Here are a couple of AML Conference wrap-up pieces by the leadership, Eric W. Jepson and James Goldberg.
AML President (Th)Eric Jepson spoke on his podcast “Face in Hat” with his co-host Aaron about Mormon literature, the conference, the Carol Lynn Pearson session, and the Saints session. The podcast is on its 7th episode. It has taken on a variety of LDS-related topics, including theology, philosophy, history, and culture.
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-kv43x-ad23d2
I work in Church history. I love Mormon Lit. Two finalists for this year’s AML Novel Award dealt with both.
Tim Wirkus’s The Infinite Future has a Latter-day Saint protagonist who is not that interested in all things Mormon: the history, the ideas, the culture…basically anything beyond Sunday worship and weekday keeping the commandments.
One minor plot point is the subtle tension he feels when his literary work brings him into contact with a former Latter-day Saint who is still very into all things Mormon.
A major plot point is the search the two of them share with a Brazilian librarian for a mysterious lost science fiction novel that might also produce transcendent, life-changing experience. Looking for the novel is a wild ride. Finally meeting the author is even better.
The novel-within-a-novel itself is kind of a letdown but I think that may be on purpose. Some sort of statement on how the journey is much more moving than the destination. I don’t know. The Infinite Future is a book I enjoyed reading overall, though.
Witchy Winter was also a finalist. It’s the second book in a series that started with the book Witchy Eye.
There are no Mormon characters in either book because it’s set in an alternate early America where Mormons don’t seem to exist. The book is clearly influenced by early Church history, though.
Some of that comes up in Mormon history Easter eggs–like Luman Walters appearing as a character! Mostly, though, what makes the book interesting for a Mormon history nerd is the way the book explores practices and concepts that were or are important to us.
Both books do a great job reproducing the casual, often whimsical Biblicism of 19th century America. There’s an interested subplot about one character’s initiation as a Mason and the struggles he faces when other Masons are on different sides of key conflicts.
There’s a passing reference to how seer stones work within the books’ magic system. And lots of imagery of lost knowledge that has changed the fundamental meaning of religious narratives and the longing for restoration.
In Witchy Winter, one of the key plot threads ends up being about esoteric knowledge and ceremonies of initiation. There’s a lot of discussion of sacred, hidden stories and their power, of things that can only be communicated at the right time, place, and relationship.
And there’s a lot of hinting about the significance of a lost connection with the divine feminine. A forgotten Goddess, whose lost knowledge has left the world fractured.
It’s fiction. Epic fantasy–which might be the fictioniest form of fiction. And that frees it up to discuss questions that go beyond the realistic into the Real.
From a purely technical standpoint, the books are solid. Good narrative. Interesting handling of the wide mix of real languages in the imagined alternate world. A pleasure to read.
They also left me really interested in knowing, though, what the author–@DavidJohnButler–is thinking. Got to meet him this past weekend at the AML Conference, where he was to receive the Novel Award. Still have lots of questions.
He is, apparently, giving firesides at his house this Friday and Sunday sharing some of his thoughts about temple theology in the Nephi narratives in the Book of Mormon and about just what beliefs he thinks Isaiah was upset about people losing. He said we’re all welcome. 🙂
Anyway, they are books you might want to check out. And Wirkus and Butler are both authors to keep an eye on.