrs
And it finally dawned on me that this brave, young came to mind. But when my fingers were only a
woman offered an even stranger type of sanctuary, few inches from the knob, a morbid sense of
one that could restore life. curiosity made me stop and listen.
Soon I married, and strange things began to hap- The announcer continued the story in a pleas-
pen. It was as if God Himself had finally heard the ant and unemotional voice, relating a fragmentary
lonely, mournful song in my heart and judged me account of a late-night holdup. One of the thieves

reached to pull off one missionary’s backpack, and A knife to the groin couldn’t have had more
his gun discharged, shooting the missionary in the impact. That was the same hospital I was in.
head. Argentine authorities had already arrested An overwhelming sense of camaraderie enveloped
one suspect and were searching for two others. As me, and immediately I sat down to write a letter to
for the missionary, he was in a coma in extremely the family, assuring them their son and brother was
critical condition. not traveling uncharted territory and would even-
I snapped the radio off as if greatly annoyed. tually be all right. Wanting to remain anonymous,
My bus rounded a corner in the distance, so I I told them only briefly about my accident and
quickly climbed out of the car and walked to the recovery. I told them about my wife and little boy.
stop. I got on the bus and walked to the back row. I tried to sound quite positive about everything.
I began to chuckle sardonically. The irony of the Several weeks later I received a phone call from
situation was unbearable. Here I was, taking the young man’s mother, thanking me for the let-
the final steps in the horrid journey I started in ter. She sounded very pleasant.
Argentina twenty years earlier. And now there was Several months passed before I felt an urge to
another innocent just beginning the trek. I laughed write again. This time, for some reason I men-
out loud, and I really didn’t mind that the laughter tioned my school and asked if I might have per-
felt barbaric. mission to work on the young man. Three days
Over the next few weeks I turned off the televi- later I received a phone call. The young man’s
sion or radio when stories about this young man mother said the massage therapist who was work-
came on. I skipped over most of the newspaper sto- ing on him at the time was about to go home to
ries. But there were times when my dark curiosity Brazil. She said her son was in a care center nearby
got the better of me, and I sat still long enough to and gave me his room number.
listen. And when the story was over I always felt It was as if God Himself had finally heard the
hostility. It was as if my own curiosity had tricked long, mournful prayer in my heart and knew the
me, forcing me to relive my trauma in a small way. only way to satisfy it.
But a curious thing happened after I had been No . . . I guess not everything was right. And
hammered with the story a few times. The Cana- no . . . I guess not everything was fair. And I guess
dian with the wrists came to mind. I remembered I’ll never know if that experience was profitable in
how he became a cause for all the heads. I remem- any way. Sometimes I wonder if everything I’ve lost
bered that we hardly left him alone for three days. or missed out on, because my father chose to do
I remembered that it is important to take care of what he firmly believed was right, will be restored
friends even if it hurts—I had accepted this duty. to me tenfold, like they were to Job. I don’t think
Several months passed, and still I tried to forget so. Job was a righteous man, and he was meek. I’m
about the American missionary who was shot in a tough old bird, and I’ll tear your throat out if you
the head in Argentina. Several months went by, and cross me. I don’t think favors are coming to me . . .
I busied myself studying anatomy and memorizing not from anywhere.
Greek and Latin terms. I almost forgot about the
urges I had felt.
Then one morning I noticed a newspaper article
about the young missionary. I sat to read it. Most
of the details it gave were already familiar and
therefore safe. But it added information about a
man who had donated the use of a jet to bring him
back to the United States. Then, almost as an after
note, the article said he was being treated in the
British Hospital in Buenos Aires.

S T O R Y “Just let it go, Flynn,” his wife said from the

other room.
The Darlington Girls “We’ve got a gang breaking up here, Artelle.
I can’t give in without a fight.”
By Darin Cozzens Flynn looked at Gayla. The ticking of the mantle
clock punctuated the sound of children playing in
Exactly when—and why—the boys stopped the backyard. He reached to touch her big toe,
coming by, which Sunday afternoon they didn’t paused, withdrew his hand.
show for Chinese checkers and popcorn, Flynn “Maybe next week?”
Darlington did not note with any alarm. The Gayla shrugged.
friends of his two younger daughters still came to “I make awful good fudge,” he said.
play Ping-Pong and tag, roast hot dogs in the
orchard, stir apricot jam and apple butter in season, Even though Flynn Darlington taught history
look through the telescope at night. and social studies at Rigby Junior High School, he
“Where’s Russell these days?” he asked Gayla, his felt in his heart like a pioneer farmer. As heir to the
second oldest, one afternoon in the late fall of her homestead his forebears grubbed out of sagebrush,
sixteenth year. “I haven’t seen him in a while.” as the only son of Rigby’s first mayor, Flynn con-
In fact, Russell had slipped away from a tug-of- sidered it his mission in life to perpetuate, if not the
war on the Sunday evening before Marcene left for Darlington name, at least the industry and fond
college in August and hadn’t been back since. simplicities of his own upbringing. Thus, in his
“What kind of neighborhood gang is this?” rental agreement with the neighbor dairyman,
Flynn said. “Where’s Bart and that cousin of his? Mort Jacobson, Flynn kept back thirty acres—plus
Where’s old Ruth-less?” the orchard—to tend himself. And he pastured
“Nobody calls her that anymore,” Gayla said. over a dozen cattle on the same willow bog he had
With a book in one hand, she half-sat, half-lay on trailed his father’s Holsteins over as a boy.
the sofa, her bare feet resting on one of its arms. From Marcene on down, Flynn’s daughters
“I do. Buzz them on the horn. We’ll get up a hauled hay, hoed corn, picked apples, cherries,
game of kick-the-can. Junie’s got half a dozen kids green beans. They raised pigs and lambs for 4-H,
out back right now.” showed their animals at the fair. They sewed and
“Junie’s eight years old, Daddy.” cooked, knitted and canned. They watched no tele-
“So what? Fun’s fun!” Flynn tickled her soles. vision, read compulsively, almost never balked at
“You and DeeBeth—she’s around here some- another practice session on their various musical
where—you guys choose sides. That little tomboy instruments. At school, they took difficult classes,
out there will give you a run for your money. I’ll studied diligently, received high marks. Between
make fudge.” the four of them, they participated in band, speech,
“Why don’t you go? Beth doesn’t want to play clubs, sports. They were kind, cheerful, well-man-
kick-the-can with Junie’s friends. And neither nered. Inevitably they were chosen as leaders of
do I.” their church classes, earned their Young Women of
“Russell might take a little coaxing—he’s more a Destiny awards almost as soon as they were eligible.
chess man—but Bart will come running if you No one in Rigby, no classmate in high school,
promise him fudge.” Flynn tickled her feet again. could have disputed the caliber of the Darlington
“Call them. The day’s wasting.” girls. But not once in all the scores of Friday and
“I can’t call them, Daddy.” Saturday nights during their later adolescence did a
“Oh, come on, sweetie. Don’t be such a gloomy boy come to the Darlington house to call on them.
gopher.” No boys waited for them between classes at school,
Gayla rolled her eyes. mustered courage to exchange banalities by their

lockers, offered them rides home. Not once did a Like Marcene, Gayla left home without ever
male caller on the telephone wish to do anything having been asked on a date. And things did not
more than remind Marcene of the youth picnic or change at college. Witnessing the pattern a second
reaffirm Gayla’s pledge to supply brownies for a time, Flynn Darlington could no longer miss the
French Club party. implications. He began to believe that, without
When Junie answered the phone on such occa- some intervention, the pattern might hold indefi-
sions, she yelled, “Marcie, it’s Prince Charming!” or nitely. He prayed, as he had never prayed before,
“Gayla, it’s your true love!” that his daughters might find worthy men. He
Who? prayed someone would recognize the great worth
The older sisters and the parents dropped their he saw in them.
books or flipped off soft stereo music, grew absurdly And he took measures.
nervous, held their breaths. When he and his wife moved DeeBeth into the
What does he want? What did he say? dormitory in Provo for her first year of college, he
Junie said she couldn’t catch all of it, paused, counseled her strongly against staying in her room
then added solemnly, “But I think he wants your like a recluse.
hand in holy matrimony.” “At college things are different,” he said. His
Only Flynn found this as funny as she did. words echoed other Septembers and other assur-
Freckle-faced, bob-haired Junette Louise, named ances, but now they were marked by a tone of dark
after Flynn’s grandmother. Born years after he consequentiality. “People are a lot more likely to see
thought his quiver was full, she was going to you for who you are.” He clasped her hands in his,
sweeten his old age, he often said. Yet by the time tears welling in his eyes. “But, sweetie, you got to
she reached puberty, Flynn felt, for the first time, get out and meet them, make yourself known.” He
vaguely reluctant to shepherd a daughter through hugged her to him. “I want you to study hard, but
this season of her maturation. I want you to have some fun, too—meet some nice
“My teeth are straight enough,” the child Junie kids . . . some boys, go on a few dates.”
had said, when the cosmetic expenses of her Artelle patted his arm, tried to ease the intensity
teenage sisters began to bear down on Flynn. “And of his tone with the artificial playfulness of hers.
I don’t have a hairy clump on my cheek.” “For heaven’s sake, Flynn, let her get settled first.
She was referring to the braces the two oldest There’ll be plenty of time for all that.”
girls wore and DeeBeth’s cauterized facial mole. But Flynn did not relax his embrace, kept his
After her one visit to the dermatologist’s office, eyes closed tight against his tears. “There’s bound
DeeBeth began to brood about another half-dozen to be some nice fellows at this college,” he said.
small moles between her shoulder blades and two “Some really nice fellows.”
big ones located well below the modest necklines
Flynn enforced. When people spoke of the Darlington girls, they
“Just quit your worrying,” Artelle said. “Until always qualified their judgments and predictions by
you’re married you don’t want anybody bothered or saying, “But they certainly are musically inclined.
unbothered seeing that sort of thing.” You have to give them that.” And they were right.
“When you all get hitched up,” Flynn said, “I’m It was a rare sacrament service—or harvest supper
going to send your hubbies the bills for your pretty, or talent night—that didn’t feature their flutes and
straight teeth and smooth skin.” violas accompanied by Artelle on the piano, their
“Moles are so ugly,” DeeBeth said. singing as a group. Hardly a week passed without
“Your husband will love you,” Flynn said, “moles an invitation to entertain at someone’s wedding
and all. That’s part of the deal.” reception. Flynn often joked, as he announced yet
“Will mine love me?” Junie asked. another of their musical selections, that he got a
“As long as he likes freckles,” Flynn said. little tired of his tenor being so far outnumbered.

For years after Marcene left home, the Darling- manager at an Albertson’s grocery store in Brig-
tons still sang in holiday sacrament meetings when ham City.
they were all together—though Flynn felt more One of the first letters she wrote to Gayla in Ver-
and more conspicuous in front of the congregation. acrúz mentioned the guy she had met the week
Now when he announced their numbers, he felt before at a singles devotional in Ogden. Then she
obligated to say something about the boyfriends ran into him at a dance in Bountiful.
and fiancés and husbands his daughters didn’t have. We’ll see what happens, DeeBeth wrote at the end
He said, “One of these days we won’t all be able to of her letter. I think we’re “just friends” as of now, but
fit up here.” He said, “We really do need some you know Daddy.
more male voices in this choir.” The news, when DeeBeth finally dared to break
In time, he passed on his announcing duties to it, delighted and agitated Flynn.
Artelle or Gayla or whoever would agree to the “Clair? Clair what? Maybe he’s got relatives close.”
arrangement, while he stood behind the rest. Grad- “Blair, Daddy. His name is Blair.”
ually he stopped joining them altogether and “I like Clair better,” Junie said. “It sounds more
simply sat watching in a back pew. Whereas his masculine.”
daughters’ music had once enthralled him, he now “A name has nothing to do with masculinity,”
found himself easily distracted by young couples Flynn said. “He could be named Suzie Q. No sir—
holding hands, the light caressing of fingers up and a name doesn’t make one iota of difference. That’s
down an arm, across wide shoulders, the gentle not what matters in the least.”
grasping of a knee, a new mother cradling her fuss- “He is a boy, isn’t he?” Junie asked.
ing baby through the chapel exit on her way to Another dance and devotional came and went,
calm and nurse. and DeeBeth saw nothing of Blair. Then one Sun-
By the time Junie turned sixteen and, like the day she happened to attend church with a cousin in
three older sisters, got her own book on dating eti- Preston, ran into him in the foyer, and invited him
quette and the All about Chastity pamphlet, to come visit in Rigby. He said his family reunion
Marcene had earned a second degree and worked in was right up the road in Rexburg the next weekend
the business office of a junior college in Spokane. and he was heading that way as soon as he got off
She didn’t come home very often. Nor did Gayla. work Friday.
Even though she was student teaching only ten But that was all he said.
miles away in Lorenzo—and debating a mission— Flynn was giddy. Artelle planned roast beef and
she drove to a singles ward in Idaho Falls for sacra- gravy, fruit salad in whipped cream, cherry cobbler.
ment meeting, said she didn’t want all the looks The whole next week she and Junie swept, vacu-
and questions from hometown people wondering umed, mopped, rearranged furniture. Flynn
what she was doing, why she wasn’t married. painted the porch, said even without a swing it had
“Oh, nobody thinks about it that way,” Flynn to look presentable.
said. “This is the twentieth century.” On Friday evening, the Darlingtons delayed their
“You want a bet?” Gayla said. dinner. Despite several squeezings of lemon juice,
“Well, I don’t think about it that way.” the apple chunks in Artelle’s fruit salad were discol-
By the time Gayla decided to send in her mis- oring slightly, and the roast grew drier by the minute.
sion papers, she had taught three years in Salmon “Maybe he got off late,” Flynn said. “I know
and assured DeeBeth there were more eligible guys how bosses are. I’ve been there. I drove plenty of
on Mars. late nights just to see your mother.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Flynn said. “I’m from Idaho, “He’s not coming, Daddy,” DeeBeth said.
aren’t I?” “It won’t hurt to save him a plate. This is good
Still, DeeBeth confined her own job hunt to grub we’ve got here. It would hit the spot after a
northern Utah and was hired as an evening few hours driving all by yourself, nothing but chips

and junk along the way. That gets awful old quick. eagerness to give the boy a chance turned to disgust
You bet it does.” Flynn paused, groped for words. when Kip shared with all of them his mission presi-
“Old Blair-Clair may surprise us yet.” dent’s warning that some elders should marry as
For the twentieth time, Artelle looked in the soon as possible upon returning home. Two weeks
oven, prodded the meat with a long fork. “This after he tried to kiss Junie on the neck, he proposed
roast has about had it,” she said, straightening. She marriage to an eighteen-year-old from Jerome.
pulled off her oven mitt, tossed it in the serving She accepted.
dish beside green beans simmered to a point of
shriveling. Shortly into Junie’s fourth year of teaching high
“Dry roast won’t kill anybody,” Flynn said. school music in Pocatello, just before the Rigby
“But I might die of starvation,” Junie said. “That’s School District dismissed classes for the weeklong
going to be the only surprise you’ll get tonight.” potato harvest vacation, an unseasonably heavy
“I just hate a ruined meal,” Artelle said. rain fell and found a multitude of leaks in the roof
“It won’t hurt to save him a plate.” of the Darlingtons’ old house.
“That was going to be such a lovely roast.” “Can’t we tar them,” Artelle asked, “and get by?
“I really am going to die if we don’t eat something.” We’ve got the holidays in two months; the girls are
“Cherry cobbler is twice as good hot. That’s coming; we’ll be busy. The bishop’s daughter is get-
what melts the ice cream.” ting married. You know—Wendy—a year or so
“Oh, hold your horses. What’s the big toot?” behind Junie in school? She wants us to sing.”
“He’s not coming, Daddy.” They sat at the old dinner table eating ice cream.
One wall of the dining room served as a gallery for
Though Flynn Darlington was as impartial a photographs of progenitors, cousins, nieces and
father as ever lived, in time he could not resist the nephews with their spouses and ever-multiplying
observation that, of all his daughters, Junie came numbers of children, and, under them all, large
closest to being blessed with what can only be studio portraits of Marcene, Gayla, DeeBeth, Junie.
called attractiveness. Nevertheless, she had attracted “We’ve been getting by now for ten years,”
hardly any more attention from young men than Flynn said.
the older Darlington girls, who had attracted next “What in the world will it cost?”
to none. And what dating experience she had was “It’ll be my present to you.”
dubious—an arranged escort for her senior prom, a She dismissed the idea with a flick of her hand.
movie with two married couples and someone’s vis- “And who’s going to help you? You got money for
iting nephew, an awkward dinner alone with the that, too?”
friend of a friend’s fiancé. “Junie’s going to be home that weekend,” he
At home for the summer after her first year said. “With her helping, I could have a new roof on
teaching music in one of Pocatello’s high schools, in no time.”
she endured a brief frenzy of interest from a guy “Maybe Junie’s got other things planned.”
just back from his mission in Tonga. His name was He held his spoon suddenly motionless, looked
Kip, and although some at church felt a Darlington at her. “Like what? Tell me what Junie has planned.
girl had better take what she could get, he was, by I’d like to know.”
family consensus, not worthy of Junie. He came Artelle spoke softly. “She’s got her own life, Flynn.”
uninvited at suppertime and ate like a horse, “What kind of life is living alone in an apart-
offered no plans for work or schooling, spent his ment in Pocatello?”
days, as near as they could tell, sleeping and watch- “A lot of girls—married and changing diapers—
ing television. Only where libido was concerned would trade places with her in a minute, would
did he show any ambition at all. Even Flynn’s love to have the chances she’s had. Studied in Europe,

flew to Hawaii last summer, goes where she wants, drove away in the Rambler with a promise to begin
drives a nice car, has a good job, a principal singing work early the next day. They never heard from
her praises all the time.” him again.
The list expended her breath. Two days passed with no other calls, and Artelle
He nodded listlessly. suggested they give up and wait until Christmas—
“She has a good time. Life is full for her.” or even until spring. After another two days, with
“Well, we say that,” Flynn said, “because what his week of vacation upon him, Flynn was ready to
else can we say?” go along with her.
The enthusiasm of enumerating her daughter’s Then, on Monday morning, a faded white
achievements suddenly deserted Artelle. “She can’t Chevy van pulled into the drive. It had no cargo
be holding her breath, Flynn Darlington, for some- rack, but an extension ladder was lashed to the roof
thing that’ll happen in its own sweet course. You with at least a dozen rubber tie-downs hooked on
can’t pressure these things.” edges and corners and on the frames of both side
“Pressure or not, I know the Lord wants Junie mirrors. Before the driver could even open his
married.” door, he had to reach through his window to
“And he wants our others single?” unhook several of the straps.
“No. No. That’s not what I mean at all. I mean, For a long time after he got out, this driver stood
if he wants her married—and I know he does— beside the van, surveyed the orchard, the barn and
there must be a guy out there for her. No more shed, the old house, adjusted and readjusted the
Clairs and Blairs and Kips and Dips. I mean some- cap on his head. Standing on the porch, Flynn
body who’s right for her.” waited anxiously for the gaze to sweep his way.
Artelle patted his hand, bit her lower lip. Finally, the young man strode forward,
“Hadn’t you better leave such judgment to Junie?” approached the bottom of the porch steps, swal-
lowed hard.
There were a couple of roofing contractors in “Lyle Brimhall—here for the ad.”
Rigby and some big outfits in Idaho Falls, but Even that much disclosure seemed to tax him.
Flynn disliked the idea of a six-man crew tromping His face and throat contorted slightly when he
on his aged rafters and hour upon hour of unbro- spoke, as if the utterance of words caused him some
ken racket from shingle guns, compressor motors, minor inexplicable anguish.
pneumatic slaps. “The roof? Oh yeah, you bet!” Flynn hurried
So he placed an ad in the Rigby newspaper: down the steps, grasped his hand and shook vigor-
Roofing help needed. The first afternoon it ran, ously, held it as he mused. “Brimhall, Brimhall,
someone called, said he didn’t know much about Brimhall.”
roofing but if he didn’t take this job, his father-in- Lyle Brimhall’s eyes grew wide, and he pulled his
law was going to get him on at the landfill. Flynn hand free.
invited the boy to come by, but he never showed. Flynn snapped his fingers. “Over by Bear Lake.
Two days later an old Rambler station wagon Sure. A whole clan of Brimhalls—stayed behind when
pulled up to the house. The grizzled driver claimed the others crossed the mountain to Star Valley.”
he was a war veteran and had looked in vain for Lyle Brimhall appeared grave and perplexed. As
work all the way north from Texas. Flynn felt com- he summoned another charge of courage to speak,
passion, promised him a week’s decent labor, his breathing and blinking grew erratic. “I don’t
showed him the roof, tools, several pallets of new know anything about that,” he said. “I’m from up
shingles waiting in the shed, and finally asked him in Orofino.”
to stay for supper. The veteran ate heartily around “Moscow!” Flynn said. “No kidding. My wife’s
the telling of many war and hard-work stories, got an Aunt Velva lives up there. Velva Croft.”
stayed late, bid Flynn and Artelle a good night, and The young man’s face remained sober.

