This month in Mormon Literature saw the Mormon Arts Center Festival in New York City and continued discussion of Heavenly Mother at the non-denominational blog Feminism and Religion and on Segullah’s podcast, Words Fall In. New books include Mormon Cinema: Origins to 1952 by Randy Astle, Road to Covered Bridge by Marilyn Brown, Model Mormon: Fighting for Self-worth on the Runway and As an Independent Woman by Rosemary Card, and How the Light Gets In by Keira Shae. New poetry includes To the Mormon Newlyweds Who Thought The Bellybutton Was Somehow Involved by Deja Earley. Read on!
Mormon Arts Center Festival, June 28–30, New York City.
“Mormon arts festival in NYC will feature ‘lost’ musical compositions from Utah composers” (Deseret News). Mormonland (SL Tribune) interview with Richard Bushman about the Mormon Arts Center Festival.
The non-denominational blog “Feminism and Religion” published “Finding Heavenly Mother with Rachel Hunt Steenblik.” “Feminist theologies are filled with queries and questions about the divine feminine. Whether women need the Goddess. If She really is. Where her church might flourish…Rachel Hunt Steenblik is the newest voice calling to and from the divine feminine, singing in a distinctively Mormon key. If you read Mother’s Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother from front to back, you encounter what seem like scratches of verse and fragments of wisdom from a young mother catching time to write in the midst of her graced obligation to feed and sustain tiny bodies. If you read it back to front, you encounter a wealth and depth of engagement with Christian sacraments, feminist theology, sacred texts, Mormon history, modern philosophy, and children’s books and movies. This cacophony of source material and influence is distilled into sparse poems whose brevity bely decades of the author’s feminist engagement with vast religious history, philosophy, and theology.”
Time Magazine published a list of the “Best Nonfiction Books of 2018 So Far.” The list includes Tara Westover’s memoir Educated.
Two multi-author collections of romance novellas, published by Mirror Press as part of their Timeless Romance series, have been translated into Norwegian: Spring Vacation Collection and Summer Wedding Collection. A translation of a third, Summer in New York, should be published soon as well.
Short stories and essays
Lee Allred. “Red Carnation.” In Pulphouse Fiction Magazine Issue #3. July 26th. The story is part of Allred’s Stakeholder vampire story series, one of which was a finalist in the 2014 Meeting of the Myths contest. Editor Dean Wesely Smith writes: “This original story by Lee Allred might have one of the absolute best first lines I have seen in decades. And then the story gets better from there.” Warning: these are not sparkly vampires.
Jennifer Quist has an essay in the collection GUSH: Menstrual Manifestations for our Times. How her kidney condition was diagnosed around the time of her first period.
New books and their reviews
Nancy Campbell Allen. Kiss of the Spindle. Shadow Mountain, July 3. Steampunk fantasy romance.
PW (Starred review). “Allen delivers pure reading joy in a steampunk riff on “Sleeping Beauty” that is equal parts race-against-the-clock adventure, social comedy of errors, sweet romance, and clever alternate history, with a strong moral compass befitting its fairytale heritage. Isla Cooper, a kind and empathetic physician and advocate for peaceful shape-shifters (and a hunter of criminal ones), negotiates passage on the private airship of wealthy, dashing Capt. Daniel Pickett, who smuggles shifters to the Caribbean. She has a sleeping sickness that plagues her for six hours a day; the voyage is her last hope of obtaining a cure before she falls permanently asleep. The charismatic and delightfully developed other passengers—the automaton servant who’s part Data and part Jeeves, the shape-shifting older English intellectuals sadly leaving home, the antagonistic government official with an awkward secret—come together to support Isla in the tricky work of solving her problem, while Daniel starts looking like a good candidate to deliver the fabled curative kiss. Allen turns Sleeping Beauty’s passive story upside down with Isla’s active competence and frustration with how the curse interferes with her work; fans of strong heroines will be deeply satisfied.”
