Author: Karin Anderson
Title: Before Us Like a Land of Dreams
Torrey House Press, 2019. 328 pages.
(Reviewed by Rachel Helps, November 2019)
St. Ignatius (I’m not sure which one) has a method of spiritual contemplation where you imagine yourself in the sacred scene and describe as many of the sensations and accompanying thoughts to really immerse yourself in sacred works. I first heard of it this year while listening to Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. Anderson uses this immersion technique to imagine what life was like for her ancestors. She makes them into characters with their own motivations and demons. Their stories span the last two centuries, and some of them are only connected with a loose frame story. It’s kind of like a series of vignettes, except messier.
As far as I can tell, the historicity is pretty good. There was only one time where a pioneer woman was quoting the Book of Mormon and I wondered if pioneers were actually familiar enough with the Book of Mormon to quote it. Certainly I’ve read that early members in England did not have very many Book of Mormons and had not read it. I’d be happy to know more about that.
There was a good diversity in the ancestor stories. I hadn’t read anything like it before. Anderson’s word choices were often highly appropriate to the given time period (and sometimes inappropriate). I think it was difficult for me to emotionally connect with characters because they changed so often. I wanted there to be more commonalities between ancestors–to see more of what certain personalities passed down. Maybe that was there but it was just difficult to keep track of?