“Her husband’s name was Ames Croft. Lots of and stepped slowly and solidly along its length, as
Crofts in the Church up there. You’re Mormon, if testing the collective strength of the rafters.
aren’t you?” A slight quivering vibrated up through Flynn’s
Though the gesture was all but imperceptible, ankles and legs. “Maybe start on the east side?” he
Lyle Brimhall managed to nod. ventured. “Catch the sun?”
“My heck,” Flynn said, “you’ve probably got The handyman reached the end of the ridge and
family everywhere.” started down the east slope.
There was no response. “It’s up to you,” Flynn said to the back of his
Flynn sighed. “Don’t mind me. I may talk your head just as it dropped out of sight.
leg off, but I know how to hit a lick, too.” He By the time Flynn toed his way up the west
reached to pat Lyle Brimhall’s shoulder, a move- slope, Lyle Brimhall was already clawing up shin-
ment the young man watched with the eyes of a gles, folding them over to expose bubbled tarpaper
horse about to bolt. and still-shiny tongue-and-groove roofing.
“I’m sure glad to see you,” Flynn said. “This roof After a few minutes with the hammer, Lyle
has about had it. You just don’t know how glad Brimhall grabbed his shovel. With short thrusts, he
I am.” wedged the blade between shingles and wood, in
It was hot for late September, and when Lyle the same motion pried up tacks and peeled the
Brimhall next came from his van, he had shed sev- dark asbestos underside from the boards.
eral layers of sweatshirts and was down to a long- “My heck,” Flynn said. “That’s something else.”
sleeved, out-of-fashion velveteen pullover. Around He held his own hammer limply at his side. “I’m
his thin waist he wore a tool belt with a hammer glad you came along, Mr. Lyle Brimhall.” He
hanging from its leather loop. With one hand he laughed. “After the roof, I’ve got about a hundred
lugged the extension ladder; in the other he carried other projects you could do on this old place.”
a square shovel and five-gallon water jug. He For just an instant, Lyle Brimhall paused and
strained against the unbalanced load. The hammer looked Flynn’s way.
handle banged his knee every step. “Your parents raised a good worker,” Flynn said,
“Good heavens,” Flynn said, rushing to him. stooping to tear a scrap of tarpaper from a still-
“Let a fellow give you a hand.” embedded tack. He folded and rubbed and rolled
With Flynn half-trotting beside him, Lyle the scrap until his fingers grew black with tar gum.
Brimhall limp-stepped faster and faster, went “You staying with somebody around here? Been on
another forty feet—his knee suffering the whole a mission? Shoot, you’re probably married.”
way—before finally passing off the shovel. The shovel, in its thrusting and wedging, broke
Once atop the roof, they surveyed the expanse rhythm momentarily, and Lyle Brimhall’s face
of weathered asbestos shingles, aged tar daubings, assumed a strange expression, a hybrid of grimace
the thick sparrow droppings in a gable recess and smile.
formed when the utility room was built on thirty “Not hardly,” he said with a snort.
years before.
Flynn watched Lyle Brimhall’s face for any sign By noon the roof ’s east side was laid bare, the
of reluctance or hesitation, but the handyman stud- old shingles piled on the lawn below. From the
ied impassively, working his jaw, Flynn decided, in moment he began, Lyle Brimhall worked steadily,
rhythm with his mental calculations. carefully, settled into a pattern of prying up a
“Maybe go at her one section at a time?” Flynn course of old shingles parallel to the roof ’s ridge,
said. “I’d hate to lay her bare and have a storm then coming back to gather and slide them in
come up.” rough piles to the same drop-off point.
In boots that looked too big for his body, Lyle Flynn admired the fluidity of his movements, the
Brimhall climbed to the main ridge, straddled it, doggedness of his shovel. Often he found himself

distracted from his own work—which consisted sons. As the boys married, they brought their wives
mostly of pulling missed tacks, keeping the way home, built new brick houses on their father’s land,
clear for the handyman, channeling stray bits of took their place in a farming operation that seemed
broken shingle to the roof ’s edge. Though Lyle capable of supporting an infinite number of Jacob-
Brimhall never ventured conversation and more or sons. For their part, the boys seemed eager to test
less ignored everything but the work before him, he that very possibility, siring offspring faster than
seemed even-tempered—not to mention humble, Flynn could keep up with them. Already his junior
industrious, unassuming. Though he was not high history and social studies classes were filling
handsome (once, when the cap came off briefly, a with Mort’s grandchildren. In every way, the Jacob-
balding pate glistened in the sun), he was healthy, sons were fertile, robust, proficient, prolific. They
vigorous. Looks meant nothing. Some of the were so successful Flynn usually found them and
longest-lived, healthiest men Flynn knew were tall their successful farm mildly annoying.
and lanky, kept their own teeth—no bridges, fill- But not on this day. Not with Lyle Brimhall and
ings, plates—well into their eighties, had posterity his good work standing with Flynn against the tide
running out their ears. of Jacobson vitality. Sitting atop the roof with a
True, lanky Lyle Brimhall had to bend his body bologna and tomato sandwich in one hand and
nearly in half, at hard angles to the roof ’s slope, just a can of Nesbitt orange in the other, Flynn felt
to work the shovel. And when he knelt or sat to pry exhilarated, exuberant, hopeful.
up shingles, his joints, unpadded by flesh or fat, “Does wiriness run in your genes?” he asked
seemed to grind into the grit of the asbestos. Yet Lyle Brimhall.
aside from occasionally rubbing a knobby knee or The faintest flicker of surprise interrupted Lyle
stretching with a fist pressed to the small of his Brimhall’s chewing of Vienna Sausages and crack-
back, he never registered discomfort or fatigue. Even ers. His Adam’s apple bobbed deeply with a labored
when the breeze shifted and carried to the rooftop swallow, and finally he said, “I suppose.”
a prolonged whiff of Mort Jacobson’s corrals and “Mine, too,” Flynn said. “It’s funny how hered-
silage pit, the handyman hardly twitched a nostril. ity works.”
Once, in fact, Flynn thought he heard hum- The handyman chewed steadily, swallowed again,
ming. The sound was faint, easily drowned out by compressed another sausage between crackers, took
the raspy scraping of the shovel, the clear diesel another bite, began the chewing process all over.
throb of the loader tractor and silage wagon after “A couple of my daughters—same thing. It’s
the Jacobsons’ morning milking, the constant heredity, I tell you.”
steam hiss from the potato processing plant a mile As he ate, Lyle Brimhall looked toward the wide
down the highway. Tuneless and erratic, but it was valley stretching away from the house. Flynn could
humming. not see his eyes, could not read the brows, the nar-
When the handyman refused Artelle’s invitation row, sharply ridged face.
to eat lunch in the house, Flynn hurried down the “Take my Junie, for instance—she’s the baby,
ladder for a sandwich, drink, apple, and cookie, teaches school over in Pocatello. She can catch a
then carried the food back up so he could catch sour note a mile away. The girl just plain has an
Lyle Brimhall in a rare moment of relaxation. instinct for harmony.” He laughed, addressed his
The day was brilliant. High atop the roof, Flynn own sandwich. “Heaven knows, she gets that from
could make out the topography of the Snake River her mother.”
Valley, could place the Darlington homestead among With the sausages finished, Lyle Brimhall held
all the other pioneer homesteads in the basin. the little aluminum can to his lips, tapped it to dis-
On any other day, the Jacobsons’ big dairy oper- lodge every last bit of packing jelly, every drop of
ation, seen from such a vantage point, would have yellowish broth. Then he reached into his cooler
intimidated Flynn. Of Mort’s nine children, six were and brought out a sizable portion of something in

wax paper. Carefully he folded the wrap away from These three days working on the roof with Lyle
a wedge of chocolate cake and licked frosting Brimhall had been glorious. Side by side with a
from the paper. strong, able, clean-mannered young man, Flynn
“Somebody knows how to make a cake,” felt invigorated in a new way. He was fond of
Flynn said. teaching, enjoyed tending the homestead, going to
This time Lyle Brimhall actually nodded. His church, taking Artelle once a month to Idaho Falls
licking left dark streaks on the glossy wax. for a temple session and dinner. But on the after-
“It’s a rare woman who’ll tackle one from scratch noon he and Lyle Brimhall drove to Ace Rentals for
anymore.” Flynn stared at the finger imprints in his scaffolding, everything in his life, in his under-
sandwich. “That’s one thing my wife has taught our standing of the world, became full with new possi-
girls. They can cook, every one of them.” He ven- bilities. Waiting their turn before the nicked and
tured a glance at Lyle Brimhall. “I don’t know. Bak- stained presswood counter in the lobby of Ace
ing good chocolate cakes might be hereditary, too.” Rentals, drawing in the odors of power tools and
In two more bites, two more fastidious lickings machinery fluids, Flynn felt the eyes on him, noted
for crumbs, a final tonguing of the wax paper, the the second glances, the subtle curiosity as the other
cake would be gone. customers sized up Lyle Brimhall. The weight of
“Heck,” Flynn said, “you probably made it your- the moment seemed to distill on Flynn, pointing
self. Someone as handy as you wouldn’t be buf- toward something momentous.
faloed by a chocolate cake.” When their turn at the counter came, he con-
Lyle Brimhall looked up, initiated another of his sulted Lyle Brimhall for the third time—easily,
swallows—head inclined, neck slightly strained, offhandedly—about how much scaffolding they
Adam’s apple bobbing, collarbone swelling upward— would need. Of course the handyman said nothing,
then managed his version of a guffaw. only nodded when Flynn happened upon a likely
“Not me,” he said. “Without my roommate’s number. Flynn paid the rental fee, signed the lia-
mom, I’d never have any dessert at all.” bility form, waited contentedly while Lyle Brimhall
bent over an old candy machine and cranked a dime’s
At dusk on the third day, the autumn twilight worth of chocolate-covered peanuts into a long
shone handsomely on bright flashing, course after palm. Back outside, he steered his pickup through
course of new shingle tabs, softened the steep a gate into the Ace Rentals storage yard, held the
angles of the house, the corners of the brick chim- brake and clutch patiently as a forklift lowered scaf-
ney. In three days, they had nearly finished the folding end-frames and a bundle of cross-bracing
entire roof. Even on the steepest slope over the util- into the bed.
ity room, despite having to rent scaffolding, the “Whoee!” Flynn blurted, when they were on the
work went much faster than Flynn expected. No main highway again, heading back to the Darling-
rain, no wind, no frost. ton homestead. “What a day to be alive.” He pat-
“You silly man,” Artelle had said at breakfast that ted the fissured dashboard several times, smiled
morning. “Here your roof is all but done, and finally at Lyle Brimhall, at the way he ate his hand-
you’re acting half mopey.” ful of chocolate-covered peanuts frugally, one by
He wanted to tell her, to share his new hope with one, popping them into his mouth at long inter-
her—and his worry that a glorious possibility was vals. “It’s hard to beat fall in Idaho.”
going to slip away unless he acted. But after so The only acknowledgment the handyman granted
many Christmases and New Years and Valentine’s was to meet Flynn’s eyes, to quicken the pace of his
Days, several dozen graduation and back-to-school chewing for a moment before turning to stare at
socials, after so many hopes and possibilities that the acres and acres of potato fields rolling by.
came to nothing, he could not now rightly expect And now after erecting, using, dismantling, and
anything in her but doubt. returning the scaffolding, after crowning the final

ridges with shingles, after three full days on the to join them at the table for breakfast or lunch, he
roof with Lyle Brimhall, Flynn was oppressed had stepped onto the porch first thing yesterday for
by only one thought: even allowing for every pos- a cinnamon roll, and, this morning, after some
sible last touch and precaution on the roof, for coaxing, into the utility room to eat one of Artelle’s
hauling the old shingles to the dump, he and Lyle bacon-and-egg sandwiches.
Brimhall would finish the job the next morning— The 5:30 whistle blew at the potato plant, its
Thursday—and Junie wasn’t due home until Friday shrillness muted by the distance. The moment was
afternoon. upon them.
But just at the point of a vague and urgent des- “Listen,” Flynn said. “Why don’t you stay for
peration, Flynn again took measures. supper. We can settle up after we’ve had a good
Though the Darlingtons’ pasture fence bordered meal. I talked to my wife. She’s all for it—put a
an alkali bottom that never in thirty years had nice roast in right after noon. Potatoes, carrots,
tempted a cow to stray, its rotted posts and loose salad, the whole works.”
wire had begun, in the past few days, to bother The invitation floated, came to rest, incubated
Flynn. He worried that a roofer wouldn’t want to for a full minute or two.
dig postholes in swamp mud or fool with rusty wire Lyle Brimhall scratched under his chin, twisted
and briars. Yet when he followed him to his van his head as if to relieve a kink in a neck ligament,
that evening and proposed the new work, the gritted his teeth in sober contemplation.
handyman nodded without hesitation, seemed, in Flynn busied himself retrieving the crowbar, post
his own way, grateful. Only then did Flynn relax pounder, wire stretcher, wanted to look and sound
his grip on the van’s side mirror. and feel nonchalant. But his heart and veins
“I’ve tried to keep it to myself,” Flynn told his pounded with hope and conviction.
wife that night. “But this is more than just coinci- Finally, Lyle Brimhall ceased his scratching and
dence, Artelle.” He clenched a fist and pounded it neck contortions. “I suppose so,” he said. “If it’s
into his open palm. “He’s going to be here, and Junie’s not a bother.”
going to be here. Can you call that a coincidence?” If not for considerable restraint, Flynn Darling-
Artelle bit her lower lip, looked skeptical and ton would have flung himself at the handyman and
encouraged at the same time. “Shouldn’t we call embraced him.
Junie and let her in on this coincidence?” “Don’t be silly,” he said in a tone of mock chas-
“No, no,” Flynn said, waving his hands in tisement. “You better know we’d love to have you.”
protest. “She’s likely to stay in Pocatello, avoid the With the approach of dusk came a chill breeze
whole deal.” He paused a long moment, and when that prompted Flynn to roll up his window as he
he next spoke his eyes shone with a radiance of drove the pasture road back toward the orchard.
hope and faith. “No, the less we say, the better. If The fading day and cooling air, the ride along the
this is meant to be, all we need to do is let nature pasture road, the reticence of Lyle Brimhall,
take its course.” the lulling drone of potato combines in distant
fields—these brought to his mind a host of images
By quitting time on Friday the pasture fence had so sharp and unexpected they evoked tears. Flynn
new brace posts and freshly stretched barbed wire. wiped his eyes, forced himself to chat about the
“It looks wonderful,” Flynn said. “You’ve done roof, the fence, the changing weather, when he
wonders for me, Mr. Lyle Brimhall.” badly wanted to talk about other things: apple
The handyman shrugged. Although he was as picking, hayrides, capture-the-flag played between
reticent as ever and his smiles scarce, Flynn sensed pasture dikes, softball with bucket-lid bases, bon-
a trust between them, something of a growing fires of windfall branches and weathered boards
bond. Though Lyle Brimhall had thus far refused from a torn-down milking shed, the innocent play

of girls and boys. Once upon a day and night, once Lyle Brimhall mounted each step as if approach-
upon a spring and summer, it had all happened ing a precipice.
here on the Darlington homestead. “Come on,” Flynn said, opening the screen
“A hot meal will taste good,” Flynn said as they door, gazing expansively at the painted porch,
cleared the orchard, curved around the barn, and Junie’s car starkly new and shiny in front of the old
headed toward the house. truck, the aged trees of the orchard burdened with
Lyle Brimhall shifted slightly in his seat, flexed deadwood, smelling of overripe apples. As Flynn
his arms against his knees. pushed open the inner door, the sound of a Mix-
Rounding the pump house, they both saw master flooded from the kitchen. Again and again
Junie’s car. the beaters raked the thick glass of the mixing
Artelle had warned him: Treat the whole thing bowl. Artelle always whipped the cream for her
normal, casual, run-of-the-mill. Don’t make a big fruit salad in the same bowl, a wedding gift from
deal out of this, Flynn. Don’t get your hopes up. Flynn’s mother.
Normal? Run-of-the-mill? Flynn wanted to Suddenly, the Mixmaster stopped. The kitchen,
shout for joy. the whole house smelled good.
“That’s my daughter’s car,” he said, pointing as Lyle Brimhall reached the porch deck, stepped
he coasted his old truck to a stop. “Junie—the one across it in his boots just as he had stepped along
I told you about.” The mask of casualness slipped. the roof ridge that first morning, testing the
“If we’re lucky, she’ll have us one of her pies or strength of the structure beneath him.
cakes.” He paused, winked. “Maybe a chocolate cake.”
“We’ve got hungry men here,” Flynn yelled,
Except for a few flexings of his jaw muscle, Lyle
holding the inner door wide. “Come on,” he said
Brimhall showed no reaction whatsoever.
to Lyle Brimhall. “Come on in.”
“She comes home on the weekends—not much
going in Pocatello. I wanted her to help me roof, “Come in and wash your hands,” Artelle said.
but hardly anyplace else gives any vacation for spud “I’ve got a feast ready here.” Flynn caught her eye
harvest anymore.” He laughed, jerked the door and in one conspiratorial instant knew everything
handle several times to release the latch. “Good had gone as planned—the unobtrusive announce-
thing, though. I’d have never met you.” ment of the repaired roof, her father out working
The handyman glanced at Flynn, then unlatched on the fence with some guy he hired, no mention of
his own door and leaned into it in one hurried the dinner invitation. If Junie asked about the spe-
movement, hopped out and began gathering tools cial meal, Artelle was to say they were celebrating
from the truck’s bed. potato harvest.
“Ah, leave them,” Flynn said. “I’ll put them up “Junie will be down in a minute,” Artelle said.
tomorrow. Let’s go eat!” At the utility room sink, Flynn lathered and
“I always put my tools away.” rinsed his hands, offered the wafer of gritty soap to
“Oh, come on,” said Flynn, beckoning from the Lyle Brimhall. Only after several seconds did the
base of the porch stairs. “Let them go. I’ll get them handyman accept, and he approached the rusting
tomorrow. It’s getting chilly out here, and I can faucet as if expecting a scald.
smell supper.” A new and strange excitement Artelle kept up a constant chatter while moving
flowed through him, and in his haste climbing the about the kitchen to stir, dab, season, mash, ladle,
porch stairs, he stumbled several times, grasped the pour. “Junie made one of her cakes,” she said.
worn banister when he reached the top, stood for a Flynn dried and re-dried his hands on the clean
moment as if anchoring himself. bathroom towel waiting atop the dryer. Content-
“Come on in and eat,” he said with mock stern- ment stung his heart, and he could not resist wink-
ness, beckoning Lyle Brimhall for the fourth or ing again at Lyle Brimhall, tossing the towel to him
fifth time. with a little flourish of familiarity. Lyle Brimhall

caught the towel clumsily, held it at arm’s length, each other. And suddenly, finally, it was Lyle Brimhall
motionless, his throat flexing constantly. who spoke.
“Take your hat off and relax,” Flynn said. “Just “I got to go,” he said, fidgeting, his gaze rico-
put it anywhere.” cheting from face to face, from photo to photo on
After laying the towel back on the dryer, the the wall, as if he couldn’t look anywhere without
young man’s hand moved protectively to his cap, coming under the fixed scrutiny of a Darlington.
and when he finally took it off, his face showed the “Just stay and eat a bite,” Artelle said, waving at
embarrassment of one unexpectedly denuded. the food. “At least you have time to eat, don’t you?”
“Let’s eat,” Artelle said. She stepped lightly, almost Lyle Brimhall inhaled deeply, backed toward the
on tiptoe, into the dining room and back, in and kitchen, said again, “I got to go. Really. The food
back, loading the table with a cloth-lined basket of looks good, but I’ll be late.”
hot rolls, a gravy boat, a clear glass pitcher of water “Are you sure?” Artelle asked.
with lemon slices floating among the ice cubes. Lyle Brimhall looked at her, the meal on the
Flynn reached toward Lyle Brimhall to guide table, did not look at Junie. He said, “Honest,
him across the kitchen’s threshold. “Let’s eat, son.” I can’t stay.”
The young man’s fingers seemed almost spring- Only gradually did Flynn’s smile relax. “Late for
loaded as they gripped, in passing, the kitchen door what?” he asked.
frame, counter and sink edge, refrigerator handle, Junie’s face was mottled red, and her eyes flashed
padded back of a stool—as if recording in his at her father.
nerves the feel of every possible handhold. “I owe you a week’s wages,” Flynn said, follow-
And then they were through the kitchen, into ing Lyle Brimhall through the kitchen. “We can
the dining room and the photo gallery featuring settle up after we eat.” He heard Junie’s feet on the
Flynn’s daughters. stairs, heard her bedroom door close. “That’s what
“Are you about ready, sweetie?” Flynn yelled up I had in mind.”
the stairway. “Come get it while it’s hot.” “Pay him,” Artelle said, grabbing her purse
When the muffled reply came, he beamed at their from the kitchen counter. She rummaged, handed
guest. “A week to remember, huh, Mr. Brimhall?” Flynn the checkbook. “He needs to go.”
Steam curled upward from half a dozen different “Where?” Flynn asked. “Where you off to on a
platters and servers on the table, gave the light in Friday night?”
the dining room an odd liquid quality. Before Lyle Lyle Brimhall stopped in the utility room,
Brimhall could even flex a throat or jaw muscle, snatched up his cap, settled it on his head like a hel-
Junie’s door opened, and she was coming down the met. His eyes distended as he looked at the check-
stairs. Flynn smiled so widely his face ached. book. “I really got to go.”
Then they saw each other, Junie Darlington and “Pay him,” Artelle said.
Lyle Brimhall, and there was no magic, no fated With shaking fingers Flynn wrote the check,
certainty, no answer to a prayer. They saw each folded it along its perforation, tore it slowly from
other, and they knew the dinner for what it was. the pad, reluctantly held it out, all the while kept
And in the instant of their realization, a peculiar saying, “You’re missing good eats, son. You really are.”
and awful awkwardness settled in the room like a Lyle Brimhall took the check, mumbled “I
fetidness mingling with the food smells. know” and “Sorry” and “Thanks,” in one long-
Artelle smiled bravely, spoke polite inanities, strided movement was out the back door and gone.
kept gesturing as if trying to shoo the others to Flynn heard the bounding pace across the porch,
their seats. Flynn’s hands were shaking, his grin down the steps, stood and listened to the revving of
frozen in a strange, almost grotesque arc. the van’s engine. He listened to wheels in reverse
In a fog of timidity and fumbling inexperience, crunching gravel, listened a full minute to the fad-
a general misery of wordlessness, they all looked at ing shifts of the automatic transmission out on the

road. He stood motionless. In the settling silence, Brother Kent

he could not miss the drip of the rusty faucet
Strange after forty-one years
behind him. But even more insistent now was the
I should think of you
tick-tick-tick of the cooling oven oddly echoing
the louder mantle clock in a house more vacant
Who was to be
than it had ever been before.
but never there
Darin Cozzens was born and raised in Wyoming.
Just a picture
He received his education at BYU, the University of
white as an angle
North Carolina—Greensboro, and Oklahoma State
University. For the last six years, he has taught Eng-
plump bread dough
lish at Eastern Arizona College in Thatcher. He and
baby
his wife have four children.
lazy in the palsy
that captured your body
P O E T R Y
and made you pure
Her Funeral 1949 and dead at ten months
Her Legacy Continuing Today
She barely remembered Civil War becoming the silent first
bitterness on her tongue we all followed
every day for losing her father
not to war oblivious you’d
but to alcohol all the rest of his life. encircled our world
Across the continent to new home with some blessed halo

he brought his hunger with the family. linking eternity
Grandma went to work at twelve
to help with table food in one
when he drank away his farm labor salary. imperfect wreath.
—Lisa Ottesen Fillerup
She survived sending son to France
and grandson to Pearl Harbor. She Lisa Ottesen Fillerup was raised in southern Cali-
rationed wisdom generously fornia, grew up in Wyoming, and currently lives in
unless she saw a glass raised in toast Heber, Utah. She and her sculptor husband have six
or jest. Tight-lipped and refusing children who serve as inspiration and comedic relief to
to speak rewards or favors, Grandma her writing. Her work has appeared on Post-it Notes
made her legacy known for being honest on the fridge, in Exponent II, and in the book Every
working hard, and never, never allowing Good Thing: Talks from the 1997 BYU Women’s
“spirits” to replace God. Conference.
—Mildred Barthel

