The Backslider, by Levi S. Peterson
Signature Books, 1986. Novel.
Reviewed by Conor Hilton
Four stars. If you’d asked me to rate this book before I read the final chapter, I would’ve given it one maybe two stars. But it sticks the ending in a way that transforms everything that comes before and gives purpose and meaning to what you go through up to that point.
A powerful exploration of grace and suffering and the ways in which we deny ourselves access to the very things that may save us. Deeply rooted in Frank’s discomfort and struggle with his own existence as a sexual being in ways that did not resonate with my fairly atypical (asexual) experience, but I imagine connect with more than not. A fascinating look at the wild Mormonism of rural, 1950s Utah that may find itself slightly sublimated in the more corporate Mormonism that I’ve grown up with.
There’s a rawness here that will be off-putting to some (discussions of sex, lust, swearing, and a few scenes of stark violence), but I think that Frank’s raw, painful search for answers in an austere asceticism is necessary for the spiritual power of the concluding moments to really be felt.