Shumway, “Bountiful” (Reviewed by Amanda Ray)

Title: Bountiful
Author: Charity Shumway
Publisher: BCC Press
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Year Published: 2020
Pages: 392
Binding: Paper
Isbn13:  978-1948218313
Price: $9.95

Reviewed by Amanda Ray

Sometimes you find yourself reading a book that seemed to be made for you at that exact moment, offering solace or solidarity with whatever circumstances you’re in. I’ve experienced that feeling a few times now and was lucky enough to add Bountiful to that short list of books. While not everyone will share my experience, I think most readers will find it striking how the story reflects so much of the current political and cultural landscape, despite being set nearly a decade ago. Or in the very least, they will be able to enjoy reading a book about a mother and daughter that so honestly portrays the struggles and triumphs of many women in the Church.

The opening pages of the book quickly lay out the landscape of the Mormon family we’re going to be entrenched in and focusing in on daughter Heather’s background that led her to where she is now. How she developed into the progressive-leaning 30-year-old single woman in Utah who’s spent some time on the East Coast for grad school, and who has reached a point of understanding that singles wards are really just kind of depressing. As someone who until very recently was in Heather’s shoes, I felt very connected to Heather and the author, and appreciated the anguish and frustration of the character as she sees rejection from the dating pool when the younger women are the ones picked over her.

Heather’s weight loss and body image issues are quickly introduced and become a running theme through the narrative, showing her as the imperfect and sometimes troubled person she is, and one more indication of what she does to make an attempt at fitting in with a culture that she knows and is a little repulsed by but still holds out hope for. Her love life does have a spark in the form of a man in her ward, but that’s coupled with the intrigue she’s also gaining for a neighbor and co-worker (and non-member) who seems to bring out a different side of herself. Many of Heather’s issues are all too familiar to the current single adult experience.

Heather’s mother Nedra, our other main character, has shades of so many of the LDS women in my life I couldn’t help but connect with her as well. She’s close enough to the stereotype of a Mormon matriarch, casseroles and piano lessons and all, but the author reveals her slowly but surely to go much deeper than that easy façade. Nedra is reaching an age of uncertainty with no grandchildren yet, not ready for a senior mission, and recognizing the decline of her father. She senses she’s becoming unmoored in a way and isn’t sure how she’s going to fill that time.

This is when a local political figure comes to call, sussing out if Nedra’s husband Doug would be interested in running for state legislature. But it’s Nedra who gets the impression that running for office is something she wants and needs to do. I was reminded of a podcast I’d listened to that featured some of the leadership behind Project Elect, a non-partisan organization that wants women of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be involved in political life and run for office. Hearing them speak of all the ways women of the Church gain and use skills every day that are beneficial to political office made me think of Nedra, who ponders that she “had once been the ruler of an impressive and well-ordered kingdom” (51) that was her household and now she needed a new purpose. Her visiting teaching companion’s enthusiasm for the idea is infectious to both Nedra and the reader, and we get to learn more about the process of running a campaign through Nedra as the story unfolds.

This is when a fine balancing act emerges in the narrative. Nedra asks Heather to be her campaign manager, learns to reconcile her lifelong identity as a Mormon wife and mother and how this new endeavor fits in, and fight against (or at least put up a front against) the slings and arrows of her new political opponents. Heather’s politics differ from her mother’s to a degree, and the two are both engaged in their own unique change of life side by side, both uncovering what the next steps in their lives will lead to and how, and interacting with the men in their lives who affect how they approach their personal evolvement.

Shumway’s writing about Davis County and Salt Lake City and all the Utah Mormon cultural landmarks comes from a place of love with some understanding criticism thrown in. Like Nedra and Heather, we’ve all experienced that precipice of recognizing our lives need to change, or are about to change, and reading through these two characters’ thoughts and emotions as they dive into that next stage is comforting and thrilling. The author shows that although Utah Mormon culture is its own kind of monolith, many of the same experiences are universal at the core. And yet, the observations and pointed remarks at the dynamics of large active LDS families and LDS women’s lives in this different kind of coming-of-age novel will ring a few bells.

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