S T O R Y were selected every five years. A debate was held

before the faculty, followed by a department vote.
Godsight Of course I was flattered when my name came up,
but I wasn’t in for a big campaign. I was only five
By Jack Harrell years from retirement—too old to go out in a flash.
I’d made arrangements to meet Peggy that after-
I knelt at my bed, my back erect, my head noon to tell her I wanted to withdraw my name
bowed. Inches from my folded hands, the morning before things got hot.
sun made a rectangle of fiery light on the bed- “It won’t be much of a fight,” I tried to tell Ron,
spread, and for the first time in my life, I was afraid but the words didn’t come. I felt two minds in my
to pray. God had given me a new kind of vision, an head. My thoughts were physical and bulky. Some-
understanding I’d never known before. It started thing strange was happening to me. I had pulled
just three days ago, at the grocery store. A teenage into this parking lot a hundred times; I’d walked
mother lifted her things to the counter with a sigh, to the humanities building, greeted the occasional
and I thought my heart would break. The next day colleague, but now something was different. I was
it was one of my students, his face full of pimples seeing it differently, and the difference was dis-
and doubt. Yesterday it was a stooped custodian turbing. Yet it was the same parking lot, the same
at the college pushing a broom: One honest look building, the same weather I’d seen on a hundred
and I was awash in a compassion as fierce as a spring mornings. When I approached the curb and
two-edged sword. Kneeling at my bed, I cleared looked at Ron, he seemed like a stranger, a dark
my throat and had the distinct impression that my version of himself. Something in his face shocked
heart was about to be drawn through the eye of me. I tripped on the curb. My head struck the side-
God’s needle. walk. My briefcase fell open. Suddenly, Ron was
Outside, it was the first truly sunny day of leaning over me, a terrible fear in his eyes. I felt the
springtime. The snow had melted off the corn- way I did that first night, when I saw the teenage
fields, leaving stalks and stubble to be tilled under mother at the grocery store. Something was com-
before planting. In town, the sun revealed the ing, some understanding I didn’t want.
debris that months of winter had kept hidden. “No one knows,” Ron said as he hovered over me,
People would soon be cleaning up their yards, speech forced and bitter. “The torment’s like hell.”
planting flowers, mowing grass, putting on their I couldn’t understand how it was happening, but
best appearances. I decided to mention this in my I felt what he was feeling. I felt depraved, wounded.
morning lecture. “Are we what we seem?” I would “Every day I try to hide it,” he said, “my desires
ask the students. “When you look in the mirror, for other men. I want to hold them and love them.
who do you expect to find?” I’m the one I hate.”
I parked in the lot adjacent to the humanities I shook my head, like a boxer shaking off a blow.
building just as Ron Wills pulled in a few spaces Ron searched my face, his teeth clenched.
away. We stepped out of our cars at the same I clamped my eyes shut, trying to fight off the
moment. I caught his eye as he called out “Good haunting feeling that had overtaken me so quickly.
morning.” Suddenly my tongue was thick. I felt a When I opened my eyes, Ron was lifting me to my
painful longing in my chest. feet. His face was cleared of horror. My own vision
Ron spoke again as our paths converged. “Mor- was back. The world was familiar again. Ron had
gan,” he said, “I hear you’re going head to head already gathered my papers into the briefcase.
with Peggy.” “You’d better watch it,” he said, “That first step’s
Peggy Meir and I had been selected as candidates a doozy.”
for Humanities Department chairperson. Accord- An hour later in the classroom, I was still anx-
ing to department policy, two or three candidates ious and upset. I didn’t dare look anyone in the

face. The students’ presence weakened me—their door was behind me. I couldn’t look away, though.
aimless need for identity, their uncertainty and Her eyes were holding me. “This may sound sedi-
fears. When their rustling of books and backpacks tious,” she said, “but Merrill’s tenure has been a
cued me that the hour was up, I ended my lecture time of inertia at best, compliance at worst. This
and bowed my head, relieved to let them file out of department’s been too agreeable!”
the room in a flood. Back in my office, I closed the “I’ll admit,” I said, “the administration’s been
door and locked it. I dumped my books and papers pleased with the way Merrill’s been running things.”
on the desk and collapsed in my chair. “Because Merrill has danced to their tune from
the start.”
Peggy was on the phone when I tapped on her In her powerful eyes, I felt an oppression I’d
open door that afternoon. She looked up and sig- never known before. A vision opened. I couldn’t
naled for me to wait. I still hadn’t recovered from stop it. I saw her, Peggy Meir, long ago as a threat-
what had happened with Ron, from what had hap- ened child. She was cowering before her father. He
pened over the past few days. I didn’t want to be was scolding her as she tried to tell him something
part of the debate. I didn’t want to be department she’d learned in school. “There is no such thing,”
chair. I decided not to look Peggy in the eye. I’d tell he said spitefully. “The school would never teach
her quickly and go. you such stupid things.”
She hung up the phone and stood. She was an I felt a shell around me, a petrifying crust. In my
imposing woman, big-boned, in a black pantsuit chest I felt a strong, successful will pushing out in
and a gold necklace. “Morgan,” she said. “Come in.” every direction. This will had brought her to where
“That’s okay,” I said. I didn’t want to get caught she was, yet it was an ugly thing to feel. I wanted to
in something. “I came by to—” embrace her—the pain in her anger was so agoniz-
She shut the door behind me. “Sit down,” she said. ing. I wanted to hold her and love her as a kind
I felt a change in the room. The bookshelves father would.
seemed to loom. The certificates on the walls hung I reached out to touch her cheek.
in judgment. I blinked hard, losing my balance. “Excuse me,” she said. She brushed my hand
I sat down with a taste in my mouth like breakfast aside, breaking my gaze. “I don’t know what kind
coming up. “Really,” I said. I looked down, tried to of deal you had in mind when you came here, but
focus my thoughts. “I just came by—” I will not undermine the democratic process of
She was sitting now, holding her half-glasses this debate.”
loosely in the air beside her. “This makes me nerv- I struggled to my feet. I wanted out. “I have to
ous,” she said. go,” I muttered.
“There’s no reason . . .” I said. I avoided eye con- “You haven’t been listening, have you?” she said.
tact. “I’m old. I’m retiring soon, and this public Her voice was hard, authoritative. The voice of her
debate thing—I don’t know. . . .” father, but much more skillful and sharp. “I simply
She put her glasses on the desk. I couldn’t can’t support an administrative approach that will
remember what I was saying. force us to continue our acquiescence!”
“I think this process should involve some I tried to turn away. Her anger held me.
healthy competition,” she said. She put on a brisk “Please,” I begged.
smile. “Once you get past the rhetoric, it’s really She grabbed my jacket lapels and shook me.
just a popularity contest.” “You’re not listening!” she said, her voice angry and
“It doesn’t have to be,” I insisted. “We can small. “Daddy, you never listen!”
agree—”
She leaned forward and caught my eye. Her gaze I don’t remember driving home. I don’t remem-
held me—hard and strong. “Agree?” she asked. Her ber hearing the phone ring. When I awoke, fully
eyebrows arched. Her smile dissolved. I knew the dressed, prostrate across the bed, the tiny green

light on the answering machine was blinking. The staggering. If I wasn’t careful, it would crush me.
department secretary had left three messages, ask- I sat in one of the chairs behind the podium, pre-
ing where I was, why I hadn’t met my afternoon tending to make notes, deceiving myself, denying
classes. I sat on the edge of the bed, my elbows on the loathing, the love, the dangerous curiosity that
my knees. A strange pain ran across my lower back. urged me to glance just once into the complex
My left arm was numb, like I’d pinched a nerve. I’d truth of their lives.
always wanted God to lead me, but this trial was Renee Roundy, the college’s dean of academics,
different. It was too much, too soon. I sat there for was a small, wiry woman. When she entered the
a long time, not knowing what to do. room, I saw her black-and-white pumps coming
“I don’t know if I’m ready,” I finally said to the toward me. I didn’t think I could face her with-
still air around me. out breaking.
A new temptation answered me, a devilish I stood, and we shook hands. I looked at her,
prayer, whole and wicked. braced for a confession.
“O Lucifer, cold father of sin—” “My assurance is a mask,” she said, “I’m always
Those were the words in my head. afraid.”
“Take away my sight. Blind me to the pains Her fear struck me hard—it was terror, paralysis.
of others.” “Are you unwell?” she asked.
The starkness of the prayer stunned me. It was so The presence in the room overtook me—a
petty. And it came so easily—a cowardice cheap tumult of feelings, ideas, positions, tensions.
and tempting. I couldn’t say it, though. I had to see Human energy—barbed and tedious—swirled
my way through this, no matter how hard it got. around me in a ragged whirlwind.
If I was going to learn God’s lesson, I wanted to go “You look pale,” Roundy said. She searched my
in with my face toward the fire. face, her eyes shifting rapidly. Her fear that I would
collapse, fall upon her, ask her to bear the burden
I drove to the college the next morning through of my life—it tempted and appalled her. When she
a heavy downpour. The rain came so hard I could turned and went to the podium, I dropped into my
barely see through the windshield. When the depart- chair, my mind reeling in her wake.
ment secretary saw me coming down the hallway, She called the meeting to order. She introduced
she asked why I hadn’t returned her calls. I walked the agenda, announcing that Peggy would speak first.
right by her, my clothes sticking to my damp, When Peggy stepped to the podium, I had to
clammy skin. She kept talking, but I didn’t answer. look away. She was so disgusting, and yet I loved
When I finally looked at her, I knew: Her husband her so. She was a miracle—a tragedy and a wonder.
had never given her the love she needed. I wanted She spoke with courteous words, discussing philoso-
to take her in my arms. phies and goals. She was a master of rhetoric. After
Peggy was already in the conference room, a moment, though, her voice lowered. “On a per-
pumping hands and smiling. I knew what she sonal note,” she said, “I must speak of something
was—angry and manipulative. I could have judged very unpleasant, something that happened in my
her then, accused her, hated her. It would have office yesterday.” There was silence in the room.
been so easy. She was so ugly, and still I felt drawn She held that silence before her, so carefully, so
to her. I had to look away when she came near. skillfully. I was in awe of her hardness, her craft.
Two dozen department members had gathered My left arm was dead. I rotated my shoulder,
for the meeting, people I’d known and worked with trying to wake it.
for years, but I couldn’t look at any of them. I was “Morgan came to my office, yesterday,” Peggy
too afraid to feel their pain, too afraid to be over- said. Her voice was flat. “He came to discuss this
come by their awful need. They all had burdens very meeting. I believe it was cigar-room politics he
that only a God could lift. The weight of it was had in mind.”

The room darkened. I felt sick to my stomach. collective sin waited like a monster—to consume
“He made his agenda clear. He told me, in no or be consumed.
uncertain terms, that his goal was a retrenched Then I felt myself moving beyond the pain, out-
commitment to the status quo.” side of it. I was stretched out on the floor, my arms
A murmur hissed through the room. flung before me like a priest in prayer. I lay on the
“It’s not just Morgan’s agenda that troubles me,” thin gray carpet, my colleagues crowded around
she said. “His methods are even more disturbing.” me, my stunned right eye staring inches from the
I glanced up—I couldn’t help myself. She looked woven fibers of the rug. I floated above myself.
so grave and lovely. I could see that little girl, stand- I saw my body in the attitude of prayer, my col-
ing before her father. leagues gathered around me, touching me, crying,
“His ways are outdated,” she said, “even ineffec- grieving for us all.
tive, but they could not be more inappropriate. You I looked around the room, through the stillness,
see, Morgan’s discussion was laced with certain through the walls. I saw the downpour outside.
words, words like radical and matriarchal.” She I saw the rain, washing the earth clean. I saw every-
paused. No one dared to breathe. thing—the birds, the trees, the insects, the soil, the
“This is a very unpleasant thing to have to gray sky. I understood it all—every being and mol-
report,” she said, “but another phrase was used, a ecule and atom—as the obedient footstool of God.
phrase I hadn’t heard in years.” Peggy knelt at my body. “Someone call an ambu-
She sounded so sad it broke my heart. lance,” she cried. “Morgan,” she said. “God, no!”
“You see,” she said, “several times Morgan spoke Before I blacked out, the words of Isaiah whis-
of a woman’s place.” pered through me—“I am undone.”
A gasp arose from the faculty. I arose with it.
I felt true hatred, absolute loathing, outrage like I’d I woke up in the hospital—machines droning
never known before. She was lying, and it sickened softly, an IV in my arm, tubes in my nose. I looked
me. I looked at the audience before me, daring to up and saw Ron standing next to my bed. I had a
see them, daring to know everything. There, on each vague memory of him riding in the ambulance
face, a secret history of pain and sin was embla- with me. I reached out lamely and touched his arm.
zoned. In the strict lines of Ron’s expression I saw “You gave us a pretty good scare,” he said.
an affair with a gay artist in Chicago. In Estelle’s I was afraid to look him in the eye, afraid of
wide-set eyes was the starkness of forcing her seeing something horrible. “What happened?”
mother into a nursing home. In Leo’s pockmarked I asked, my voice raspy and weak.
cheeks, the dried tears of a son in jail. I looked over His answer came quick. “Peggy called you a sex-
at Dean Roundy. She was rocking back and forth in ist pig, and you had a heart attack.”
her seat, hugging her knees and sobbing. I let myself look up at him. I saw something in
Sweating now, going hot and cold, I wanted to his eyes, something rich and holy.
accuse them all, throw their pains back at their own He leaned down and spoke in a false whisper. “If
shocked and distorted faces. you ask me, I think the whole thing was rigged.
But their suffering was so great. It was all I could They never expected you to win.” He patted my
do to breathe. Their sins crushed my heart, pressed shoulder and nodded. “I bet they never expected
down like an elephant on my chest. My left arm you to have a heart attack, either.”
was paralyzed with the weight of it. I crumpled He glanced up at the door. Peggy and Dean
to the floor. I heard them gasp once more. The Roundy were walking in.
burden of my own pain was added to theirs—all “We just saw the doctor,” the dean said. “He says
our hurt and fear and shame. A light burst, and you’re gonna be fine.”
I was suspended in white silence, stillness, a hush Peggy stood back a bit. “What a terrible thing to
like the earth muffled under a blanket of snow. Our happen,” she said.

She and Ron exchanged glances. Ron thought it N O V E L

was her fault that I was here, that I’d been pushed E X C E R P T
over the edge. Peggy wasn’t going to take the blame,
though. She’d taken enough blame in her life.
The room was tense for a moment. My People
Finally, the dean broke the silence. “Morgan, By Gordon Laws
take all the time you need to recover,” she said.
“Peggy can be acting chair until you get on your Following is a draft of a chapter from Gordon
feet. Then . . . if you want . . . we’ll have another Laws’s first novel, My People, which will appear in
debate. We’ll go through the whole process.” stores and be sold on the Internet beginning in August
As soon as she said it, she wanted to withdraw 2001. For more information, visit Lifesong Publica-
her words, thinking they’d come out wrong. tions at lifesong.byu.edu.
“It’s okay,” I whispered hoarsely. “I’m ready to
take it easy for a while.” “Look at that,” said Elder Johnson, rubbing his
The three of them stood there, timid and quiet. hands together until little brown pellets had col-
Just an hour or so before, I’d seen them in all lected. “Just from knocking doors and shaking
their fear and sin, thinking God’s vision could hands.”
be constricted into an action, or even a chain of Elder Wilson glanced, but kept going. “Just part
actions. Now my sight was clearer, grown past the of the job.” The sweat on his pale face made him
things that even they saw in their own worst selves. gleam, made the freckles stick out more, made him
I could see that their lives stretched infinitely look more like a gringo than normal. They turned
before this moment, after this moment—like glori- a corner and looked down the long row of brown-
ous, evolving threads. We occupied the silence of and-white, beat-up houses.
that room, and I could see that God’s love was Wilson stepped to the front gate of the corner
weaving us through time and physics, through the house, Johnson behind him, watching a bead of
lives of all our eternal selves. His love was drawing sweat disappear into Wilson’s collar. He turned.
us through a landscape as great as the universe, A pit bull sat tied to a skinny tree, his head down.
deeper and more indulgent than anything any of He moved his eyes, but nothing else. Flies buzzed
us had ever dreamed of before. Ron and Peggy around a scabbed wound on his hind end.
and Dean Roundy stood before me like gods, so “This is Omar’s house,” said Wilson as they
immeasurable and complex, and I held my hands walked to the sun-beaten white door. “Omar is
to my face, my arm trailing the IV tube. I covered going to come out and say, like they all do, ‘No, no,
my face and wept for the things I was only now somos Catolicos.’”
beginning to see. Johnson smiled and looked at the shiny white
pavement, bright from the sun. He glanced at his
A native of southeastern Illinois, Jack Harrell watch: 3:47. “You been in this area too long, Elder.
teaches English at BYU–Idaho in Rexburg. He lives You’re not supposed to know the first name of every
with his wife, Cindy, and their three children. His guy we talk to.”
first novel, winner of the 2000 Marilyn Brown Novel Wilson shrugged as he lifted his hand to the
Award, is scheduled for release with Signature Books door. “It’s only bad when they know me by name.”
in 2002. He knocked.
A short Hispanic man appeared, his fat, bare
belly hanging over the rim of his gray shorts. “No,
no,” he said, waving his hand. “Somos Catolicos.”
He pointed to a sign above the door: Este hogar
es Catolico. No aceptamos propaganda de otros

religiones. Johnson blew sweat from the tip of you, but Mormón. So talk. I want to know every-
his nose and looked up at the paint peeling above thing mi carnalito knew.”
the door. Wilson opened his flipchart and talked, briefly
“Cómo está, Omar?” said Wilson extending going through principles about God and Jesus.
his hand. “We are children of God, and he loves us. Because
“Bien,” said the man. “Pero somos Catolicos.” of his love, he has a plan for us. His plan centers
“Hey!” a voice yelled from inside. Johnson around Jesus Christ who overcame sin and death.
looked into the darkness. “Hey, Wilson! Mono! How do you feel about Jesus?” Wilson asked, hold-
Ven aqui. Papá, let them in.” ing the picture of Jesus’ face.
The man turned. “Not in this house, son. We are Rubén shrugged and set the bottle down. “Why
Cat-o-lic.” you asking me, man? I ain’t sharin’ the word.
The kid stood up, the room too dark for John- Keep talking.”
son to see his face. Wilson shook his head, then turned to Johnson.
“No importa, papá. I want to talk to them. I’m Johnson took the chart, licked his lips, and flipped
eighteen. Let them in.” to the page with God’s pattern: 1. He chooses wit-
The man turned from the door and disappeared nesses. 2. The prophets testify of Christ. 3. The Holy
down a hall. Ghost confirms truth. 4. We are invited to obey.
“Ven, mono, Wilson,” the voice said. “Ven. Sit Johnson opened his mouth, then stopped, looked
down on the couch.” at the chart, then down at the ground.
Johnson and Wilson stepped into the dark front “Monkey,” said Johnson, turning to Wilson.
room. It was the guy from the fight, sitting again in “That’s it. That’s what he’s been calling me this
an armchair, his hairy legs stretched in front of whole time. I looked it up after the other day,
him, a half-empty beer bottle open on the floor then forgot it again. Monkey. He’s freaking calling
next to him. me monkey.”
The couch had no legs—it sat low to the Wilson shrugged.
ground, the rear sloping down to the back. Johnson “And you knew all along, didn’t you?” said John-
and Wilson sat on the edge, Johnson looking at the son, still looking at Wilson. “We’re sitting here
floor and the couch, sniffing the air, grimacing. teaching this guy while he makes a monkey out of
“You get the blood out of that shirt, mono?” me, no pun intended. And you knew it.”
said Rubén. Rubén smiled and rubbed the belly of his white
“Uh, yeah. Sort of,” said Johnson, looking at muscle shirt. “Escúchame, mono.” He leaned for-
Rubén again. ward. Johnson looked at him and bounced his legs.
“Hey, I’m sorry about that, but you don’t stop a “My father es Colombiano and my mother es
crazy man when he’s swingin’, you know?” Mexicana. Where my father is from in Colombia,
“Sure,” said Johnson. “Sure.” sometimes you call a blond person mono. In Mexico,
Rubén lifted the beer bottle and took a swig. you call a monkey mono.” Rubén yawned, sweat
“Well, don’t just sit there, mono. Preach the word to beading on his forehead. “I’m half my father and
me. Do what you do.” half my mother, right? So one day, maybe I’m Colom-
Johnson looked down, then at Wilson. Wilson biano, and I call you mono.” He shrugged. “So
looked straight at Rubén, his scriptures on the floor you’re blond. But maybe the next day, I’m Mexi-
between his feet. “We share a message—” cano, and I call you mono. Then you’re a monkey.”
“I know,” said Rubén. “So share it.” He looked Johnson rubbed his face, stuffing his fists in his
at both of them. A huge bead of sweat rolled off eyes, then looked at Wilson. “Do we have to sit and
Wilson’s nose. He didn’t even move to get it. listen to this? This guy’s a joke. Let’s just—”
“For real. Share it. Mi carnalito was one of you “What are you today?” said Wilson, looking
guys.” He took another swig. “Okay, not one of at Rubén.

