One of the reasons this thing called Mormon Literature has no established canon is because it lacks the institutions that create canons. In most countries, the government plays a role in creating a canon. Teaching curricula in public and private institutions need to be approved by the authorities, so the authorities help shape the canon. For Mormon Literature the closest equivalent would be the Church, but the Church has no interest in this, as it shouldn’t. (It does have a canon–the four Standard Works, but it’s a devotional not a literary canon.) Of course, scholars play a key role too. From their universities, they help shape the material that will be placed in front of children and college students. One would expect BYU to take a leading role in shaping a literary canon, but there seems to be no interest institutionally in such an effort. So the Association for Mormon Letters has tried to pick up the slack by seeking to propose a list of 100 Great Works of Mormon Literature.
I’d like to contribute to that conversation by inquiring not about “the canon” per se but specifically about short stories that might be included in such a canon. The short story is a favorite form of mine. I find a well-crafted short story to be more satisfying than a good novel, even if novels are the most popular. (Well, it seems self-help is all the rage nowadays, but that’s whole ‘nother story.) So I can’t help but wonder what are the essential Mormon short stories are.
I know a number of important collections exist, including Bright Angels and Familiars and Dispensation. In a post about essential collections, Wm Morris listed Under the Cottonwoods and Other Mormon Stories (Douglas H. Thayer), Nothing very important, and other stories (Bela Petsco), Benediction, a Book of Stories (Neal Chandler), and Long After Dark (Todd Robert Petersen). If we look at more recent offerings, we might add Steven L. Peck’s Wandering Realities: Mormonish Short Fiction or James Goldberg’s The First Five-Dozen Tales of Razia Shah and Other Stories, to name but a couple story collections. In addition, there are many stories out there that have not been anthologized, stuff that has been published in places like Dialogue, Sunstone, and Irreantum. So there’s plenty to choose from. What I’m wondering is, if we had to create a list of, say, the essential 10 or 15 short stories of Mormon Literature, what would you put in that list?
For your money, what are the essential Mormon short stories, those that we all should read before we die?
It seems like the place to start for a canon of Mormon literature is to include “Mormon” works and authors who are already in a standardized canon. I am thinking of Mormon Country by Wallace Stegner. Although a worldly author with worldly concerns, he spoke to the people of his adopted Utah in significant ways. Of course, does YA count? Does genre fiction? Can one be a serious LDS fiction writer and still touch on spiritual matters in a way to attract a significant readership,
When I first converted, and moved to Utah, I had had a typically secular literary education, with little exposure to YA or genre. What I read was worldly, and far away from the path I was directed on. Compassion, mercy, a human appreciation that we are all God’s children. These are the things I am interested in now. In Under Old Glory, my YA novella, the question of suffering and its purpose is explored. Maybe, in setting out to outline the canon, we start not with secular authors, like Stegner, but with inspired voices with the ring of the spirit in them.
The best writer from our currently writing short stories, collections that win major prizes, is Brian Evenson. His short story “contagion” surely ought to be included in a Mormon canon. And his “brotherhood of mutilation” Is a remarkable story about sacrificing self to move up in a hierarchy
Two-dog dose!
A few possibilities:
“The Senator from Utah,” Josephine Spencer
“Laughter,” Vardis Fisher
“The Darling Lady,” Virginia Sorensen
“The Christianization of Coburn Heights,” Levi Peterson
“Benediction,” Neal Chandler
“Pageant Wagon,” Orson Scott Card
“Planetarium,” Walter Kirn”
“The Prophets,” Brian Evanson
“The Home Teacher,” Heidi Naylor
“The Sacrifice,” Steven Peck
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FYI: Andrew got this question rolling over on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndrewinFukuoka/status/1432144092100640771
I agree with Michael Austin on some of the candidates. I think “The Christianization of Coburn Heights” is Levi Peterson’s best and a fascinating response to the stock inspirational story from the late 20th century Ensign. “Salvage” would probably be my pick for Orson Scott Card: just got such a striking core image. “Where Nothing is Long Ago” is my Virginia Sorenson pick for the sense of the sacred and mundane intersecting.