Jennie Hansen, Meridian. 3 stars. “The love story between Isla and the captain portion of the book is sensitive and positive with each showing tenderness and concern for the other’s predicament. They are both strong, independent individuals who have trouble admitting or recognizing their feelings for each other. Even when they do admit they have fallen in love, they have difficulty accepting or even recognizing the feelings of the other. The characters in this story are interesting and the hero and heroine have commendable strengths, so perhaps it is just the genre, but I had difficulty identifying with them or finding them realistic. Many of the plot elements could easily lend themselves to turning the story into a horror novel, but Allen keeps those areas more in the realm of the fairytale aspects of Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, or any of the other childhood tales that contain some pretty horrific villains. The plot arc is predictable to a point, then the denouement is startling, dramatic, and brings the story to a strong conclusion. Readers will find Kiss of the Spindle a fun and different romantic tale.”
Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows. My Plain Jane. HarperTeen, June 26. YA alternative/fantasy version of Jane Eyre. “You may think you know the story. After a miserable childhood, penniless orphan Jane Eyre embarks on a new life as a governess at Thornfield Hall. There, she meets one dark, brooding Mr. Rochester. Despite their significant age gap (!) and his uneven temper (!!), they fall in love—and, Reader, she marries him. (!!!) Or does she? Prepare for an adventure of Gothic proportions, in which all is not as it seems, a certain gentleman is hiding more than skeletons in his closets, and one orphan Jane Eyre, aspiring author Charlotte Brontë, and supernatural investigator Alexander Blackwood are about to be drawn together on the most epic ghost hunt this side of Wuthering Heights.”
Randy Astle. Mormon Cinema: Origins to 1952. Mormon Arts Center, June. History. “The first single-author book to comprehensively treat Mormon film in all its components. The result of nearly two decades of research, it deals with Mormon cinema in greater depth, both historically and theoretically, than any publication has done to date. It covers the complete history of Mormon cinema, from its roots in the 1800s to 1952.”
Marilyn Brown. Road to Covered Bridge. Walnut Springs, June. Historical fiction. Sequel to The House on the Sound. Set in rural Utah in the 1940s. Based on her own family’s experiences. The manuscript won a Utah State Fiction contest back in the 1990s.
Jennie Hansen, Meridian Magazine. “Parts of this novel seem slow, yet descriptive. Conversations are often confusing because multiple conversations occur simultaneously which is realistic, but does nothing for clarity. There is no definitive plot arc in this type of novel. Brown excels in providing a 1940s era setting and background. Anyone who has ever looked back at a childhood event with new and different clarity from an adult perspective will particularly enjoy this novel.”
Rosemary Card. Model Mormon: Fighting for Self-worth on the Runway and As an Independent Woman. Cedar Fort, June 12. Memoir. “When sixteen-year-old Rosemary Card left Salt Lake to become a model, she had no idea what awaited her in New York City. As her career took her around the globe over the next two years, Rosie experienced the highs and lows of the fashion industry and learned firsthand the strength found in being true to yourself, listening to guidance from the Spirit, and discovering confidence as a single LDS woman. Rosie shares her inspiring true story of how focusing on developing her mind and heart in the process of becoming more like Christ blessed her with opportunities and challenges she could never have imagined!”
Kristen Chandler. Thief of Happy Endings. Viking, June 19. YA contemporary.
PW: “When she was seven, Cassidy showed great promise as a horseback rider, but then she was violently bucked and stopped riding. Now, as a teenager, she’s deathly afraid of getting on a horse, yet she’s spending the summer in Wyoming on her grandfather’s former ranch, where herds of wild mustangs run free. Despite being surrounded by unkind fellow workers who don’t think she can live up to her grandfather’s legacy, Cassidy slowly works her way up to riding again. Her love and knowledge of horses is evident, as is her expertise about living and working on a horse ranch, including her awareness of animal rights issues. Through Cassidy, Chandler showcases the upside of ranch living (being among beautiful horses), but she also isn’t shy about its downsides (hard work, scarce showers, cleaning outhouses). Cassidy’s life is multilayered, as she navigates new friendships and family difficulties, and finds romance with another rancher, but the real romance is between Cassidy and the horses as she learns to overcome her fears.”