Rubén leaned back and folded his arms over his Rubén leaned forward, shaking his head, pulling
chest. “Tell you when mono gets done sharin’ the a cigarette and a lighter from his back pocket.
word. Go ahead, mono.” “Mind if I smoke?”
Johnson sat there, the discussion in his lap, tee- “Yes,” said Wilson. “It’ll drive away the Spirit.”
tering on the edge of his left thigh. Rubén shrugged and lit the cigarette. “Do you
“Go on,” said Wilson, rolling his eyes. “Give believe that story, mono?”
him the word.” Johnson bent his head side to side, cracking his
Johnson shook his head, then lifted the discus- neck. “Why would I be here if I didn’t believe it?”
sion from his lap with one hand, setting the Rubén lifted the cigarette and puffed. “My mother,
flipchart on the ground. she says la Virgen appeared to her one night above
“Just make it quick,” said Wilson. “Summarize. her bedpost. Her dress was bright and glorious and
Get to Joseph Smith, and see how he reacts to that. filled up the whole room. And la Virgen was so
We’re not staying long.” quiet she didn’t wake my dad, and he didn’t even
“Fine,” said Johnson. He looked at Rubén, who notice the light. You believe that story, mono?”
was holding his beer again, rubbing the lip of the Johnson looked at the ground, then back at
bottle. Rubén.
“God uses prophets to teach his people. These “Neither do I,” said Rubén. With his cigarette,
are men called by God. The Holy Ghost gives us he pointed to the picture of Joseph Smith. “And I
good feelings to tell us the prophets have told the don’t believe Jose’s story either.”
truth. God called a prophet in our day. His name Wilson stood. “Well, it’s been good talking to
was Joseph Smith. Young Joseph, in 1820, was con- you, Rubén. When you want to learn about the
fused about religion. Have you ever been confused gospel of Jesus Christ, stop us sometime.”
like that?” Johnson stood and followed Wilson toward the
“About religion?” said Rubén. Johnson nodded. door. Rubén stood, the cigarette in one hand, beer
Rubén sighed. “Why would I listen to you if I in the other. “You gonna leave me that book?”
hadn’t? Come on, mono, I may be a dirty Mexi- “What?” said Wilson, turning around. Johnson
can,” he smirked, “or Colombian, but I ain’t stu- paused and turned halfway, clenching his fists.
pid. Keep going.” “The book,” said Rubén, pointing with his ciga-
Johnson half-smiled, shaking his head. He rette. “The advertisements say they’re free. I won’t
looked at Wilson, but Wilson only nodded and have to call the number if you just give it to me.”
motioned to the flipchart. Wilson stepped toward Rubén. “Would you really
Johnson flipped to the picture of Joseph Smith read it? I hate giving these things out to people who
seeing a light. “Joseph went into the trees and prayed won’t read them.”
to God about his confusion. In Joseph’s own words, Rubén took a pull of the cigarette. “I wouldn’t
this is what happened: ‘I saw a pillar of light, ask for it if I wouldn’t read it.”
exactly over my head, above the brightness of the Wilson nodded, then opened the book and
sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon turned down the corners of several pages. He
me. When the light rested upon me, I saw two per- stepped toward Rubén. “Read what I marked.
sonages whose brightness and glory defy all descrip- Most of it is about Jesus visiting America. The last
tion standing above me in the air. One of them spake page I marked tells you how you can know the
unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to book is true—by reading, thinking hard about
the other, ‘This is my Beloved Son. Hear him!’” what you read, and praying.”
Johnson looked at the picture, then at Rubén. Rubén took the book. “Okay.”
Rubén had his arms folded over his chest, the beer “Can we come back and see how your read-
now on the floor next to his outstretched legs. ing went? Like maybe four o’clock on Friday?”
“How did you feel as I shared that?” said Johnson. said Wilson.

Johnson reached for his blue planner in his BYU Magazine). He currently works for Allyn &
pocket, rolling his eyes. Bacon, a college text publisher, and lives in Boston
“Sure,” said Rubén. “Come to the backyard. with his wife, Lauren, and his son.
Maybe bring some women and some beer, and
we’ll talk about the word some and just kick it.” P O E T R Y
“Whatever,” said Wilson. “See you Friday.”
They moved to the doorway, but Johnson
Translucent Dragon Pool Lake
turned. “So what were you today?”
“Qué?” said Rubén. “You can drink” our guide assures
“Colombiano o Mexicano? Which one?” as a woman with
Rubén smiled and pointed at Johnson with his red cheeks
cigarette. “Come back on Friday, and I’ll tell you. red boat
You didn’t say much today.” floats by
Johnson shook his head and passed through raking the water
the doorway. for ambiguities
Outside, Wilson and Johnson walked toward their shaking the dormant sleep of
bikes, the sun shining bright on the pavement. lotus blossom’s winter rest.
“Why are we going back?” said Johnson. a slender promise of spring
Wilson reached into his pocket and pulled out winding to the surface of
his leg clip. Leaning, he slipped it on and kept green glass water
walking. “He asked for the book, Elder. No one reflecting our own
ever asks for it. We have to do so much just to give and countless
them away, and he asked for it.” full moon faces
Johnson ran his hand through his sweaty hair. whose same eyes
“You think the guy who slugged me, then threat- greet “Hello, Hello”
ened to pound me if we came back, that wants us “Nihao”
to bring women and booze to the discussion, that we reply to
calls me monkey . . . you think that guy’s gonna fol-
low God, do what it takes to get baptized?” the shove of a million elbows
They reached the bicycles. Wilson pulled his pushing
lock key out of his pocket. “No. Not really. But contradiction
he asked for it, and everyone gets a chance.” He back
unlocked the bike lock and pulled his bike free of smoothing the picture
the pole. “Besides, at four o’clock on a hot day in for that perfect hello
L.A., the only other thing we got to do is tract. You
got any better ideas?” pressing flaws to the corners of the lake
Johnson shook his head and mounted his bike. under the shadow of bridges
“Not sure we should waste the Lord’s time like that.” and draping leaves
They started riding. “We’ll let it be on my head,
okay?” said Wilson. where
Johnson shrugged. “Whatever.” crumpled cups, orange peels, and cigarettes
float with lotus heads
Raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, Gordon Laws straining for one pure
served a mission in the Los Angeles area and com- sip of light.
pleted a bachelor of arts at BYU, where he worked
and wrote for Brigham Young Magazine (now called —Lisa Ottesen Fillerup

S T O R Y Now, I don’t know anyone in the world who can

drive the speed limit coming down off the point of
Within Limits the mountain. I mean, it’s a straight road that drops
directly into outer Salt Lake City bedroom com-
By Scott R. Parkin munity suburbia. You have to actively brake to
keep from accelerating, and who’s got time to brake
A life without romance is an empty thing. But a when there’re romances to be had?
life without romances is utterly unthinkable. No one. That’s who. At least no one less than
So I make a weekly pilgrimage into town to three hundred years old who can actually see over
trade in one pile of romance novels for another. the steering wheel and isn’t wearing a hat. But that’s
I go to the giant Sam Weller’s in downtown Salt a different problem.
Lake City—best collection of used books in six So I let my speed creep up a bit on the way down
states. Seventy miles each way, but I’ve tapped out the other side of the point, and I don’t work very
all the local bookstores, so it’s really my only hard to slow down.
choice. It’s worth it. Okay, I don’t work at all to slow down.
I know, what’s a thirty-something guy doing Fine. So I keep my foot on the gas and take
reading romance novels? Aren’t those for advantage of the hill to get my speed up to eighty-
bedraggled housewives and silly teenage girls? five. Or so.
Don’t I have anything better to do with my time Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a speed
and money? demon—or at least not ordinarily so. But when
Well, we’ve all got our vices, and it’s better than you drive a little three-cylinder fuel-economy spe-
hanging out on street corners. Besides, it’s not like cial, you have to take advantage of every downhill
I believe they’re real. I mean, that stuff just doesn’t you get. The poor little beast grinds down to barely
happen in real life. No love at first sight. No saving over fifty on the way up the hill; it just seems like
the girl from the raging flood or the corrupt land- justice that I should be able to make up the differ-
lord or the enemy invasion. No tender thanks or ence coming back down the other side.
passionate embraces or heaving breasts. Which is why it’s so unfair that a cop is waiting
Still, one can hope. for me at the bottom of the hill.
The radio’s blaring from the tiny in-dash On any other day there would’ve been at least a
speaker. A serious voice drones on about space dozen other speeders all clustered together, and the
aliens from the planet Fizbane, how they’re trans- cop would’ve had to pick one and let the others go.
porting stolen goods across national boundaries, Usually they didn’t bother.
and how they’ve sparked an international diplo- But today the road is empty, and the cop pulls
matic crisis. I wish for a moment that I could meet right out after me, lights a-flashing.
a Fisbanian, but nothing that cool ever happens to I suppose the general emptiness of the road
people like me. That’s why I read romance. should have been a sign, a warning that all was not
The drive’s an easy one—at least until you get right and I needed to pay more attention. But up
out of Utah County. Brown in more shades than until then, I was just so happy to have clear sailing
you think possible, from the deep coffee brown of that it never occurred to me to wonder about the
the western mountains to a dull gray-yellow the downside of my good fortune.
color of old wheat at the point of the mountain Damn.
that separates Utah County from Salt Lake County. So I pull over and fish my wallet out of my back
The mountain really does come to a point there. pocket and wait. And seethe. And wait. And mut-
Not just a peak that slopes down on each side, but ter. And wait.
a point that juts out into the valley and separates I think they do that on purpose. They wait in
one world from another. their cars, talking on the radio to some old hag

in dispatch about their bunions or elbow warts or after you’ve seen it a couple hundred times and
some other such thing, just to see how long they I just wish you’d go away and arrest some real
can stretch you out. They watch you through their evil-doer and—
tinted windshields and wait until you’re as taut as And looking at me through the window is the
you can get, then they saunter up and say, “Do you most beautiful fascist pig cop I’ve ever seen in
realize how fast you were going?” my life.
Of course I realize how fast I was going—I was She smiles and her teeth . . . well . . . sparkle in
going it, wasn’t I? Do they really think it’s possible the bright noonday sun. She has three dimples on
to go twenty miles over the limit and not know one side of her smile and two on the other, a
you’re doing it? delightful imbalance that makes her face that much
They know you’re in a hurry—that’s why you more interesting. Her little nose tips up just a bit at
were speeding in the first place. They do it to tick the end, and a wisp of mouse-brown hair pokes out
you off, because all cops are just little dictators from under her dark-blue hat. Her nametag says
waiting to exercise their power over the common Harbaugh. I roll the window down, and she’s
man. What made it really annoying was that this speaking in a lilting, musical voice like the sound
time the would-be tyrant was right. of spring. Then she stops and raises an eyebrow,
And they wonder where road rage comes from. and I have no idea what she’s just said.
I’d been sitting there for at least three hours wait- “What?” I ask.
ing for the cop to get off the phone with his bookie, “May I see your driver’s license, please?” she says
when my eye caught on the pile of romance novels in that sweet, lyric voice.
in the passenger seat. “Oh. Yeah.” I hand her my license.
It would be wrong to say that I’m embarrassed “And your registration, please.”
by my habit, but it is something I try not to adver- I open the glove compartment, and a pile of
tise. People just don’t understand how a six-two, pink-covered romances falls out. I gather them up
three-hundred-pound man with a full beard and a and flip them over, but the back covers are no less
genetically sour expression can read such things. lurid than the fronts. I toss them between the pas-
Their eyebrows raise and they suppress giggles and senger seat and the door.
they smirk at you like you’re wearing a pink tutu or I turn back and hand her my registration. She’s
something. smiling. “Into romances, huh?”
I wasn’t in the mood for that just now. “I . . . they’re just . . .” I sigh. There’s no dignity
So I start grabbing bundles of books and shoving left to save. “Yes, ma’am. Very much so.”
them in the glove compartment and under the seat. She takes off her Ray Bans to reveal sparkling
I run out of space after the third bundle and am hazel eyes. “So am I,” she grins and takes my regis-
just turning to look in the back seat for a bag to tration card. “Back in a second,” she says and heads
stuff the rest into when I hear a tap on the window. to her car.
“Damn,” I say much louder than I mean to and I watch her in my side mirror and can’t help but
turn to face the fascist pig cop with the domination admire the slender, athletic figure that her plain,
complex and a whole lotta nerve for pulling over a blue uniform can’t hide. Her movements are fluid,
generally law-abiding citizen who may have pushed powerful, revealing an understated femininity so
the limit a little bit but who deserves a break much more entrancing than the overt sexuality
because everyone makes a mistake and it’s a Satur- so many women go for.
day and all I want to do is trade in a few paper- Then she gets into her car and closes the door,
backs so I can find something in my life that isn’t and the trance breaks. I’m about to get a speeding
empty and depressing but there aren’t any decent ticket from this lady. This woman. This icon of con-
bookstores in Genola so I have to drive to Salt fident feminine power. This astounding creature of
Lake and it’s a nice drive but even Eden gets boring surpassing strength and beauty. This . . . this . . .

Cop. “Why?” I stammer.

She’s a cop, just like every other surly, overbear- “I’ve been patrolling this stretch of road for over
ing jerk I’d ever met at the side of the road. And she a year,” she says. “In all that time, I’ve never seen
was going to give me one whopping ticket, too. I’d you go less than eighty through here—not if con-
have to go through traffic school or pay a huge fine. ditions would allow.”
Or both. My insurance rates were going to sky- She looks up and down the road, then leans in
rocket. This thing could well ripple through the toward the window. “And in all that time, I’ve
next five years of my life. And for what? A couple never seen you make a dangerous lane change or
of romance novels. run up on another driver. You never shave or read
At least it’s for a good cause. the paper or talk on a cell phone while you’re driv-
I’m still pondering the potential for personal ruin ing. You’re fast, but you’re safe. I appreciate that.”
and the slim outside chance of asking Officer Har- She smiles that sparkly smile again, and I melt.
baugh on a date when she appears at my window. “Be well, Mr. Hantz,” she says.
“Do you realize how fast you were going?” She turns to go, and I feel my heart go cold. I let
she says. my head droop forward until the seatbelt stops me.
All the pithy retorts I’ve spent the last ten years I should have said something else, maybe asked her
preparing flee my mind as I gaze into her sweet out, or at least found out what days she patrolled
face. I say, “Yes.” the road so I could plan to be pulled over again.
“If I let you go with a warning, will you promise I smack myself on the forehead. “Jerk,” I mutter.
to slow down in the future?” “Excuse me?” she says.
Now I should have nodded and told her that I I sit up, and she’s there at my window, bent
was very sorry and that I would never intentionally down and looking in at me, my driver’s license in
abuse the speed limit again, that I was a reformed her hand. “I was, uh . . . I said ‘jerk’ but I wasn’t
man and her mercy would be rewarded with tem- talking to you. I was talking about you, but I was
perate roadway behavior for all the days of my life. saying it to myself. I mean . . . oh, damn.”
But I couldn’t lie. Not to her. I clap my hand over my mouth, and she laughs,
“I don’t even think about the speed limit. So I a fun sound like children at play. I smile and blush.
can’t promise that the next time I want to get some- She hands me my license and a white business
where, I won’t speed again.” card. “If you have any more questions, you can give
I look down at the steering wheel. That’s it. Now me a call. Drive safely.”
she’ll give me a ticket. I just hope she’ll be the one Then she’s gone, and I’m staring at the card.
teaching traffic school so I can meet her again. It’s a Utah Highway Patrol card with her name
When I look up, she gazes at me with those listed as Officer Harbaugh. I flip it over and see
penetrating eyes. “Thank you for your honesty, flowing script on the back in blue ink. It says,
Mr. Hantz.” She looks at her ticket book, then “Suzanne. 555-9160. After 4:00.”
closes it and shakes her head. “I’m going to let I look up and see her pulling out onto the road.
you go. But I strongly advise that you slow down She waves at me and speeds away.
in the future.” It may be true that I spend a lot of time in the
I blink at her. “What?” fantasy world of romance novels. It may be true
“You can go,” she says and hands me my that I prefer that warm fantasy to the hard realities
registration. of daily life. It may even be true that I actually own
I should have shut up and accepted my good for- several billow-sleeved peasant shirts and occasion-
tune. But that meant she would go away and I’d ally put one on and act out the torrid scene where
likely never see her again. It was silly of me, but I me and my love finally clutch each other in pas-
felt that if I kept her here—with me—for long sionate embrace after the cruel struggle that’s kept
enough, something good would happen. us apart.

But I never in my life expected to experience but a short length of road, then black. It must be
real, honest-to-goodness love at first sight. five miles wide and just as high, because I can only
I put my car in gear, check over my shoulder, and barely see its edges, and I can’t see the top at all.
pull out onto the empty road. For once, driving a It’s centered on the highway, and just before it
mere sixty-five doesn’t seem like a hardship, and I hits the ground the black Porsche darts beneath
find that I’m totally relaxed as I approach the speed it and vanishes.
trap at the South Towne Mall. It’s the first time I Don’t ask me why, but I know that Suzanne will
can remember that I don’t care if a cop is there or be okay if she makes it under the black cube before
not. Kind of refreshing in an odd sort of way. it lands. If she hits it after it lands, though, she’s
I’m contemplating the joys of feminine compan- in trouble.
ionship and the virtues of driving the speed limit And she was trying to slow down.
when a black Porsche blows by me so fast that the Suzanne’s white Camaro noses down and swerves
wind of his passing pushes me hard to the side of as she hits the brakes, and I feel my heart stop as I
the road, and I have to use two hands to keep con- realize that she’s not going to stop in time.
trol of my little Geo. I figure he must be pushing a The cube hits ground with a rumble more felt
hundred—way too fast, even for me. than heard, and her car careens toward it. The
“Go get him, Officer Harbaugh,” I mutter. Camaro’s back end breaks loose, then straightens
Officer Harbaugh. Suzanne. Sue? Susie? No. Not out. It hits the black wall, disappears partway into
that she’s stiff or formal or anything, but she’s got it, then stops suddenly.
herself together in a way that suggests complete- I stop thirty feet away and leap out, run to her
ness. Order. Definitely Suzanne. car—or at least the half-car sticking out of the
Sigh . . . shimmering black wall. The airbag has deployed,
I see her pull onto the highway from the median and dingy yellow-white cloth spills out as I yank
ahead of me, and I wave at her as she speeds away. the door handle. The hinges have vanished behind
I’m sure she can’t see me, but for just a moment the black wall, and the door pulls away and drops
I think I see her wave back. to the ground, sheered neatly off at the wall line.
I’m considering all the bad things that can hap- Suzanne pushes the airbag away as it slowly
pen at high speeds and trying to figure out what deflates. Her face is red, like it’s been sunburned,
she’ll do if the Porsche decides not to pull over and and her eyes are glassy. Then she gasps and pulls
remembering the fact that there’s construction back from the steering wheel, jerks her feet away
about three miles ahead and the road narrows to a from the pedals.
scant two lanes but you don’t have time to react in “Are you okay?” I ask.
such tight quarters if something goes wrong and I She nods slowly. “It’s cold,” she says and points
wonder how many highway patrolmen are injured down at the floorboard. I look and see the strange
in car accidents every year so maybe I ought to try black wall inside the car. It’s sliced down through
to catch up to them and help herd the Porsche to the firewall, and its oily, coruscating surface covers
the side of the road so Suzanne doesn’t get injured the space where the pedals should be.
because I don’t know what I’d do if she got hurt or It radiates an icy cold, a menacing bite that
killed and I wonder if a Geo Metro can go a hun- promises instant freezer burn if touched. Suzanne
dred even on a downhill with a tailwind and— shifts in her seat, and I look over at her feet. The
And ahead of me, a giant black cube descends fronts of both shoes are gone, cut cleanly off. Her
from the sky and blots out the world. toes are curled back, and I realize that the toes of
Okay, maybe not the whole world, but enough her socks are gone, as well.
of it that I swerve and skid and almost lose control I grab a foot, and she starts, then relaxes. The
of my car because I can’t see anything ahead of me ends of her toes are bright red and starting to swell.