More recent stuff:
Eric James Stone’s “That Leviathan Whom Thou Hast Made” is well worth returning to. Won a Nebula for its play with first contact themes, but is also really interesting as a take on the role of scripture.
Angela Hallstrom’s “Thanksgiving” is really moving. Good exploration of themes of family–both literal and forged–and its promise and weight in the face of life’s troubles.
Alison Maeser Brimley’s “The Pew” sticks with me. An interesting exploration of connection and community and the tension with the institutional setting.
Darrin Cozzens is good at exploring the rural life at the very beginning of the twenty-first century. Would have to look again to decide which short story to recommend from “Light of the New Day.”
Love Steven Peck stuff. “When the Bishop Started Killing Dogs” is a really fun text. Something from “Tales from Pleasant Grove” would be more representative of his work overall.
There’s a ton of Mormon Lit Blitz stuff I love, but I’ll limit myself to three for the moment. Wm Morris’s “After the Fast” is one of the most overtly spiritual literary pieces I know. Stephen Carter’s “Slippery,” strikes me as prophetic. Katherine Cowley’s “Daughter of a Boto” is magical in the best way.
I’m not in a position to evaluate my own work, but I do think a James Goldberg short story adds some stylistic width to a list. “Tales of Teancum Singh Rosenberg” is an obvious candidate for its experiment with a sacred narrative style. “The Revelations and Opinions of Clive Japhta, D.D.” is a Mormon satire on American culture.
So many other pieces I could talk about but I’ll stop there for now.
I agree that Salvage is the most “Mormon” of Scott’s stories. And the most misunderstood. Mostly by his own people. He told me once that he’d gotten more hate mail from his fellow saints over that story than other. Apparently, burying the Salt Lake temple in water (even in just a short story) is blasphemous.
Neal Chandler’s “Benediction,” Angela Hallstrom’s “Thanksgiving,” Jack Harrell’s “Tregan’s Mettle,” OSC’s “The Fringe,” Eric James Stone’s “That Leviathan Whom Thou Hast Made,” John Bennion’s “The Interview,” something from Douglas Thayer, maybe Lisa Torcasso Downing’s “Clothing Esther,” . . . These are just off the top of my head. . .
There is an unfortunate recency bias in all these suggestions (Michael Austin being the lone exception in mentioning “The Senator from Utah,” “Laughter,” and
“The Darling Lady.” Unfortunately, the vast majority of Mormon short stories haven’t been ready by ANYONE in decades.
Are we really going to assume that the thousands of published short stories that no one has read recently are all bad? Are we going to say that there’s no “Moby Dick” among them? How do we know?
Perhaps the best publicly accessible group of short stories is the cumulative group that Ardis Parshall has collected on Keepapitchinin. Who has read any significant portion of those stories?
I must admit that I haven’t read through enough of them to say much. I will say that several were at least memorable… like several that I’ve come across that are not in Ardis’ archive.
For example, I find “Spiritualism, or What Became of Murphy” by Ellen Jakeman to be rather interesting. Anyone else read it?
“Clothing Esther” by Lisa Torcasso Downing and “For the Strength of the Hills” by Lee Allred (technically a novelette, I believe) are two of the individual works of Mormon short fiction that have stuck with me most, but I also think that when it comes to canon (if we must), collections loom larger for me than individual stories.
Which is interesting because I don’t feel the same way about, say, the entire corpus of American short stories.
Thanks for the mention, William.
At over 19,000 words, “Hills” is technically a novella, not a novelette. In science fiction, a novella (17.5k – 40k words) is still considered a short story even though it’s colloquially referred to sometimes as a “short novel.”
Also, it’s easy to get confused about this particular story’s word count. 19k is longer than the 17k max limit for the Writers of the Future contest “Hills” won. The original contest submission was just under 17k. The WOTF anthology editor asked me to add two more scenes prior to publication, bringing final word count to up to the 19k total, moving it from the novelette category (7.5k to 17.5k) into the novella category.