Review
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Title: Every Man a Prophet
Author: Stephen C. LeSueur
Publisher: Greg Kofford Books
Genre: Fiction
Year Published: 2025
Number of Pages: 389
Binding: Paperback, ebook
ISBN: 978-1-58958-826-4
Price: $31.57 – $49.17
Reviewed by Ryan Ward for the Association of Mormon Letters
It’s not often that a book comes along that encapsulates something so completely in a few hundred pages. It’s extremely difficult for a book to touch on all relevant points in a relatively short space. It’s even more difficult for someone to do it in the format of a novel. Novels have to have a plot, and if someone isn’t careful, it can start to feel preachy or contrived. Some of the worst novels just feel like polemics set to a plot, where the protagonist spends time belaboring the point in long monologues. Or the plot itself can feel contrived—or some combination of both.
Stephen LeSueur’s new book Every Man a Prophet could be called the quintessential Mormon novel. I personally haven’t read any other Mormon novels, so one might be tempted to call my bluff. I don’t mean that it is the best Mormon novel ever, although it has been called so by people more knowledgeable than I. But it is a great novel. As far as depicting and illuminating what it means to be Mormon, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite as impactful or comprehensive. The novel somehow manages to touch on every relevant Mormon topic without feeling contrived. The characters, although they all display some common and familiar tropes, never slip into caricature. There is real emotional depth and humanity portrayed and explored within these pages. It feels substantive and weighty in the way the best novels do.
The plot revolves around two missionaries in Norway during the mid-1900s. Both come from quite different backgrounds, which are explored and revealed slowly over the course of the book in flash-back vignettes. The mission president becomes aware that the two missionaries, who have been assigned to an area in the middle of nowhere, have gone missing from their area. The search for the missing elders is on.
This simple framing device serves as a vehicle for LeSueur to explore every aspect of Mormon faith and missions. Anyone who has served a mission will find themselves somewhere in these pages. The heavy obligation to serve, the obsession with obedience to mission rules, going above and beyond what is required as an act of sacrifice, the strange and esoteric vernacular and language, the myths and deep doctrine that missionaries amuse themselves with, the competitions for teaching discussions and baptizing, the strategies taken to get in the door with people. All of this and more is here. For those who have not been on a mission, this book will make you feel like you are on one.
LeSueur could have stopped there, and the book would have been good, great even. But he chooses to interrogate a number of other angles of Mormonism, and this is where I think the book really shines. Because not only does he look at all the ins and outs of missionary life, but he also examines the nuance and trajectory of individual faith journeys.
And so, we have the father of one of the missionaries who has a business publishing pamphlets that interrogate the deeper doctrines or sticky points of church history (from a faithful perspective) whose pamphlets run afoul of church headquarters. We’ve got the apostle who is plagued by doubts himself about his worthiness due to never having received a spiritual manifestation and this pushes him to be even harder on those around him who question their own lack of spiritual experiences. In fact, paradoxically, his lack of personal spiritual experiences and confirmation lead to him doubling down even more on his own judgment in some problematic ways. The mission president comes into conflict with church leadership due to his unorthodox way of handling himself. The missionaries find themselves at increasing odds with what they feel they are being asked to do and what they feel they should do regarding serving and caring for those around them. The non-member wife of a member of the branch struggles with her husband’s and the missionary’s expectations for conversion in the face of sure ostracization from her family. These are weighty matters, and they are handled with care and grace by LeSueur, who never loses his command of his characters or reduces them to stereotypes.
One of the biggest questions the book deals with is the place of homosexual members in the mission field and in the church generally. This conundrum underpins some of the most human and heartbreaking aspects of the book. I won’t give too much away, but suffice it to say that it is the church’s response to one of the protagonist’s homosexuality that frames, complicates, and shapes his faith journey. We root for him, we weep with him, we despair with him, and we rejoice with him.
As I said above, LeSueur never loses command of his novel. There is a point towards the end where it seems as if it might tip over into a boilerplate “come to Jesus” story moment framed against the backdrop of a family history discovery, but it never quite gets there. The ending, poignantly incorporating imagery and events from earlier in the book, now rich with meaning, leaves us with more questions but filled with a new hope and possibility, symbolized by a simple pair of polished shoes.
Every Man a Prophet tackles heavy themes with grace and nuance. It is beautifully written, richly sketched, and compellingly told. It is an unflinching examination of the intersection between life and spirituality and how religious tradition navigates the intersection and vagaries between spiritual and prophetic impression and normal decision-making. I can’t think of anything I’ve read that is quite like it, and I will be thinking about it for a long time to come.