I look closer and see that the nail of her big toe is mering black wall. He shakes his head as he comes
absolutely flat right to the edge of her flesh. As toward us.
though cut with a wide blade. Or a laser. “Damn Fizbanians,” he mutters. “They ought to
“Get out of the car,” I say in as calm a voice as I warn people before they drop those damned trans-
can muster. “But stay away from that black wall.” port cubes.” He shakes his head. “It would be inter-
I stand up as she unbuckles her seatbelt, then esting to see their planet, though.”
help her turn in the seat so that her feet are outside Suzanne and I stare at the trucker for a moment,
the car. I take her hand and pull her out, and I’m then turn and face each other.
thinking how soft and warm her hand is and how “Sorry if that was a little rough,” I say and look
this is actually the first time I’ve touched her even down at my hands.
though I feel like I know her very well and I think When I look up, she’s smiling at me. She takes
I like it and I hope there are other opportunities my hand without saying anything, then reaches up
which there might be because she isn’t pulling away and kisses me on the cheek. “Thank you,” she says,
at all even though I’m essentially a stranger who she then hugs me. I hug her back, and everything in
just met and— the world is perfect, if only for that moment.
And a semi-truck appears at the top of a gentle Maybe it wasn’t your standard romance-novel
rise in the road, blasts its horn, and careens toward ending. Then again, it was awfully close. There was
us too fast to stop. the electricity when we first met, the evil-doer who
Like I said before, I’m a relatively big man at kept us apart, the disaster of unnatural proportions,
over six feet and further over three hundred pounds and the heroic rescue from the madman about to
than I like to admit. When you’re that heavy, you cause her grave bodily harm. There was the kiss
automatically develop a certain amount of strength and the tender thanks and the embrace that was
just to carry your own body around. Which is not about as passionate as I could have tolerated at
to say that I’m in any way athletic—far from it, the moment. At least in front of witnesses.
I’m a dedicated couch potato and member of the Good enough for me. In fact, more than good
Loafer’s Guild. But when you carry three hundred enough.
pounds around with you every day, an extra one- Because in the instant after the kiss and before
ten is hardly noticeable. the hug, her eyes sparkled and her face glowed. And
So I grab Suzanne around the waist, pull her out while I can’t be completely certain, I’m pretty sure
of her car, and trundle as fast as I can toward the that her . . . or rather that I thought I saw . . . which
median, trying to ignore the warbling screech of is to say, that she . . .
tortured rubber and the ever louder blare of the That her breasts actually heaved.
semi’s horn.
Maybe that was unnecessary. Maybe she could
have gotten out on her own and would’ve made it
to the side of the road with a little less jostling and
flopping of limbs. But she’d just been in a head-on
collision with that weird black wall, she’d been
blasted in the face by a hot airbag, and the fronts of
her shoes were missing.
It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
The semi jackknifes and comes in sideways. It
hits the Camaro and knocks it through the wall,
then starts through as well. It stops halfway. The
driver jumps out of the cab and stares at the shim-

R E V I E W S Deborah and Simeon are the most reluctant mem-

bers of David’s family to join the Jesus movement
Fishers of Men because of his nonviolent teachings. David’s brother-
in-law Aaron is a Pharisee. Meanwhile in Jeru-
A review of Gerald Lund’s Fishers of Men, volume salem, Mordechai represents the Jewish political
one of The Kingdom and the Crown series (Shadow elite, opposed to both the Galilean zealots and Jesus.
Mountain, 2000) His daughter, Miriam, is caught between her loy-
Reviewed by Andrew Hall alty to her father and her respect for the Galileans.
She is also charmed by the Roman tribune Marcus,
Fishers of Men is the first of a multi-volume series who is in charge of a plot to destroy the zealots. So,
of novels set in Palestine during Christ’s ministry. a very tangled web of characters and loyalties.
While Lund is not a subtle or nuanced writer, he Let’s start with the good things. First of all, the
has quite competently produced an educational, book is about Christ and the impact he had in
exciting, and occasionally inspiring tale based on the Holy Land. What better source material could
the greatest story every told. you hope for? I loved these kind of historical toga
The novel follows the changes that occur in two novels about people discovering Christ and his
fictional Jewish families as they come in contact Apostles when I was young. I must have read Lloyd
with Jesus and his teachings during the first year of Douglas’s The Robe fifteen times. Also Quo Vadis
his ministry. The first is the family of Capernaum and the movie Ben Hur. Ben Hur and The Robe
merchant David ben Joseph, half of whom are ded- were among the best-selling books of their day (the
icated to the zealot cause. The other is the family of 1880s and the 1940s). The power of the real stories
Jerusalem Sanhedrin leader Mordechai ben Uzziel. behind the fiction often raised them above the level
There are two main plot directions in the work. of writing skill the authors brought to the projects.
One is the impact Christ’s ministry has on the char- Lund fits into that category. Here are people com-
acters, some converting, and some not. Although ing across Christ, witnessing his miracles, and grap-
Christ’s actions and teachings are a major motivat- pling with his surprising doctrine. The discussions
ing factor in the plot, Jesus himself appears only in the characters have with each other trying to figure
a few of the scenes. The other major direction is the out what it was they saw are among the best parts
three-cornered scheming between the Jewish of the book.
zealots in Galilee, the Jewish Sanhedrin (which is Lund teaches the reader a lot about the New Tes-
itself divided between Sadducees and Pharisees, tament world over the course of this huge book.
united in their opposition to both Christ and the The book flap says that Lund did graduate work in
zealots), and the Romans. New Testament studies at Pepperdine University
The story begins in A.D. 29, just before Christ’s and Hebrew at the University of Judaism in Los
ministry begins. David, the Capernaum merchant, Angeles (not a degree, just “studies”). He has worked
was one of the witnesses of the Nativity (he was vis- as a tour director and lecturer in the Holy Land
iting his shepherd friends near Bethlehem as a more than a dozen times and has been an educator
young man) and is awaiting the Messiah’s appear- in the Church Educational System for more than
ance as an adult. He is a friend of Simon Peter, 35 years, with a hand in developing some of the
which connection quickly brings him to Jesus after Church’s curriculum materials. Throughout the book
Simon is called as a disciple. His wife, Deborah, is Lund takes breaks in the action to describe aspects
a survivor of a leading zealot family that was almost of Jewish religion and culture. For example, when
completely wiped out by the Romans when she was Miriam gives the Roman tribune a tour of the
a young woman. They have four children, the sec- temple’s outer courts and explains the architecture
ond of which is Simeon, a leader in the zealot cause and ceremonies of the temple. Or a whole chapter
and the main protagonist in this ensemble cast. describing a betrothal ceremony. Or details on the

differences and tensions between the zealots, Phar- then I would direct them toward the superior
isees, and Sadducees. Sometimes it is the same historical fiction of Dean Hughes, Orson Scott
information found in Talmage’s Jesus the Christ Card, and Margaret Young and Darius Gray. It is
(usually taken from Farrar’s Life of Christ), and not that the writing is bad; it just isn’t noteworthy
therefore we have read or heard it before. But often at all. The authors I mentioned before know how
the information is taken from recent biblical to turn a phrase beautifully, and they have taken
scholarship (Lund provides the sources for his me to unexpected places. Lund doesn’t try to do
information in the notes at the end of each chap- either of those things.
ter). Sure, this breaks up the action, but you didn’t The cover is pretty ugly. It features a soft focus
come to a historical fiction book about Christ just painting of Christ calling the fishermen as dis-
for the plot anyway, did you? Especially since it is ciples. Deseret has done some nice cover art lately,
Lund, who is more of an educator than a novelist but not this time.
anyway. I found the informational sections fasci- One interesting thing about the book: there is
nating; I didn’t know a good deal of the stuff he nothing specifically Mormon about it. Lund does
introduces. And Melville did the same thing in set the birth of Christ in the spring but explains it
Moby Dick, taking whole chapters to explain how in his notes using biblical scholarship, not Latter-
a whale is gutted, etc. I thought Lund handled day scripture. It appears to be written so that it
the balance between the plot-advancing scenes, the could be marketed to general Christian audiences.
spiritual-experience scenes, and the educational I called some Christian bookstores near us, and
scenes quite well. they said they had it in their computer but not in
On the down side, Lund really is just a compe- stock. I wonder if Shadow Mountain/Deseret has
tent novelist. The dialogue is occasionally stilted, been able to get it into some of those stores.
and the characters are all pretty monochromatic.
One would think that with the size of this book, Andrew Hall is a doctoral candidate in Japanese
he could spend a little time giving them some history, moving back and forth between Pittsburgh
depth. This is especially true of the “bad guys.” and Fukuoka, Japan.
The Gadianton-robber-type guy is basically a
moustache-twirling melodrama villain. Pilate and Love during Wartime
Mordechai aren’t much better. Perhaps Lund draws
them that way because that is part of his world- A review of Marilyn Brown’s The Wine-Dark Sea of
view: people do bad things because they are bad Grass (Salt Press, 2000)
people, simple. Reviewed by Morgan B. Adair
If you can get through the first third or half of
the book, however, you finally get to the part where How could good people do something so hor-
the characters start becoming more involved in the rible? When that question was first asked by those
Jesus movement, and the zealot/Sanhedrin/Roman investigating the killing of over 120 immigrants in
battle starts to get exciting. Then my concerns the tragedy known as the Mountain Meadows
about the somewhat clunky writing started to dis- Massacre, the response was denial: “We didn’t do it.
sipate, and the book began to grab my attention. It was the Indians.” Once the essential facts of the
I enjoyed the experience, and I think it will appeal massacre came to light, anti-Mormon writers pro-
to a wide range of readers. I have only glanced vided a different answer: “They were not good
through Lund’s Work and the Glory series and was people.” With the ball back in the Mormon court,
not very impressed. But now if I see someone read- the next phase was rationalization: “It was not
ing one of these books, I will not inwardly sneer such a bad thing.” There was an army approaching.
but be glad that they are having a good educational We were in a war. Members of the Fancher train
experience and not a bad literary experience. And (and the preceding wagon train, the “Missouri

Wildcats”) incited the Indians to uprising, and they tragedy. Most of the people killed are part of
had to be killed to placate the Indians. the faceless crowd. When the order was given,
The massacre has been dealt with in anti-Mormon Jacob “saw the men of the Fancher train thudding
fiction, but Marilyn Brown’s The Wine-Dark Sea of to the ground.” His attention immediately turns to
Grass is the first novel I’m aware of that focuses the man he is supposed to kill, who is attempting
on the massacre from the Mormon perspective. to wrest Jacob’s gun away from him. For Jacob,
Another novel was just released: Ferry Woman: what was to be a massacre suddenly became a
A Novel of John D. Lee and the Mountain Meadows struggle for his life. The killing of this man, the
Massacre, by Gerald Grimmett, published by Lim- only one of the immigrants who is not faceless,
berlost Press. Yet another is forthcoming: Red is done in self-defense. The man dies asking the
Water, by Judith Freeman (author of A Desert of question, “How could . . . ?”
Pure Feeling), possibly from a major publisher. Brown correctly places John D. Lee near the
Brown has made an effort to make her story his- front of the column, behind a wagonload of sick
torically accurate but sometimes accepts rumors and wounded immigrants. Jacob is shocked when
that put the immigrants in a negative light. Take, he sees Lee killing them, but he realizes that no one
for example, the rumor that the “Missouri Wild- who could tell what happened could be left alive.
cats” poisoned a spring, resulting in the death of In depicting the massacre, Brown could take a
livestock. Proctor Robinson died after skinning one lesson from Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. The
of the dead cattle, the poison supposedly being opening scene, perhaps the most effective depiction
transmitted when he rubbed his eye. This rumor of the horror of war ever made, succeeds by giving
circulated after the massacre as an example of the many details in rapid succession. In comparison,
outrages committed by immigrants traveling Brown has given us a wide-angle view. Details of
through Utah that incited the Mormon anger that the massacre that Brown could have drawn on have
was misdirected against the Fanchers. The authori- been preserved in the accounts of both the Mor-
tative source on the massacre, Juanita Brooks’s The mon participants and children who survived. For
Mountain Meadows Massacre, notes that a much example, Mary Elizabeth “Sallie” Baker was five
more likely explanation is that Robinson died of a years old at the time of the massacre:
bacterial infection from skinning a decaying carcass
and that the cattle died of natural causes. Never- Sallie Baker recalled she was sitting on her
theless, Brown treats Robinson’s death as if caused father’s lap when the same bullet that killed
by the Missourians. him nicked her ear, leaving a scar forever. The
As one reads through the list of names and ages bloodshed was imprinted on Sallie’s memory
of those killed in the massacre (see www.mtn- for the rest of her life. Only her words can
meadows-assoc.com/inmemory.htm), one notices that begin to describe her feelings. She was eighty-
the party consisted mostly of young families. For five years old and still remembered.
the most part, Brown depicts the party as a faceless But even when you’re that young you don’t
crowd, “like a river.” The one exception is a man forget the horror of having your father gasp
and his pregnant wife that the protagonist, Jacob, for breath and grow limp, while you have your
talks to on the road. Coincidentally, this is the arms around his neck, screaming with terror.
man that Jacob is expected to kill in the massacre. You don’t forget the blood-curdling war
Members of the immigrant train were disarmed, whoops and the banging of guns all around
then walked, single file, back toward Cedar City. you. You don’t forget the screaming of the
After walking a short distance, the command was other children and the agonized shrieks of
given to halt, and each of the Mormons was to women being hacked to death with toma-
kill the immigrant at his side. Brown’s description hawks. And you wouldn’t forget it, either, if
of the massacre doesn’t capture the horror of the you saw your own mother topple over in the

wagon beside you, with a big red splotch get- a quarter to one-eighth inch of the bottom of
ting bigger on the front of her calico dress. the page, and on many pages the text is printed
One of the Mormons ran up to the wagon, slightly crooked.
raised his gun, and said, “Lord my God, While I enjoy reading history, I believe literature
receive their spirits, it is for thy Kingdom that has a greater potential to let us imagine the feelings
I do this.” Then he fired at the wounded man and motivations of others and explore human com-
who was leaning against another man, killing plexity. In telling the Mountain Meadows story
them both with the same bullet. from the Mormon point of view, Marilyn Brown
has told us that this horrible thing happened, that
A 14-year-old boy came running up toward good people did it, and somehow they continued
our wagon, and the driver, who was a Mor- to be good people. I’m confident that the answer to
mon, hit him over the head with the butt end how this could happen could be found by unravel-
of his gun, crushing the boy’s skull. A young ing the complexities of human nature, but I haven’t
girl about 11 years old, all covered with blood, found that answer yet.
was running toward the wagon when an
Indian fired at her point blank. (Anna Jean Morgan B. Adair is a software consultant who lives
Backus, Mountain Meadows Witness: The Life in Lindon, Utah, with his wife, Marta, and approx-
and Times of Bishop Philip Klingensmith, imately 5–8 children.
136–37)
Brown shifts the point of view of the narrative Currents of Faith
several times in the novel. Each chapter begins with A review of John H. Groberg’s In the Eye of the
the name of the character from whose point of view Storm (Bookcraft, 1993)
that chapter is told. Brown could have used this Reviewed by Larry Jackson
technique to make a very powerful book just by
including one more point of view, that of one Note: A movie adaptation of this book will be
of the members of the Fancher party. Imagine see- released later this year under the title The Other Side
ing the massacre from the point of view of a five- of Heaven. For more details, see www.otherside-
or six-year-old child whose lack of comprehension ofheaven.com.
of events only adds to the terror they feel. Then
imagine how they would feel, after watching their This is the story of Elder John H. Groberg’s first
family be killed by the Mormons, being given to a mission to Tonga from 1954 to 1957. It is a story
Mormon family to be cared for. of faith, love, patience, obedience, courage, and
Although the cover of the book and my review adventure and of listening to and following the
thus far might lead you to believe that The Wine- promptings of the Spirit. The book has 60 chapters
Dark Sea of Grass is a novel about the Mountain and a glossary. Everything takes place on Tonga,
Meadows Massacre, that is not really the case. The except events in the second and last chapters and in
massacre is a backdrop to the actual story, a story of parts of two others.
obsessive love between Elizabeth and John D. Lee Groberg writes, “I had no feeling that I was
and between Jacob and Elizabeth, who ends up going into a particularly hard situation or that
marrying J. B., Jacob’s father. Polygamy compli- things were going to be tough. I had no thought of
cates many of the marriages in the novel, just as it doing anything unusual, but rather simply wanted
did in real life. to do my best to get through each day doing as
Finally, a note on the printing. While the book much good and as little damage as possible.” This
is nicely bound and has an attractive dust jacket, introductory understatement sets the tone of the
there are problems with the printed text. There is book. I thought I would read it in my spare time
almost no bottom margin—the text comes within over the course of a few weeks, but I finished it in
three days. Take, for example, this excerpt from the Elder Groberg served in two areas. The first was
very first chapter: an island of about 700 residents with no electricity,
The motor struggled with all its might to running water, or any other modern convenience.
climb the monstrous wave. I still felt we would A week’s travel by boat, it was the most distant Ton-
be safe but realized we were in for a rough gan island from the mission home. He was there
time. This was worse than any roller coaster for over a year with his “first, last, and only regular
ride, and the stakes were much higher. missionary companion.”
In his second area, he was the district president
We were just approaching the top of this
for a year and a half, responsible for 2,000 members
huge wave when immediately behind it
of the church on 17 islands. This would be similar
appeared another one even larger. The boat
to being the stake president of a very large geographi-
turned crazily as we reached the top of the
wave and started down. Suddenly, almost with- cal stake today. Counting travel time to and from
out warning, the second wave came roaring Tonga, he served away from home for three years.
through and caught the front of our boat, flip- Thinking at first that the Tongan lifestyle was
ping us into the air like a lion discarding a simple, Elder Groberg soon learned that it was as
dead mouse. . . . complex as ours, “not in a physical ‘rush here and
scurry there’ context, but in the context of inter-
I remember the sensation of falling, falling, personal relationships, in finding one’s place in
falling through hissing winds and stinging salt society, and in coming to peace with God and with
spray into the boiling cauldron of an angry one’s role in life, . . . just set against a different
sea. As I hit the water, I remember wondering background.”
where the others were, and where the boat His first mission president gave him two assign-
was, and hoping it wouldn’t land on top of me.
ments: learn the language as soon as possible, and
I thought I could still hear the uncontrolled
build the kingdom. His companion spoke a little
whining of that frantic, racing propeller.
English and had been serving as a building mis-
As I sank below the water, I still seemed to sionary. He was “a native Tongan, a priest in the
be falling down, down, deeper and deeper. Aaronic Priesthood, worthy to be an elder, but
The pressure was almost unbearable; my lungs at that time in Tonga men were ordained elders
seemed ready to burst. When would it end? only when they got married.” Groberg continues:
And how? I wondered about my scriptures and “I marveled at his ability to speak Tongan, even
the tracts and what few other things we had though it was his native tongue. I marveled
on the boat. I wondered about the most even more at his obedience. . . . [D]uring the thir-
recent baptismal certificate I was carefully car- teen months we were together he spoke only Ton-
rying in my scriptures. It’s strange what you gan to me.”
think of at times like that. Through Elder Groberg’s eyes, we come to feel a
Then I was on the surface again, out of the different world and another way of living. The
grasp of that terrible pressure but still in the cen- story flows with excitement, balanced with a pacing
ter of a universe in unbelievable commotion. that portrays a different way of telling time.
I could see no one and hear nothing but the “I remember asking the branch president what
confused sounds of a swirling sea of madness. time sacrament meeting started. He looked to the
For a moment I thought again, “This can’t west, pointed partway down the sky, and said,
be! This isn’t true! I’m a missionary; this isn’t ‘When the sun is about there.’”
supposed to happen! I’m not supposed to He reveals his innermost feelings of despon-
swim!” But it was true and I was there, and I dency and loneliness and how he overcame those
knew I had better quit complaining and start deep feelings through prayer. He tells of the trust
swimming. and confidence required because of his situation

and learned through his association with the Ton- eighteen-year-old daughter. She had put down her
gan people. He describes the love and faithfulness load and was in the process of undressing.”
of Feki, his companion. “My heart melted with Elder Groberg’s language is descriptive, thorough,
admiration. He had absolutely refused to down- and powerful. He speaks of life and death, faith and
grade another. I knew I could trust him.” blessings, and the gift of tongues. He describes learn-
The book is about faith, and faith is woven ing of his father’s calling as a patriarch three months
throughout the stories he tells. Elder Groberg before he receives the letter announcing the news.
shares many of his firsthand feelings and growth as He tells of harrowing travel by small sailboat on the
he experiences the faith of the Tongans. At one open sea and of his desire to learn from each expe-
point he writes: “I felt like I was standing on the rience. He describes a place of which most have
shore of a mighty river while watching the power- only dreamed. And it becomes real and tangible.
ful flow of faith go by. That river of faith was like This book, simply but powerfully written, will
an unfathomable current that I could see and feel, strengthen faith and bring a deep understanding of
but not fully understand from where it came or to what it means to rely upon the Lord. It brought
where it was going, yet every part of me felt its back to me memories of some of the most personal
force and beauty and power. It was marvelous!” and spiritual experiences of my lifetime.
Communication to the island was by boat, Elder Groberg has shared a few of his mission
which came every four weeks or so—sometimes. stories while speaking in general conference, such
When a hurricane destroyed the crops and gardens, as the healing of the boy who fell from the mango
the food was gone in four weeks, but the boat tree. But in the pages of this book, he is a story-
didn’t come for nine. “I was pretty much skin and teller. And what a story.
bones by now. I remember being aware of my ribs Once I asked the Lord to bless us with a
sticking out, of sensing my heart beating and my good tail wind. . . . As we got under way, one
lungs breathing, and feeling a great wonderment of the older men said, “Elder Groberg, you
for the miracle of the human body. . . . At times I need to modify your prayers a little.”
wasn’t sure which side of the veil I would end up “How’s that?” I replied.
on, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that
God was in His heaven, and He knew me and my “You asked the Lord for a tail wind to take
situation; He would see that what was right was us rapidly to Foa. If you pray for a tail wind to
done, for as far as I knew, I had done all I could.” Foa, what about the people who are trying
Finally he heard the cry from high on the moun- to come from Foa to Pangai? They are good
tain, “Seilo, seilo” (“A boat is coming”). people, and you are praying against them. Just
Humor is not lost in the telling of his experi- pray for a good wind, not a tail wind.”
ences. Elder Groberg shares the good and the bad, Ah, the simple things of life. So simple. So
the serious and the funny with a consistent level of powerful. This book will take your breath away,
narrative, allowing each adventure to stand on its spiritually.
own until the reader realizes they are truly woven
into one great whole. Some examples: “Within a Larry Jackson is husband of one (for 27 years),
day I learned again the classic definition of seasick- father of eleven, and has been the occasional shepherd
ness: At first you’re afraid you’ll die; then you get so of several thousand members over more than
sick you’re afraid you won’t.” “He asked me 20 years of Church service. He lives with his family
whether my feet had been uncovered during the in the southwestern part of the United States. Faith
night. When I said, ‘I guess so,’ he told me that rats has played a key role in his life, with good calendar-
had eaten the soles of my feet off!” “A female voice ing running a close second. Over the years, he has
called back, ‘Help me! I twisted my ankle.’ I came learned that “when the sun is about there” is often
around the bend and sure enough, there was the good enough.