SLJ: “Finding her voice and self-confidence are her biggest hurdles, but she manages to do so with wit and a big heart. Questioning what it means to do the “right thing” even if it means breaking the rules will resonate with teens. Fans of Sarah Dessen will enjoy the complex personal dynamics, while younger readers who love horse books will latch onto the equine backdrop to this YA selection. Although the action can flatline at times, those who stick it out will be rewarded with a feel-good story of self-discovery. VERDICT: For readers who crave adventure, romance, and a touch of dry humor. A good choice for YA collections.”
Kirkus: “Told from Cassidy’s first-person point of view, it’s a complex story that unfolds slowly, with no startling transformations or revelations, just a real-life sense of growth, accomplishment, and purpose. In the end, Cassidy says, “…the space between what I thought happiness looks like and all the things I didn’t want to happen is the space where I found a new happiness….” A white default is assumed, with a few diverse characters present. Unfortunately, Asian-American Alice has a two-dimensional, clichéd backstory that feels inauthentic, and African-American camper, Ethan, behaves in a way that feeds negative stereotypes of black males in a tone-deaf, cringeworthy scene seemingly intended to evoke feel-good anti-racist solidarity. A thoughtful book apart from its well-intentioned blunders around diverse representations.”
David Dollahite. God’s Tender Mercies. BCC, June 22. Memoir. The story of his own conversion to the Church, his mission, his marriage, and his international work as a scholar of family life. Excerpt at BCC.
Deja Earley. To the Mormon Newlyweds Who Thought The Bellybutton Was Somehow Involved. Signature, June 15. Poetry. “The opening poem in this unique collection features a little girl delighted by a beach vendor’s jewelry. She is unaware that her favorite earrings in his case—a pair of bowtied bunnies—symbolize the Playboy empire. The poems that follow hold echoing tensions: innocence, experience, sexuality, faith, and the uneasy bedfellows made when they all collide. That collision expresses the friction the speaker feels as she adheres to and expands the confines of her faith. From awkward first kisses shared on a church couch to refusing to talk to men who are not Mormon, her poems remain funny, wry, and thoughtful. Despite the promise to steer clear of non-Mormon men, the final poems detail her marriage to a Catholic husband who offers Hail Mary prayers after a lost pregnancy while she struggles to find comfort from a Mother in Heaven. And despite the couples’ differences and moments of heartache, they thrive, allowing themselves to “imagine [they’re] floating in bright bubbles of light.” It is an emotional roadmap for anyone else familiar with such tensions, joys, and accommodations.”
Julie Nichols reviews the collection here. “The poems in To the Mormon Newlyweds, if read in order from front to back, are a journey from Mormon childhood innocence about love/relationship/sex to lovely accepting maturity about those very same enigmatic, esoteric conundrums of mortal life. In a way the title means ‘To the Mormon children who will need to grow up: don’t worry, it’s all right; growing up is important; we all have to navigate that path; let me help you get there, let me show you what you’ll need to know….’”
Mette Ivie Harrison. Write Brain: How to Get Your Brain Right So You Can Write. Self, June 4.
Dorothy Keddington. Secret of the Spirit Walls. Brigham Distributing, June 1. Adventure. “Anna O’Neill is guiding her students through the last days of school when she gets the call that her brother has disappeared in the wilds of southern Utah. But when she arrives in Moab, she realizes that things just aren’t adding up. With the help of filmmaker Gabriel Mahoney, Anna initiates her own search, pursuing leads into rugged Nine Mile Canyon, the seat of an ancient civilization whose lure may have pulled her brother to his death.”
Carla Kelly. One Step Enough. Cedar Fort/Bonneville, June 12. Historical romance. Delta Utah and the 1900 Scofield mine disaster.
Jennie Hansen, Meridian Magazine. “Kelly is one of the better historical writers who manages to make both the real people and the ones she invents feel like people the reader has known and cared about for years. This story reaches deep to tell a story of two people romantically in love whose love grows and expands to greater heights as they face tragedy, fear, and hardships. It’s also a tale of suspense, faith, and the deep, unforgettable love between a parent and child which is also possible between a stepparent and child. Kelly also provides a strong, believable picture of the terrain, transportation, tools, clothing, schools, etc., of that turn-of-the-century period. She paints a picture of mining and all that surrounds it in vivid detail. History buffs will adore this book as will anyone who just likes a good, well-written story. It is a sequel to My Loving Vigil Keeping, but works very well as a stand alone novel.”