Predictable Suspense I’ll Find You is mostly love story. Several budding
romances find their way into the book, but there
A review of Clair M. Poulson’s I’ll Find You (Cove- isn’t one of them that isn’t entirely predictable.
nant Communications, 2000) From the outset, the author telegraphs his moves
Reviewed by Jeff Needle clearly and obviously. And sure enough, it all sorts
itself out exactly as you suspected.
I’ll Find You is described on its cover as a “novel But on the positive side, the book presents good
of suspense.” This is partly true; the middle of the role models for young men and women who may
book is filled with exciting intrigues and puzzles. be confused as to how to act in perplexing situa-
Unfortunately, the rest of the book is entirely pre- tions. Jeri insists on maintaining her high stan-
dictable and, at times, tiresome. dards, and lessons are taught about the possibility
The story centers around two Utah families. Jeri of redemption and the healing power of love. The
Satch is a lively and vivacious five-year-old. Her transition from Randy back to Rusty is well docu-
best friend, Rusty Egan, also five years old, lives mented and presents a hope-filled picture of the
next door. They play together regularly, and the power of the Gospel to change lives.
families, both LDS, are good friends. One day a Young people will like this book; old folks like
strange car pulls up, and Rusty is snatched from myself will find much of it tedious and repetitive.
his yard. Jeri, terrified, calls out to him, “I’ll find But then again, maybe repeating the good in life
you!” The police search, but all in vain. Rusty is isn’t so bad after all.
just gone.
Seventeen years later, Jeri, now an accountant for Jeff Needle is a veteran Mormon watcher who lives
a firm in Sacramento, California, is assigned the in southern California. He has written more than
job of visiting one of their clients, a local prison, to sixty reviews for AML-List.
help their bookkeeper in her work. While at the
prison, Jeri is given a tour, where she spots a fellow Expecting Adam
who she knows in her heart is Rusty. (He now goes
by Randy, the name given him by his captor.) He A review of Martha Beck’s Expecting Adam: A True
also recognizes her, but can’t figure out where he Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic (Times
knows her from. Books, 1999), winner of the 1999 AML essay prize
Turns out Jeri has been obsessed with Rusty Reviewed by Andrew Hall
(now Randy) ever since the kidnapping episode.
This has affected her ability to maintain any kind I’ve got to start writing reviews right after read-
of relationship with any other man. She manages a ing the book—I’m always putting them off until
second visit with him, where she reveals who she is, I’ve forgotten half of what happened. Expecting
suspecting who he is. He gradually comes around, Adam, however, is still resonating strongly with me
and the childhood friends are reunited. two months later. Beck writes wittily and engag-
Randy is in prison for grand theft. He claims he ingly, and she successfully presents some seriously
lost the money while fleeing the police, but they hefty subject matter without ever getting remotely
don’t believe him. Neither does his cellmate, an close to maudlin. I do have some complaints about
utterly evil person going by the name of Chum. what I saw as dishonesty in her descriptions of the
Randy is released early, the authorities believing development of her spiritual senses and the role
that he will go for the money and that by keep- Mormonism played in that, which I’ll discuss after
ing an eye on him they will find the money and all the good stuff.
recover it. Beck herself describes the book this way, “This is
But Chum has other ideas. Shortly after his the story of two driven Harvard academics who
release, he catches up with Randy and threatens found out in mid-pregnancy that their unborn son
physical violence unless Randy gives him the money. would be retarded. To their own surprise and the
horrified dismay of the university community, the told me about these experiences a nut, but damn if
couple . . . decided to allow their baby to be born. they haven’t been happening to me.
What they did not realize is that they themselves Finally, Beck is a great storyteller. The book
were the ones who would be ‘born,’ infants in a moves smoothly from one vignette to another, all
new world where magic is commonplace, Harvard of which nicely illustrate her various points while
professors are the slow learners, and retarded babies also helping the arc of the plot move along. Her
are the master teacher.” flash-forward stories about the growing-up Adam
I read a similar summary when the book came are full of charm and love. I especially like the story
out and didn’t have a lot of interest in it. Sick kids, about how Adam become obsessed with suits and
probably New Age-y, whiny about their bad college blazers at age four and converted one of his friends
experiences—it didn’t send me heading for the to his fashion sense. “They look like a couple of
checkout line. But it won an AML award, and a weird little executives dashing around the play-
good friend highly recommended it to us, and my ground. No one understands what they say to each
wife kept cracking up reading it. So I gave it a shot other, but I think they’re doing what all manage-
and loved it. ment consultants do: coming up with marketing
First of all, it is a very funny book. Sometimes strategies, negotiating intellectual-property agree-
her takes on just about anyone who is not actively ments, pouring sand in each other’s hair when
and currently helping her or her family seem a bit communication breaks down.”
over the top, but they are always funny. Secondly, Okay, time for my caveat. I didn’t feel that Beck
she successfully portrays her journey from being was completely honest in describing the role of her
a cynical intellectual toward a person with faith Mormon background, which makes me suspicious
in spiritual powers, without ever coming off as about the honesty of her work in general. She men-
a kook. tions in an offhand way that both her and her hus-
That journey is one of the major themes of the band’s fathers were professors at BYU and that they
book. It follows the difficult and miracle-filled were raised Mormons. (She is the youngest daugh-
period of Martha and John Beck’s lives while she ter of Hugh Nibley, who is not named but whose
was pregnant with their Down’s Syndrome son, description will immediately tip off many Mormon
Adam (around 1987), with frequent flash-forwards readers. There are some key scenes with her parents,
to events in their lives since then. When they start, who are criticized fairly harshly for their inability to
they are a pair of workaholic, agnostic Harvard show compassion. John’s parents too. It was inter-
graduate students, nearing completion of their dis- esting to see both sets of parents thanked in the
sertations. In the course of the pregnancy, they acknowledgements, since they are portrayed so neg-
learn to stop demanding constant perfection from atively in the book.) I say in “an offhand way,” but
themselves, ignore the professors and others who that doesn’t mean it is not mentioned often. She is
would force their narrow worldviews on them, and repeatedly “offhand,” almost obsessively “offhand”
enjoy the quirkiness and little joys of their family and dismissive of the faith of her childhood. She
and their lives. implies Mormonism is something she abandoned
As soon as she becomes pregnant, Beck notices soon after entering college, with nary a look back.
that she is being kept from disaster by unseen She presents herself at the time of her pregnancy
beings around her, which she calls the “bunraku (1987) as a rational, secular humanist who, to her
puppeteers,” after the Japanese puppet-masters. surprise, becomes convinced of the existence of
The funny thing is, she subverts the normal “angels powers which go beyond the rational, although she
around us” genre with her witty, no-nonsense remains unattached to any organized religion.
approach of describing them. I am no starry-eyed Well, I think this is a crock. I think she down-
New Age-y person, she is telling us. I am a hard- played her Mormon-ness, and I’m guessing the rea-
nosed intellectual. I would have called anyone who son was to make the book more appealing to the

mass audience. If the story was about a Mormon, together was published by Deseret Book. It was
with all their weird beliefs, suddenly having a series called Breaking the Cycle of Compulsive Behavior,
of metaphysical experiences, people would say, about which the adverting blurb said, “Relying
“Well, what do you expect. She has a proclivity to upon the atonement of the Redeemer is the way,
accept the metaphysical.” But if she is a hard-nosed the only way, the vicious cycle of compulsive
intellectual, dragged kicking and screaming into behavior can be broken. Through Christ, the lives
these experiences, that is interesting. And the thing of behavioral addicts can be changed and
is, she acts like all these things she learned were improved. They use true case histories of Latter-day
complete revelations to her, things she had never Saint young adults to show why conventional
even dreamed of before. For example: approaches to overcoming compulsions fail and to
1. There are beings outside the physical realm explain how a gospel-orientated approach suc-
who are looking out for us and will respond to ceeds.” That doesn’t sound like the work of hard-
requests for help. nosed agnostics. It is hard to believe that in 1987
2. Unborn babies have independent spirits, they were as totally cut off, both physically and
bringing their own talents and traits with them emotionally, from the Church as she portrayed.
from wherever they came. A parent might even rec- I probably shouldn’t be mucking around in this,
ognize a new baby from an unremembered past. but Beck brought it up by making her change in
3. One shouldn’t put one’s work or school above spiritual viewpoints such a key part of the book.
one’s family. No amount of success outside the Besides these things, I found her portrayal of
home can compensate for failure inside the home. Mormons completely unbelievable, which makes
4. Children in general have their own inherent me wonder if I shouldn’t have enjoyed her over-the-
worth. Even if they are handicapped and not able top portrayals of the Harvard community and
to be like other children, they can bring great joy to others as much as I did. I’m afraid she uses stereo-
a family. There is something repugnant in abor- typing and caricature very effectively and believ-
tions as a way to screen out birth defects. ably, which is fun until it is your community being
5. Women should go around in pairs and offer stereotyped, and you say, “Hey, wait a minute.
unsolicited help to other women in need. (It is It isn’t like that.” I was telling my friend Karl Bush-
obvious that the two passing acquaintances who man about the book, and it turns out that he knew
show up uninvited at Martha’s door during a des- the Becks when they were all Harvard undergrads
perate time early in her pregnancy, and keep com- together in the Cambridge Ward in the early 1980s.
ing back as good friends, are her visiting teachers, (When I told him, he cringed a little and said he
although they are never identified as such. One of used to tease her some, saying he couldn’t believe
them, in fact, was Sibyl Johnston, a Mormon she was from Utah since she didn’t have a bouffant
author who has stories published in the Greening hairdo.) Anyway, Karl pointed out that people
Wheat and Bright Angels and Familiars short-story often interpret their past in vastly different ways
collections.) then they would have at the time. He said his father
In all of these cases, Beck seems to say, “Wow, had a friend who wrote an essay for Dialogue
that had never occurred to me!” Well, duh, Martha, describing how wonderful his wife was and how
you’ve only heard those things all your life. God had prepared them for each other. Soon after-
But . . . I suppose that wouldn’t be very interest- ward, however, the couple got a divorce. When
ing. So I’m guessing that in 1999 she downplayed Karl’s dad asked the man about the piece, he
her level of involvement in things Mormon twelve replied, “Couldn’t you see it in the essay? It’s obvi-
years earlier to make the work more appealing to ous by reading it that our marriage was already
the general public. doomed.” Meanings of past events can change
For that matter, in 1990, at least two years after drastically in our minds based on what has hap-
Adam’s birth, a book Martha and John wrote pened to us in the interim. So perhaps Beck’s present

separation from the Church influenced her view of pregnant, Kate Singleton learns that her FBI-agent
how she felt during her time at Harvard, and she husband is dead. For her safety the FBI must relo-
isn’t being as consciously dishonest as it seems like cate her in a new home, with a new name and a
to me. new husband.
Really, though, my being occasionally miffed Grossman, Jeni. Beneath the Surface (Cove-
about her dissing my religion didn’t stop me from nant, $14.95). Under suspicious circumstances, the
thoroughly enjoying this book. And apparently it Lake Shiloh quarry floods and Liam Bennigan dies.
has done well, with nearly a hundred messages Fifteen years later, his family is still convinced that
about it at Amazon.com, most of them raving this wasn’t an accident, and Liam’s two sons are
about the portrayal of the joys and difficulty of rais- bent on revenge.
ing a Down’s Syndrome child. There is a paperback Horne, Lewis B. The House of James and
version out, and her new self-help book was Other Stories (Signature, $14.95). Horne writes
recently published. Good for her. I look forward to stories about common people who are finding their
reading future work she has to offer. way through life. In one, James, a new convert to
Mormonism, is asked by his bishop to rent a room
Selected Recent Releases to an ex-convict. In another, Fred watches help-
lessly as his high-school sweetheart chooses
Barkdull, Larry. Zion: The Long Road to between him and a new life back east. But while
Sanctification (Masai, $16.95). The second book the author doesn’t give all the answers to life’s ques-
in the Zion series tells the story of Enoch as he tries tions, he captures the mood and psychological
to establish a perfect society. In this book Rabunel pressures on ordinary people trying to choose
is captured by the secret Mahan society, wounded, between conflicting values, between irreconcilable
and left for dead. options, who encounter unwanted circumstances
Beck, Martha Nibley. Finding Your Own which can ironically sometimes prove to be bless-
North Star (Crown, $24.95). In this combination ings in disguise.
of self-awareness exercises and true stories from her King, Beverly. Picture Perfect (Covenant,
own counseling experience, Beck invites readers to $14.95). At sixteen, Jillian Taylor wins a beauty
explore their heart’s desires and harmonize the contest, leaves her family and the Church, and
divergent voices of the “essential self.” travels to New York to pursue a modeling career.
Bell, Eloise. Madame Ridiculous and Lady This romance novel tells the story of her efforts to
Sublime (Signature, $14.95). This humor collec- find her way “home.”
tion is nostalgic about life’s absurdities and offers Montague, Terry Bohle. Mine Angels Round
reminiscences of bygone days. About (Granite, $14.99). In 1939 Mormon mission-
Gardner, Willard Boyd. Race against Time aries must evacuate Germany. This book is based on
(Covenant, $14.95). Owen Richards is a non- personal accounts of 58 of those missionaries.
religious 29-year-old single police officer. While Nunes, Rachel Ann. This Time Forever (Cove-
grieving for a friend who’s been killed, he agrees to nant, $14.95). This is the story of two women who
drive Mormon Julianna McCray to Missouri. In are searching for love. Mickelle’s husband turns
the process he steps back in time to 1838 and must abusive because of his struggle with epilepsy, yet
help a distressed frontier family. she is determined to make her marriage work. When
Glenn, Sharlee Mullins. One in a Billion Rebekka arrives in America, she struggles with her
(Horizon, $15.95). This picture book tells the story unresolved feelings about Marc Perrault, whom she
of a daisy asking the question of how the Gardener has idolized since childhood.
has so many flowers yet loves each one the same. Rook, B. Weston. The Junction (Xlibris, trade
Green, Betsy Brannon. Hearts in Hiding paperback $16.00, eBook $8.00). Deems Ellison
(Covenant, $14.95). Married just over a year and had turned his back on God soon after returning

home from his LDS mission to Colorado. He rarely P O E T R Y

thought about those days anymore, preferring to
bury himself in his work as a criminologist for the How the Wind
FBI. But now Deems is forced to confront his past
when he is assigned to go undercover as bait for a I’ve been sitting here
serial killer who is targeting Mormon missionaries for quite some time
in Grand Junction. As he battles his personal with enough thoughts
demons and plays a dangerous game of cat-and- to build a nation—
mouse with a madman, he inadvertently uncovers but none so painful
a disturbing secret about his own past, and redis- so joyous
covers his faith in the process. so white for words
Rowley, B.J. Sting! (Golden Wings, $14.95). as children leaving.
Stephen Ray Fischer, otherwise known as Sting,
can’t touch anyone without shocking them. Some I am yesterday’s sandwich
unnamed government agencies want Sting locked Nobody wants a backrub and a story
up for scientific study, Church members want him A hug or a ball of brown sugar
exed, and a smooth-talking businessman wants to a look at a dead beetle on the porch
“employ” him for mysterious reasons. a double egg yolk in the dough.
Smith, Robert Farrell. Captain Matrimony I don’t know who sings like Mama Cass
(Deseret Book, $12.95). Andy Phillips comes to or where my voice left alto
teach in the tiny Utah town of Mishap, where looking for a strapless bra—I’ve never known
residents are scared because two young lovers how the wind could own Plains Indian land
disappeared while leaving for their honeymoon. the way white men thought they could.
But he solves the mystery of the disappearance of
the young lovers and in the process finds the girl I don’t remember the parabolas of geometry
of his dreams. or even where I’m headed
Wright, Camron Steve. Letters for Emily much less what I once was
(Evans Book, $11.95). This is a story of relation- before you came into
ships: a father and son, a husband and wife, and a my fresh womb at nineteen
grandfather and granddaughter struggle to stay and carved your space
together and find hidden treasures in the process.
cumbrous, buoyant
sweet tide of purpose
swelling breasts and breast
anticipating life
anticipating you
and the leaving
with the same
pregnant possibilities.
I am nineteen again
short of that first breath
that breaks such
seeds
of joy and consolation.
—Lisa Ottesen Fillerup

M O R M O N them personally.” The list includes: Anderson,

L I T E R A R Y
Nephi, Added Upon; Arnold, Marilyn, Desert
Song, Song of Hope, and Sky Full of Ribbons; Brown,
S C E N E Marilyn, the Earthkeepers trilogy, Statehood, and
The Wine-Dark Sea of Grass; Card, Orson Scott,
Books Saints, Sarah: Women of Genesis, the Tales of Alvin
Maker series, and the Homecoming series; Day-
• LDS publisher Cedar Fort has recently
bell, Chad, the Emma trilogy; Fillerup, Michael,
released three “quality novels,” according to AML-
Beyond the River; Heimerdinger, Chris, Daniel
List columnist Andrew Hall. “They still put out a
and Nephi and the Tennis Shoes among the
lot of hokey adventure stories, but someone over
Nephites series; Hughes, Dean, the Children of
there seems to be on the lookout for quality.” The
the Promise series; Kemp, Kenny, I Hated Heaven;
three novels are Angel of the Danube by Alan
Kidd, Kathryn H., Paradise Vue; Lund, Gerald N.,
Mitchell, The Wine-Dark Sea of Grass by Marilyn Fishers of Men and the Work and the Glory series;
Brown, and most recently Winds of Change by Marcum, Robert, Dominion of the Gadiantons;
Dory J. Peters, which Richard Cracroft recom- McCloud, Susan Evans, Where the Heart Leads;
mended in his BYU Magazine Book Nook column: Mitchell, Alan Rex, Angel of the Danube: Barry
“In this engaging, insightful, and culture-bridging Monroe’s Missionary Journal; Morris, Carroll
novel, Dory J. Peters becomes the first Navajo LDS Hofeling, The Broken Covenant; Nelson, Lee, the
returned missionary to tell, in first-rate fiction, how Storm Testament series; Nunes, Rachel Ann, Tomor-
it is to grow up in both Navajo and LDS families; row and Always; Parkinson, Benson Y., The MTC:
how it is to be torn from a cherished, familiar, Set Apart; Perry, Anne, Bethlehem Road and Tathea;
organic, inward, image-centered, and deeply tradi- Smith, Robert Farrell, the Trust Williams trilogy;
tional way of viewing the world and thrust into a Taylor, Curtis, The Dinner Club; Taylor, Samuel W.,
vastly different, mechanistic, word-centered soci- Heaven Knows Why; Smurthwaite, Donald S.,
ety, every bit as deep and traditional; how it is to Fine Old High Priests; Sorensen, Virginia, The
become and remain part of both Navajo clan and Evening and the Morning; Weyland, Jack, Charly
Mormon family; and how he struggles to identify and Sam; Whipple, Maurine, The Giant Joshua;
and cultivate the best of each, while remaining an Woolley, David G., Pillar of Fire; Yorgason,
Other in both cultures. Peters’ story, grounded in Blaine, Charlie’s Monument and The Windwalker;
his own experience but recounted by the fictional Young, Margaret, House without Walls and Salvador;
persona of Victor, a returned missionary visiting his Young, Margaret Blair and Darius Aidan Gray,
reservation home on business, is poignant, power- One More River to Cross. For complete text of
ful, enlightening and well told—a triumphant fic- Cracroft’s article, see www.meridianmagazine.
tional first in Mormon literature, an important com/classicscorner/010515ldsprint.html.
book which gently but movingly teaches racial and • After several transitional months, the merger
cultural toleration, inclusion, and understanding. of Horizon Publishing and Distribution and
Every Latter-day Saint will enjoy this novel.” Cornerstone Books in the LDS market has failed
• Writing in the online Meridian Magazine, due to financing unexpectedly falling through.
Richard Cracroft recently compiled his version of “The experience has left both companies weaker,”
a “canon” of “enduring and significant LDS novels” reported Mormon News. “Horizon is getting back
he feels “will delight, uplift, inspire, and entertain into operation, printing additional copies of back-
most LDS readers.” However, he notes that “some list titles that had run low and getting flyers out
of the canonical novels are not on the list because to customers advertising its products. Horizon is
they treat their subjects in ways which would upset just now addressing new manuscripts and certainly
many LDS readers—so I omit them, even if I like won’t have any new titles out before late in the fall.

Cornerstone has managed to find enough resources wearing him down, but he’s determined to reach
to get back in the market more quickly than Hori- his mileage goal, and this determination, amaz-
zon. The company has a few new titles scheduled ingly, provides sufficient suspense to carry the
for this summer and expects to work back into full reader along from airport to airport. Kirn has a gift
production in the fall.” for exploiting telling details about our consump-
• LDS author Kenny Kemp has signed a mid- tion-mad culture, hinting at dark marketing con-
six-figure, three-book deal with HarperCollins, spiracies that will have us all buying strange items
which recently published Kemp’s originally self- within the month, as though we were simply pup-
published title Dad Was a Carpenter. The new book pets of the marketing companies, one of which
series will be a historical fiction set in Palestine; Bingham aspires to: MythTech. Harrowing read-
Kemp says the concept came out of his pondering ing, but worth the turbulence.”
of the Bible. “I’m interested in reducing the dis- • Penguin Books has announced that, as part of
tance between God and man. I struggle to feel its Penguin Lives biographical series, Jacksonian
more connected to God, and my writing reflects historian Robert Remini will write a short,
that desire. And as a kind of ‘faithful skeptic,’ I’ve 150–200-page biography of Joseph Smith. The
found my experience is also that of a great number book will likely be published around the same time
of people for whom traditional religion is very con- as Richard Dutcher’s biographical movie about
fining.” Kemp’s editor, Gideon Weil, said: “This Joseph Smith is released, and both works will likely
deal is a reflection of how we feel about Kenny. coincide with Joseph Smith’s 200th birthday
We’ve been wanting to make him a house author anniversary. According to Ed Snow on AML-List,
because he is that most rare combination: a great “The Penguin Lives series presents short, readable,
storyteller who touches the heart lightly but pow- but a bit pricey biographies of American and world
erfully. And we are hopeful that this new project, figures written by prominent authors, usually with
the first volume of which is tentatively titled The a literary flair.” Remini is an emeritus professor at
Welcoming Door, will establish Kenny as a major the University of Illinois.
American inspirational writer. Dad Was a Carpen- • Brady Udall’s new novel, The Miracle Life of
ter has been successful for us, and we are confident Edgar Mint (Norton, $24.95), has prompted rave
he will not disappoint with his next book.” national reviews comparing him with Charles
• Writer and GQ literary editor Walter Kirn, Dickens and John Irving. The story revolves
who practiced Mormonism as a teen and has around an abused Native American orphan who is
included Mormon elements in much of his fiction, found by some LDS missionaries and fostered for
has a new novel on the bestseller lists that is appar- a time by rural Mormons with marital problems.
ently without any Mormon content. Library Jour- Udall told The Salt Lake Tribune that he is a prac-
nal describes Up in the Air as follows: “In this ticing Church member but anticipated “a lot of
quirky and unsettling novel (his third after Thumb- Mormon people might be upset by the way that
sucker), Kirn manages to capture on paper much of family is portrayed. I don’t mean to offend any-
what is worst about our present age. Ryan Bing- body, but I think sometimes it’s kind of necessary.
ham, a business flyer, is six days from attaining It’s high time somebody out there, if not me, wrote
his personal goal of one million miles on his about Mormons in a real and honest way.” Asked if
frequent-flyer account. He’s in the air so much that he wants to be considered a Mormon writer, he said
he has no actual real-world address, having no. “This is not because I am embarrassed by my
become, instead, a resident of ‘Airworld,’ where faith and culture but because I am working hard to
‘my hometown papers are USA Today and the Wall create the kind of art my culture seems set on
Street Journal.’ Bingham’s job is CTC (Career Tran- rejecting. We, as a people, have always been a bit
sition Counseling), helping large companies fire immature when it comes to art. We have always
their executives with minimal legal risk. The job is been threatened by anything that doesn’t fit

squarely within our system of belief. Good art will Film

always be complex, contradictory and will resist
easy judgment—all things that would make any • Most of Shot in the Heart, an upcoming adap-
good Mormon nervous.” Udall has published one tation of Mikal Gilmore’s memoir about his exe-
earlier book, the 1997 story collection Letting Loose cuted brother Gary Gilmore, was filmed in
Baltimore because the director and executive pro-
the Hounds. A graduate of BYU and the Writer’s
ducer had negative feelings about Utah and the
Workshop at the University of Iowa, he currently
Mormons. According to Salt Lake City’s Deseret
teaches at Franklin and Marshall College in south-
News, “Mikal Gilmore’s book delves into the fam-
eastern Pennsylvania and will start teaching this fall
ily’s heritage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-
at Southern Illinois University. R.E.M. lead singer ter-day Saints, and that’s apparently prominently
Michael Stipes’s film production company has displayed in the movie. HBO’s notes on the film
optioned the film rights to Edgar Mint. describe Gilmore’s mother, Bessie, as a ‘devout
Mormon’ who believes in ghosts; later, Bessie and
Drama her sons receive help from ‘a mysterious black man’
• Mormon playwright Neil LaBute recently whom she believes is ‘one of the three Mormon
directed his new play The Shape of Things at Lon- Nephite angels’; one scene is described as ‘1857:
don’s Almeida Theater. The story of an art student Mormon Danites take a man from his home, lead
who remakes her unwitting boyfriend into a hip- him deep into the woods and slit his throat. The
per, sexier man as her art project, the play is man is a sinner whose blood is being spilled as a
means to his salvation.’ ‘I think especially in
another entry in LaBute’s oeuvre of “chilling,
Mikal’s book, this link to the mythology of the
effortlessly cruel character drama that has its roots
Mormon roots in the family is greatly important,’
in Restoration plays and the early work of his hero,
[director] Holland said.”
David Mamet,” in the words of one London critic.
A New Yorker critic describes LaBute’s work as
probing “the fascinating dark side of individualism,
Miscellany
whose ultimate evil is an inability to imagine the • The LDS Church has reportedly officially
suffering of others.” Discussing his Mormon con- ceased publication of fiction in its Ensign, Friend,
version at BYU, LaBute told a London newspaper: New Era, and international Liahona magazines.
“I was inundated with all the trappings of the reli- While the Ensign and Liahona have not pub-
gion, and I found it quite comforting. Sometimes I lished fiction for many years, the teen-targeted
wonder how much my conversion had to do with New Era and children-targeted Friend have often
me being away from home for the first time and included fiction. At the same time, the magazines
was maybe tied to the security I needed at that are under a new directive to fill at least fifty per-
time. I grapple with that occasionally, but the big cent of their pages with material authored by
stuff I have no real trouble with. There’s nothing I General Authorities.
like more than the idea of faith. People can study • The alternative newspaper Salt Lake City
and discuss the nature of it all they like, but it just Weekly recently published an article about censor-
comes down to making that leap. Also, I figure ship and audience tastes in the Mormon culture.
what’s the worst case scenario if I’m wrong—that Reporter Scott Renshaw interviewed Ken Merrell,
I’ve lived a relatively good life.” LaBute recently author of the “clean thriller” The Landlord; Ray
finished directing Gwyneth Paltrow in the film Lines, proprietor of the CleanFlicks video-editing
adaptation of A.S. Byatt’s novel Possession, and his service; and filmmakers Richard Dutcher and
Kieth Merrill. “I think choosing our entertain-
short story “Layover” appeared in The New Yorker
ment or art based on the rating of the MPAA is
on May 28, 2001.
ridiculous,” Dutcher said. “Purely from a Mormon

standpoint, I don’t think what President Benson P O E T R Y

meant to do [with his 1986 admonition against
R-rated movies] was to have everyone surrender The Bad Samaritan
their agency to the MPAA. Since [1986], the only
thing that’s been said officially by the church lead- I lay my soul bare for you
ership is to avoid inappropriate films. And that lays arms and legs sprawled
a greater burden on the viewer.” Dutcher con- organs pulled out and lying
tinued: “I don’t think you can illustrate morality grotesquely to the side,
without illustrating immorality. It’s an artistic neatly labeled.
impossibility. It’s very possible for a well-meaning
storyteller to sacrifice his integrity and tell lies in I wonder if you will notice
order not to offend.” Merrill, who made the LDS and pick one up
Church’s Legacy and Testaments films, said: “I’ve (an organ or the phone?)
been quite outspoken about the mistaken notion see the agony of my small intestines
that people should tie their morality to the MPAA the grace of my twisted veins.
rating system. But I’ve been careful never to go on
record as saying people should go to see R-rated I wonder if today will be the one day in fifty
movies.” The full article appears at www.avenews. when you will stop
com/editorial/no/cw/feat/feat_010517.cfm. and in loving, excruciating detail
• Citing exhaustion, Elbert Peck recently tell me my appendix is perfectly formed
resigned after 15 years as editor, publisher, and and you’ve never seen such beauty as my broken,
director of the Sunstone Foundation and its maga- jagged ribs
zine Sunstone, which often publishes fiction,
poetry, creative nonfiction, and literary criticism. Will today be the day you will wake me
Dan Wotherspoon has been hired as editor, and and make me so blissfully happy to be (almost)
AML board member Carol Quist has been pro- alive and loved
moted to associate editor. Sunstone offers a newly that it will cause me to subject my soul minute
enhanced website at www.sunstoneonline.com. after minute, hour after hour, day after day
to be bruised and battered and bent by the side of
the road
praying for you, my Bad Samaritan, to happen by
and, perhaps, take notice.
—Jane D. Brady
Jane Brady lives on the side of a hill in Cedar Hills,

Utah, with her husband and three children. She has a
master’s in English from Brigham Young University,
where she currently teaches Honors 200 and edits The
Restored Gospel and Applied Christianity. She is
the editor of Mourning with Those Who Mourn
with Steven Walker and Colloquium: Essays in Lit-
erature and Belief with Richard Cracroft.

A M L - L I S T set of performers to one audience on one night.

H I G H L I G H T S
You can’t mass-produce theater to amortize your
up-front costs to a minuscule amount per unit. You
have to recreate the “master recording” with every
Compiled by Marny K. Parkin
performance. I think I’m right when I say that nearly
every orchestra in existence these days is subsi-
AML-List provides an ongoing forum for broad-
dized—they can’t exist on their own revenue, for all
ranging conversation and a stimulating exchange of
the same reasons. Is theater doomed to be a minor
opinions related to LDS literature. One especially rich
cultural phenomenon that must be subsidized by
topic during February, March, and April was whether
philanthropists or the government? What is the
humor and satire are understood and appropriate.
success paradigm for theater in the 21st century?
Read on for a sampling of the sentiment on this and
J. Scott Bronson (Feb. 7): Well, I’m certainly no
other topics. If you find yourself champing to chime in,
expert on this stuff, but it seems to me that each
send an e-mail message to majordomo@lists.xmis-
arts-oriented medium has had to evolve in order to
sion.com that reads: subscribe aml-list. A confirma-
survive whenever a new arts-oriented medium was
tion request will be sent to your e-mail address; follow
born. Playgoers go to plays to get something that
the directions to complete your subscription. AML-
they can’t get from TV, radio, or film. Many people
List is moderated by Jonathan Langford.
just don’t realize that there is something different
about going to a live show that can be very exciting
Theater Is Dead and rewarding. I think in order to survive theater is
D. Michael Martindale (Feb. 7): I titled this going to have to become more theatrical, and the-
message “Theater Is Dead” not because that’s the ater companies are going to have to find a niche, or
assertion I’m making but to catch your attention. a voice, or a flavor, if you will. I think Eric S. gives
I’m actually asking it as a question: is theater dead? too much power to the critics when he says: “I’m
As Eric [Samuelsen] said, people love movies. now convinced, however, that the single biggest
Until last century, there was no such thing as need we have, as we work toward the day that a
movies—or radio—or television—or records/ [Mormon Shakespeare] will arise, is for a critical
tapes/CDs. All the entertainment that people had community that can and will support that theatri-
before then was live and in person. Of course the- cal community.” . . .
ater could thrive then. No competition. Audiences are sort of fluid, so don’t get the idea
But theater for today’s audience is movies and that this valley will only sustain light comedies and
television. As Egon says in Ghostbusters, “Print is musicals. There are all kinds of audiences here, and
dead.” Is theater dead? Does it serve no economi- some people belong to more than one audience.
cally viable purpose these days? I, for instance, like light comedies, and musicals,
But in spite of Egon’s and everyone else’s predic- and drama, and Shakespeare, and other classics and
tions that print is dead, print is not dead. Same contemporary stuff and absurdist and . . . whatever.
with other pronouncements of death on movies As long as it is well done. Done well, I mean. I have
and radio when television was invented. And so far, seen, or been in, or directed shows at all of the the-
predictions that e-books will supersede the printed aters listed above, and I will continue to do so,
word do not appear to be panning out. Does the- I hope. But most people are not like me. They like
ater fit into this equation somewhere? Is there some comfort. If they try out a place once and it suits
new paradigm for theater that will make it eco- them, they’ll go back. They develop loyalties for a
nomically viable? myriad of reasons, and those loyalties can shift and
I question that. Print, radio, television, and film change. But it happens v-e-r-y slowly. The Hales
are all mass-market media. Theater is a one-to-one started out doing simple little Mormon comedies
proposition, as far as orders of magnitude go. One written by Ruth Hale herself. They did this for

years. And they got a loyal audience. Then they with generic “go see this play!” taglines. When
started doing plays from outside the Mormon com- some reviews actually started criticizing some
munity that mirrored the sensibilities of Ruth’s scripts. aspects of the shows, people were alarmed: Since
And that’s pretty much where they have been for when can a critic be so critical?
about a decade. Maybe they will branch out a little This is borne out by letters I would get, where
more. If they do, my guess is most of their audience people basically said just that. It became apparent
will follow. Their audience trusts them. that many regarded a “review” as nothing more
Theater is not dead. As long as it offers what the than additional publicity for a show. Theaters
movies can’t, it will survive. And theater companies would call and request that a review be written, it
will too as long as they don’t abuse the trust apparently not occurring to them that the review
that their audiences give them . . . if they can find might turn out negative.
an audience. Does this happen elsewhere? It’s one thing, of
Thom Duncan (Feb. 8): Negative reviews are course, to disagree with a critic’s criticisms. But to
more likely to kill a single venue production. But be surprised that he can even make them? I haven’t
over the long haul, a continuously producing the- reviewed anywhere else, so I don’t know what hap-
ater can weather even the worst reviews if they con- pens outside of Utah County. Any insights?
centrate on their core audience, those who’ve And back to my original point. If people are
already come and like what the theater produces. going to consider a mildly negative review as overly
But do [critics] know anything about [theater]? negative, mightn’t they do that even without the
Have [they] ever written a play, produced one? Do letter grade? The grade gives them something con-
[they] know anything about theater history, styles? crete to remember—“Oh, that show only got
I ask this because I remember a rather scathing a B”—but I wonder if the result might be the same
review of a Shakespeare play by one [critic] who anyway.
took issue with what she considered the “modern- Eric R. Samuelsen (Feb. 14): I think this is an
ization” of the Bard because the characters called interesting question. A friend of mine and I
each other “coz.” She didn’t know that this is in the recently had a conversation in which he said that
script as Shakespeare wrote it. Mormons are culturally thirty years behind the
Let me be so bold as to suggest that a reviewer times. He didn’t mean this comment in a pejorative
who hasn’t studied the theater, even participated in sense, but he meant it in a descriptive sense. Movies
it to some degree, doesn’t have enough background that were considered shocking and pornographic
to adequately review shows. thirty years ago—The Graduate comes immediately
Eric D. Snider (Feb. 13): It has always been my to mind—are seen as very mild indeed nowadays.
experience in Utah County that if you say even one But Mormons tend to respond to films from a
negative thing about a show, people think it’s a 1970 mindset, and so, of course, contemporary film-
“negative” review. For whatever reason, the negative making seems utterly depraved. In any case, the gist
stuff makes a more lasting impact on their memo- of our conversation was that Provo Theater Com-
ries, and that’s what they recall. That was the case pany might want to do a season of top hits from
even before I started giving letter grades; the first the ’70s and earlier.
100 reviews I wrote were grade-less yet still elicited Utah audiences are different. That’s why I think we
the same kind of exaggerated memories. have an obligation to build an audience. What PTC
What I’m curious about is whether it is just needs to do is simple enough—find out what the
human nature to regard anything with a negative audience wants and give it to them. Build some trust.
comment or two as a “negative review,” or if it is But Tim Threllfall has been beating his head against
local to Utah. My theory is that readers were accus- the wall trying to figure out how to do just that.
tomed to “reviews” in The Daily Herald and other I think Eric’s point about criticism may be part
local papers that were nothing but plot summaries and parcel with the whole problem. This is not a

particularly sophisticated audience. Utah is geo- use. What constitutes inappropriate use? That
graphically isolated, and Mormonism is culturally could very well be a value judgment. Basically, if it
isolated (neither of which is necessarily bad, either). works, it’s okay, whatever “works” means.
Eric is trying to get the audience used to actual Jacob Proffitt (Feb. 5): Might I suggest you look
criticism. That’s an important project. I’d urge him seriously at something along the lines of Eileen
to consider “audience building” as a corollary of Gibbons Kump’s Bread and Milk. It seems similar
that. Don’t give namby-pamby reviews, of course. to what you are doing and was, for me, a very pow-
But also don’t allow audiences the short cut of a let- erful collection of short stories. The narrative
ter grade. And if you see a show that you think thread that ties them together is, to me, much more
audiences might enjoy, but that they might not powerful than any series of flashbacks could be.
attend without some prodding—go a little easy, D. Michael Martindale (Feb. 6): What you are
perhaps? describing isn’t quite the same as a book that is
Marilyn Brown (Feb. 15): Let me stick up for telling the story in real time and relies on flashbacks
Eric. When we [the Villa Theater] get a B– we still as a quick and easy way to fill in back story. In your
think we’re doing okay (not a permission to give book, the woman in the present would be a frame
B minuses, Eric), but when it hits the C+ we go story to the real story. Frame stories, although not
ballistic. (Funny how that is. Average? This show as common as they once were, are still a viable
isn’t average!) Actually, Eric’s reviews with the little structure in the hands of a competent author.
negative comments, etc., have helped us at the Villa I think the most ingenious handling of a frame
to struggle to get the show readier up front. They story I’ve come across is William Goldman’s
have helped us to try harder for that night of the Princess Bride, where the real story is a fictitious
reviewer stuff. It is very nerve-racking, but I do book that a grandfather reads to his sick grandson
believe Eric’s work has helped us to try harder, and (the frame story), with comments by the reader and
as a result our shows are getting better! hearer along the way.
With your book, the flashbacks wouldn’t really
Flashbacks be flashbacks, but the main story encompassed by
Tracie Laulusa (Feb. 5): I am interested in [the] a frame story of the woman remembering.
comment about flashbacks. I’ve read a few writing Melissa Proffitt (Feb. 6): I think that using
books and don’t remember coming across this flashbacks is in general just sloppy. (There are
thought [that a writer who has to resort to flash- always exceptions, of course.) For example, say you
backs isn’t telling the story from the right starting have a story about a person who, before the story’s
point]. I have been invaded by thoughts of a book action begins, suffered a horrible catastrophe.
that, quite frankly, I don’t want to write. I write all Whatever it is, it affects all her behavior, all her per-
the thoughts down because—well, what else can I ceptions. But instead of letting us see these effects
do? I don’t want to write this story, but it’s what in real time, you use a flashback and show us the
comes knocking on my door at the most absurd catastrophe. Now the reader knows exactly what
times. And it’s all in flashbacks. I’m getting the idea happened and can anticipate to some extent how it
that this older woman, in looking back on her life, will make the character behave. But if that were so
is learning how to cope with the present she finds important, why not just start the story there? The
herself in. Any further explanation you could add purpose of starting the story after is to create a sense
to your comment would be greatly appreciated. of mystery: Why does she hate dogs? Why does she
Thom Duncan (Feb. 5): Maybe it’s more of an cringe when she passes a hospital? In effect, the
interdiction in screenplays than novels. Virtually flashback gives away the mystery you’ve tried to
every book I’ve ever read in writing screenplays create before it’s actually solved.
warns against their overuse. It’s not the use of flash- Rose Green (Feb. 6): One use of flashbacks that
backs that is discouraged, but the inappropriate I can think of that seems to work is in Anne Perry’s