Keira Shae. How the Light Gets In. BCC, July 24. Memoir. About a childhood being raised by a prostitute and meth addict in Utah, and then the transformation of foster care, adulthood, and forgiving/moving past the abuse and neglect. BCC guest post. AML Blog guest post.
Kate Watson. Shoot the Moon. North Star/Flux, Feb. 6. YA. Sequel to Finding Mansfield. A retelling of Great Expectations. About a young man addicted to gambling.
SLJ: Tate Bertram is a scoundrel who splits his time between college and running an illegal gambling ring—until he’s busted. Tate is also, supposedly, in recovery for gambling addiction. With his secret out, the teen’s family cuts him off; except his aunt Nora, who offers him an internship with her political campaign. The high-pressure internship and his college course load begin to wear on Tate and he falls back into bad habits. Fans of the Jane Austen-inspired Seeking Mansfield will find this a darker story but still full of engaging characters and all the ensuing drama. Watson adeptly shows the pull and trap of addiction. The highs and lows of a dependence on gambling, (or any other vice), are eloquently brought to life in the story. This is an excellent choice for teens who like to read character-driven tales with a lot of drama. The intrigue is as rich as the cast of characters. VERDICT: A thrill ride full of romance, mystery, and high-stakes gambling. Tate Bertram wouldn’t have it any other way. Purchase where the previous book is popular.
Kirkus: Tate lives his life of privilege, matches wits with his fellow intern/housemate/childhood friend/love interest, the Bulgarian-born Alex (adoptive daughter of the political rival, no less!), and uncovers a political mystery—even if the somewhat stilted dialogue throws in the occasional speed bump … The gambling subplot is handled well and provides Tate with some much-needed flaws as he walks the line between believable and idealized-character-trope territory. Faults aside, Watson’s plot is snappy, and she manages to keep Tate likable through all of his highly unlikable moments.
Kiersten White. Bright We Burn. Delacorte, July 10. The Conqueror’s Saga #3. YA historical fantasy. Haunted by the sacrifices he made in Constantinople, Radu is called back to the new capital. Mehmed is building an empire, becoming the sultan his people need. But Mehmed has a secret: as emperor, he is more powerful than ever … and desperately lonely. Does this mean Radu can finally have more with Mehmed … and would he even want it?
Reviews of older books
Chad Curtis reviews Brandon Sanderson’s epic fantasy “Oathbringer” (Starlight Archive #3). “While discussing Oathbringer with a friend of mine prior to my reading it, he remarked that each of the three main characters (Kaladin, Dalinar, and Shallan) and possibly a few others could technically be described in modern parlance as having a mental illness. This is already apparent in the previous books, but becomes increasingly obvious in Oathbringer. This is a very interesting aspect of the books that I find very empowering. Sure, most heroes deal with challenges and have to overcome obstacles, but heroes still are often portrayed as heroic and a little too “shiny” so to speak. Each character here is deeply flawed and scarred, and yet they do heroic things.” Check it out at the AML Blog.
Podcast Interviews
Dove Song: Heavenly Mother in Mormon Poetry: For the newest installment of Segullah’s podcast, Words Fall In, Melonie Cannon interviews co-editor Dayna Kidd Patterson about growing up in a bookstore, her addiction to happy endings, and Heavenly Mother. Broken into two convenient segments, you can give it a listen here.
Best Sellers
June 24, July 1, 8
Tara Westover. Educated
USA Today: ?, #58, #45 (18 weeks)
PW Hardcover Non-Fiction: #16, #18 (17 weeks). 6511, 6219 units. 121,583 total.
NY Times Hardcover Non-Fiction: #13, #15, #6 (18 weeks)
Christene Feehan. Shadow Keeper
USA Today: #31, #94, x (3 weeks)
PW Mass Market: #5, #12 (3 weeks). 10,787, 6487 units. 38,961 total.
RaeAnne Thayne. The Cottages on Silver Beech
USA Today: x, x, #5 (1 week)
NY Times Combined Print and Ebook Fiction: x, x, #5 (1 week)
That’s it until next month!
Featured photo by Roman Kraft