Monk series. Her main character is a police officer Mormon, critical, literary perspective that would
who lost his memory in an accident shortly before assist with a greater good—you know, “out there
the first book begins. As the series goes on, he in the world” somewhere?
remembers bits and pieces of who he was before the Terry L Jeffress (Feb. 16): Yes and no.
accident (usually not very positive things about You mention these schools of thought as if they
himself, actually). Although flashbacks do figure in present codified rules for examining a text. For
a lot in the first book’s main plot, they are usually example, to conduct a Freudian analysis of a text,
used afterwards to either develop his character more do the following:
or to add to a subplot of some kind. I personally 1. Examine the text for any long, cylindrical
would tend to avoid flashbacks on the whole, but it objects: tall glasses, pencils, submarines.
seems to work in this case, as in others. 2. Each object found represents the male phallus.
Describe how these phalluses demonstrate the main
A Mormon Criticism character’s sexual frustration (or lack thereof ).
Travis Manning (Feb. 15): General question: Is Some of the biggest literary arguments come
there a Mormon criticism? from individuals, usually experts in the same school
Let me qualify my question by asking, Is there a of thought, who disagree about the interpretation
Mormon critical perspective, such as is comparable of a text. Although all Freudian critics would look
in academic rigor to a New Historicism, Psycho- for phallic symbols in the text, each critic would
analysis, Moral/Ethical, Reader Response, Decon- probably have a unique perspective on the mean-
struction, Textual Criticism, Humanism, Genre, ings imbued by those symbols.
Archetypal, Formal, New Criticism, these and oth- A critical perspective based on a religion func-
ers, and variations of the same? tions quite differently from academic critical
If “we” (those that are critiquing various forms schools. The schools you list all have a worldview
and genres of text and subtext from a “Mormon” that reflects a general set of social or academic val-
critical perspective) [exist], is there a Mormon ues. Scholars who align themselves with a school
“critical” text out there that would seem to sym- can freely accept some or all of the basic tenets of
bolize a Mormon criticism? I am not personally the school’s worldview. The self-named humanist
aware of such an all-inclusive text and would be scholars can then battle about whether or not Ayn
interested in knowing of one if it exists. Now, I Rand created the ultimate humanist text with Atlas
know the D&C advises members of the Church to Shrugged, but no one can definitively categorize a
seek learning out of the best books, so could a Mor- text as humanist because that would first require
mon criticism text—if it exists—be considered one scholars to agree on a definition of humanist.
of these “best books”? Would a standardized Mor- On the other hand, religions already have an
mon criticism have value? accepted canon. The governing body of a church—
Second question: If “we” (those that critique texts not a congress of literary scholars—establishes that
and subtexts at various critical levels) do not have church’s official worldview. Mormon criticism then
such a foundation, would it behoove us to establish comes down to judging how well a text presents the
one, to perhaps compile essays, articles, statements, worldview established by the accepted canon of
chapters of relevant books, and sort of “founda- the Church. Granted, you can have lengthy argu-
tionalize” a Mormon criticism? Or perhaps “we” ments about the missionary value of Orson Scott
could commission a Mormon scholar(s) to produce Card’s Lost Boys, but who really wants to read about
such a text, as their version of a Mormon criticism? how a particular text lines up with the three mis-
Third and final question: Is there value and sions of the Church?
merit to even establishing a Mormon criticism text In a sense we already have a standardized Mormon
or texts—I mean, is there going to be some greater criticism. Since a Mormon critical perspective would
good that would come from “formalizing” a basically apply the canon of the Church to the text,

the canon of the Church becomes the ur-text by Mike, who was an active participant on AML-
which all other texts must achieve their value. For List for a while, did a series of columns (I think in
the Church to canonize a work then becomes the 1996) essentially looking at several different con-
ultimate compliment in the Mormon criticism. temporary critical approaches, summarizing them
Scholars who also maintain membership in the for the non-expert (that is, most of us), and specu-
Mormon Church have many publications in all lating about ways those approaches could be har-
sorts of fields. But in many articles, these scholars nessed by Mormons. . . .
use a worldview borrowed from one of the estab- Going further back, I know there was a famous
lished critical schools to tout the value of Mormon exchange between Richard Cracroft and Bruce
literature. They seem to want the literature Jorgensen on the sophic and the mantic in Mor-
accepted not by a unique standard of Mormon crit- mon literature. And Marden Clark talks some
icism but by some worldly value established outside about a Mormon-based criticism in his collection
the Church. Here we run into one of the problems of essays, Liberating Form. I’m sure there’s been a
that we often discuss on [AML-List]: what do we lot of other stuff written along the lines of Mormon
want to achieve with Mormon literature? To con- literary criticism.
sider Mormon literature successful, do we want Most of these approaches, however, seem to be
acceptance from the “gentile” critics, or do we need looking at Mormon criticism in terms of develop-
to establish our own literary tradition that has value ing or adapting critical categories and tools for use
only for Mormons? And how do you judge the suc- in analyzing Mormon literature. Frankly, as a proj-
cess of Mormon literature? By popularity? By the ect that interests me less than the question of a uni-
number of general authority endorsements? At this versal literary criticism influenced by Mormon
point, a collection of the published works of LDS beliefs. What purpose does literature have in the
scholars would not define a coherent set of values cosmos as seen in Mormon eyes? That’s a question
that others could use as a basis for further criticism. that interests me a lot, and one I think everyone
The members of [AML-List] cannot even agree on who professes a serious interest in Mormon letters
a definition of “Mormon literature.” . . . ought to tackle, at least in personal terms—and
For me, the texts come before the criticism. We that we all ought to talk about more in Mormon
develop criticism to discuss why literature works and literary and artistic circles. I think Mormon theol-
has value. If the literature doesn’t exist, then we can- ogy implies some possible answers that are both
not develop a criticism to describe that literature. similar to and different from ideas that artists and
So to answer your original question, I think we do critics have been throwing around from the time of
have an established canon which we will have to use Plato/Aristotle on down.
as a basis for our literary criticism, but we do not However, I’m also congenitally suspicious of
yet have a substantial body of quality literature that attempts to arrive at premature closure. I think I
demonstrates a class of values and topics that we had an exchange with Ben Parkinson on AML-List
can extrapolate into a unified Mormon criticism. on at least one occasion about this, if I recall cor-
Jonathan Langford (Feb. 16): A few years back, rectly. So my prejudice is against any attempt to
Mike Austin wrote an essay—“How to Be a Mormo- label something as “the” Mormon criticism, but
American; Or, The Function of Mormon Criticism rather toward encouraging Mormon literary schol-
at the Present Time”—delivered at the AML con- ars from every different critical school and
ference, which won an award from the AML the approach to talk and write about the connection
next year. He was arguing, essentially, that Mor- between their own critical theory and practice and
mon ethnicity provides a perspective that ought to Mormonism. Providing forums for this type of dis-
be just as respectable as a basis for writing as any of cussion would, I think, take us much further in
the other ethnic identities that has received critical Mormon letters than any attempt to arrive at a for-
attention in recent years. malized “Mormon” literary scholarship. For one

thing, I doubt that Mormon literary scholars would works is forced on some level to deal with the
agree on any such label (there are too many, work- Catholic view of grace. This is perhaps why Terry
ing with too many divergent approaches), and for Jeffress writes in an earlier post: “I don’t think we
one group to start calling itself “the Mormon criti- have a body of quality Mormon literature large
cism” would I think be taken (perhaps rightly) as an enough to justify a unique school of Mormon crit-
attempt to coopt a religious label for essentially ical thought.” Faith-based (if I can reappropriate a
political purposes. “One Lord, one faith, one bap- term) criticism happens because it is needed,
tism” should not, I think, be taken to the point of because an author or many authors create works
“one literary criticism.” It’s my belief that one of that demand it.
Mormonism’s cultural quirks, not always a positive I wonder if [the notion of canon] also compli-
one, is an attempt to arrive at consensus and closure cates the idea of a Mormon criticism (i.e., beyond
in areas far removed from doctrine and religious the absence of a body of works that demand one)
practice; but in areas like literary criticism I think because, as far as I know, Mormonism is the one
it’s important to let a certain diversity flourish, in religion that has appeared after the rise of literature
the interests of seeing what we can learn from each and print culture that also has significant, scrip-
other. So personally I’d favor a great deal of discus- tural, canonized texts. I know that other “new” reli-
sion of literary criticism from Mormon perspectives gions have their own sacred texts (does Dianetics
but would resist any attempt to label any particular count?), but I know of none that make the claims,
critical approach as “the Mormon criticism.” have the influence, and are quite as canonical as the
Annette Lyon (Feb. 19): Are there any criticisms standard works. Yes, we graft into the Judeo-Chris-
based on other religions? From my BYU years I tian tradition, and yes, the Book of Mormon is an
remember all the different critical theories, but ancient text, but its reception (along with the other
I don’t recall anything Jewish-based, Buddhist- canonical works) happens at the same time as the
based, etc. The only other group I can think of that rise of the novel. So perhaps our tradition is too
has its own criticism is African-American, but enmeshed in the current history of literature while
Mormons hardly count for that type of ethnic at the same time paradoxically too close to the
group. So is there any precedent for wanting a urtext (in its appearance—not time of writing) for
Mormon criticism? us to expect the same sort of criticism and literary
William Morris (Feb. 28): Certainly if I think history/trajectory that other traditions have.
about critical theories that are labeled as such, it So perhaps we shouldn’t be looking to other reli-
doesn’t seem like there is a strong precedent for a gious traditions for models of literary criticism, but
Mormon criticism. But if I think about criticism rather newer “ethnic” literary traditions. I’m not sure
that is done on particular authors, it becomes clear what those traditions would be. The one I’m famil-
to me that some of the most successful criticism is iar with is the Romanian one (yeah, I served a mis-
not that which takes a particular set of heuristic sion there), but I haven’t come up with any precise
tools and applies them to any random text but analogs—except for an anxiety about how each fits
rather one that is demanded by both the author into a larger tradition (the Romanians obsess over
and the critic. For example, I think some of the the question of whether they are European or not)
most interesting criticism on Franz Kafka (now and at the same time a concern about identifying
there’s a writer who’s been subjected to every brand what parts of their culture are unique, homegrown.
of theory possible) looks at his work in the context Gideon Burton (Mar. 2): While it is true that
of the Jewish tradition—of the Kabbalah, Midrash LDS criticism lags behind contemporary literary
commentary, the folklore of the great Rabbis, etc. theory (and on this topic I will append some of the
Or to bring up an author commonly cited as an discussion of this by myself and Neal Kramer from
example par excellence for Mormon authors— our introduction to the fall 1999 Dialogue issue), it
the criticism I have read on Flannery O’Connor’s is also true (contrary to what Terry said) that we

have had postmodern writers and critics. Read, for Spirit, and, of course, prayers aren’t always answered
example, the stories by Darrell Spencer or John in a way that we’d expect. But it also makes a darn
Bennion collected in Bright Angels and Familiars to handy story-manipulating device, and I really wish
see how these authors have adopted and adapted some of these writers would get away from that.
postmodern storytelling to LDS themes and char- Annette said: “For me, the miracle scene [in
acters. And in that same AML Dialogue issue, Linda Adams’s Prodigal Journey] would have been
Robert Bird does a postmodern reading of Mar- more comfortable had the healer been an angel—
garet Young’s Salvador and Orson Scott Card’s Lost anyone, from Moroni to Michael to one we’ve
Boys. I think we could do many more kinds of read- never heard of—rather than Christ himself. That
ings using contemporary literary theory, but this is would have created a distance.” That would have
a start. worked for me as well. My own feelings are, well,
Frankly, I think there is a strong case to be made why not Christ himself? Surely he would have
for lagging behind contemporary literary theoreti- healed her if he’d been around for some reason.
cal trends. Richard Cracroft is our best conservative I’m trusting that Linda already has a good reason
and argued strongly for resisting the sophism of for his appearance.
contemporary literary training (read his essay I’m not advocating throwing Christ into every
online, especially paragraph four, at humanities. little piece of fiction. I don’t think he’s one to trifle
byu.edu/mldb/attune.htm). But I’m thinking more with. I’m just saying that for me, in this setting,
in terms of the way that contemporary literary where we’ve already been shown several strong
theory inevitably critiques itself, and we often do believable stories, and where we know that the Sec-
better to wait for the second wave of a critical ond Coming is nigh and heavenly visitations will
approach, the one that is more qualified and tested. increase anyway—for me, it worked. If, say, Anita
That said, I think we have waited too long to dive Stansfield threw him into her next romance to
into a lot of critical theory, as both Eugene England instruct the amorous couple to get married, I would
and Michael Austin have noted (see Gene’s “Prog- probably feel quite differently about it.
ress and Prospects” article online at humanities.byu. D. Michael Martindale (Mar. 2): When Jesus
edu/mldb/progress.htm and Michael’s at humanities. came in mortality, he wore the clothing of the
byu.edu/mldb/austin01.htm). period. We generally think of him as wearing that
kind of stuff for all eternity. But if he had come
Putting Words in God’s Mouth today, he would wear today’s clothes. And a couple
of millennia from now, people might think of
Annette Lyon (Feb. 27): As a writer, I feel very T-shirts and jeans as the clothing of divine beings.
hesitant to put words into God’s mouth or “make” Either that or a Mr. Mac suit.
him do anything. To do so feels rather pompous— I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a novel of the
a creator (artist) telling the Creator what to do. life of Christ—except that I would tell it as if he
Thom Duncan (Feb. 28): You’re not telling the had come in modern times. I’m sure a lot of Mor-
Creator what to do. You are writing a piece of fic- mons and other Christians would consider many of
tion. The Creator is under no obligation to listen to my interpretations on how that turns out blasphe-
you. [. . .] A fiction writer, IMO, can put any words mous. After all, he wouldn’t likely camp out with
in the mouth of any being, divine or otherwise, if his disciples each night as he travels around preach-
it suits the dramatic purpose. ing the gospel. Would he choose Motel 6 and sleep
Katie Parker (Mar. 1): It seems that especially in four people to a room to save on the group’s funds
the LDS romance genre, it is all too easy to allow because Judas Iscariot keeps dipping into them?
whatever situation the author fancies to be an And think of the scandal when he goes over to
answer to prayer, or to be okay because God said it Meghan Holbrook’s house for dinner (Utah Demo-
was right. I like the emphasis on following the cratic party chairperson). When Matthew is called

to be an apostle, he’ll have to quit his day job at And why is laughter in sacrament meeting inap-
the IRS. propriate? Because it drives away the Spirit. Don’t
J. Scott Bronson (Mar. 12): If we are to we want the Spirit with us always? Then why drive
enlighten each others’ minds—if we as artists are it away during our other meetings? No joke has
to do as Elder Packer says (“we are able to feel and ever escaped my lips during a sacrament meeting
learn very quickly . . . through art . . . some spiri- talk, and I’ve occasionally been pained by the inap-
tual things that we would otherwise learn very propriate laughter that’s greeted my remarks. And
slowly”)—how do we do that without talking about neither have I ever used humor in an EQ lesson or
what we feel and learn in our own studies? Clearly in Sunday School, and I’ve started vigorously to
artists are enjoined to explicate what they think and chastise those who do. I think in the future we
feel about the words of God as found in the canon. should focus on our Savior’s passion, and when
Rather than condemn an artist for supposedly pre- irreverent thoughts arise, we should mortify our
suming to put words into God’s mouth, perhaps we flesh until they stop. To that end I’ve suggested to
should ask ourselves as we read the books—hear the bishop that a paddling room be designated
the songs—attend the plays of our brothers and sis- where children might be disciplined. Not wishing
ters who are artists: Is it possible that God put good paddlings to be entirely wasted on children,
words into their mouths? I expect to make use of that room myself.
Hmm, you probably think [our leaders] know
Humor (biblically) their wives, too, for purposes other than
procreation. They’re really much better than that,
Jim Picht (Mar. 20): We often treat as humor- and we should strive to be more like them.
ous those things we don’t understand, perhaps as Now, if you’ll excuse me, I feel a smile coming
some sort of psychological defense mechanism. It’s on, so it’s time for my afternoon spanking.
incongruous to think that a man with as many Scott Tarbet (Mar. 20): I think we’re so used to
duties and as few years left as President Hinckley seeing our leaders speaking at the conference pulpit
would dare to waste a second on the unnecessary or and reading their inspirational writings that we get
inconsequential. If he isn’t preaching repentance a very one-dimensional impression of them. I was
and strengthening the Church, he’s wasting his buds with one of President Hinckley’s daughters in
time and the Lord’s time, and surely he’ll be smit- high school and was in and out of their home. The
ten for it. He does have a nervous tic that occa- man is a hoot. You see glimmers of it in his public
sionally makes it seem as if he’s smiling or laughing, persona, but he’s a genuinely happy, funny guy.
and so do others of the GAs, but it would be cruel I strenuously disagree [that laughing in sacra-
and impious to laugh at them because of it. ment meeting is inappropriate]. It might be inap-
Be very careful, and remember what happened propriate for the deacons to laugh and giggle and
to the children who noticed Elijah’s bald head. poke each other for no other reason than they
There’s nothing funny about baldness—it’s a gift are the age they are, but I can’t see any way that
from God to those who have perfect heads (Jake it’s inappropriate for a speaker to relate a funny
Garn testified to that fact on the floor of the story. Humor can teach and uplift every bit as well
Senate), a disfiguring curse to those who don’t. It’s as tears.
worse to notice your neighbor’s bald head (unless When I reported my mission I gave a talk I had
it’s a perfect head, in which case it’s always appro- carefully prepared to include both humor and
priate to comment on it) than to make fun of a pathos. I had several wonderful spiritual expe-
cripple or mock a Swede (not all of whom are lum- riences to relate, and I had a couple of pretty
berjacks, and the percentage of those who are and humorous ones that caused the congregation to
who actually wear women’s underwear is smaller laugh out loud. That night the bishop called
than you might think). . . . me into his office and chastised me severely for

causing laughter in church. And I do mean severely. R A M E U M P T O M

Among other things he literally pounded the
desk and yelled, “Sacrament meeting is a funeral Blessed, Honored Targeteer
for Jesus Christ!” I was stunned absolutely speech-
less, an exceedingly rare condition for me. After a By Matthew Workman
long pause I said, “Bishop, my Savior isn’t dead.”
I went home crying and shaking, left for BYU I was sitting in church last week and listening to
the next morning, and never attended that man’s the testimonies of the people being “aged out” of
ward again. my ward when I realized something—I’m old. I’m
One of my personal heroes, Bruiser McConkie, really old. For instance, I remember a world before
despite his monumental testimony, dour confer- MTV. Why, I even remember the Bicentennial. But
ence stand demeanor, and huge intellectual attain- what really drove it home for me was when I real-
ments, drew a careful distinction once between ized that I’m one of the last Targeteers in my ward.
reverence for things sacred and being what he What is a “Targeteer,” you sneer? Well, that is just
called “long-faced Mormons.” If God is love and the type of disrespectful question I’d expect from a
we are that we might have joy, keeping ourselves young buck like you. But I’ll tell you anyway.
artificially depressed is itself a species of sin. Back when I was in Primary, you had your Sun-
Tracie Laulusa (Mar. 20): I’m thinking that you beams and your CTRs, but you also had Targeteers,
meant laughing during the actual sacrament por- and in my opinion they were the best. Older than
tion of a sacrament meeting. Heaven forbid we the CTRs but not quite Blazer/Merry Miss, Targe-
should sit through week after week of sacrament teers were the ones getting baptized. When you
meeting talks that never gave a reason to chuckle. were a Targeteer, you were somebody. Why?
I’m not sure I totally agree, at any rate. While I Because you had flags. All Targeteers were issued
don’t think I would laugh at something pertaining nifty red flags that you could detail with yellow
to the passing of the sacrament, I have been known yarn and wave on a stick. They had a big bull’s-eye
to laugh, however silently it was, at something one target in the middle (get it?) and a big arrow point-
of the kids did or some blooper on the part of ing to the middle. Very sharp design.
someone or other. As a lowly CTR, I spent many Sunday School
I know that prayers are often considered solemn opening exercises wishing I were as cool as those
occasions. But, there have been times that we have eight-year-olds with their flags. While you could
found ourselves laughing—and out loud, too argue that I still am not as cool as an eight-year-old
(gasp)—during a family prayer. Sometimes things with a flag, I eventually turned eight myself and
are just funny. We just tell the kids that we’re sure was issued my own Targeteer flag, which I flaunted
Heavenly Father appreciates the humor of the situ- in opening exercises and then displayed promi-
ation as well. nently in my room. I also learned the Targeteer
We had our little temple dedicated a few years song, which I forgot two minutes later. Good
ago, and Pres. Hinckley cracked jokes through times, indeed.
practically the whole thing—the cornerstone cere- However, two years later, the Primary got rid of
mony, the beginning of the actual dedication. the Targeteers. Perhaps they ran out of flags. Per-
I think not after that. Not during the prayer and haps too many Sunbeams got their eyes poked by
stuff like that. overzealous eight-year-olds showing off their flags.
Perhaps the folks at Church headquarters realized
there was really no way to translate Targeteer into
the many languages spoken by Church members.
But whatever the motivation, they changed the
name to “Valiants,” which is a much-less-cool name.

First, “Valiant” is uncool because it is the name Nowadays the elderly of my ward are shepherded
of an old car, but I can tell you right now that the to “Mid-Singles,” which is a pretty good name
Primary didn’t hand my little sister the keys to a except for the part where it suggests you’re only
Dodge when she turned eight. Second, there is the halfway through being single, implying you can
matter of the Prince Valiant cartoon. It used to expect to marry when you’re, say, 60. So, barring
appear in the newspaper, but it was one of those any big announcements, I will go there in six
unfunny cartoons. Prince Valiant rode around with months, but not without the knowledge that
a bad haircut, had lots of problems to solve, and at least I’m not special. And that has made all
sometimes fell in love with women. Even Nancy the difference.
was funnier. Who would want to name a Primary
class after that guy? Third, there was no mer- Matthew Workman is a writer and performer liv-
chandise. The CTRs had the rings, the Blazers ing in Los Angeles with his new wife. Matt still car-
had the banner with the medallions, but Valiants ries his Targeteer flag to church but keeps it safely
got nothing. hidden in his scripture tote bag. He was a columnist
Needless to say, I was glad to have been raised in for the Student Review at BYU, where his “Wasted
the old Primary. While I have lost much in my Tar- Characters” feature ran from 1992 to 1995. He also
geteer heritage, there are other organizations that performs with an improv comedy troupe.
the Church has renamed or abolished that I’m glad
are gone. Here I’m speaking specifically of “M Men
and Gleaners.” You may think I’m making that
name up, but I’m not. It was the original name of
Young Adults for quite some time. When my par-
ents met in 1966, they met at an M Men and
Gleaners activity. Were it not for some merciful
intervention from someone in Church headquar-
ters, the Los Angeles First ward, my ward, would
be known as the Los Angeles Stake M Men and
Gleaners Ward. I figure I owe that person a huge
debt of gratitude. But my biggest thanks should be
saved for whoever saved me from the most fright-
ening of all Church auxiliaries (at least in name):
“Special Interest.”
As late as 1990, Special Interest was the name for
whatever happened after you were too old to be
considered a Young Adult. While better than “Old
Adults,” Special Interest, no doubt, was likely ini-
tially conceived as bully departmental invention.
Special Interest sounds like the name of a class for
people with “problems.” Which was probably the
whole point. As you creep towards 30 and you
know the “Young” will soon be stripped from your
“Adult,” the threat of being Special Interest may be
enough to drive you into the arms of the next avail-
able single person and straight to the temple. I’m
only speculating, of course.

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MAGAZINE OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR MORMON LETTERS

Anne Perry, novelist

Christopher K. Bigelow . . . . . . Managing editor Marny K. Parkin . . . . . Speculative fiction coeditor

Cherry Silver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .President Tyler Moulton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Board member

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Letters to the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Reviews

Poetry AML-List Highlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

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L E T T E R S be on occasion—I guess that’s her issue—but

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often than not, the negatives seem to outweigh the P O E T R Y

Paris Anderson lives in Provo, Utah, with his wife

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A M L N E W S Writers’ Conference in November

I N T E R V I E W education had a great deal of effect on me, except

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N O V E L hungry or sick and went uncared for. Justice

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This was he whom Tathea had faced and beaten I N T E R V I E W

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know why . . . Peterson: Basically.

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P E R S O N A L shotgun. Firecrackers like that were illegal back in

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S T O R Y “Just let it go, Flynn,” his wife said from the

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