Titles: The Darkest Abyss: Strange Mormon Stories
Author: William Morris
Publisher: BCC Press
Genre: Short fiction collection
Year Published: 2022
Number of Pages: 226
Reviewed by Rachel Helps
Lately when I read experimental Mormon fiction, I’ve been thinking that it hasn’t been weird enough. Well, this is it. I finally found something weird enough! Thank you William!
The stories are experimental in their genre, which includes conversation snippets (“A Mormon Writer Visits Spirit Prison”), an interview transcript of the “Church Committee for Special Investigations” (“The Only 15”), and descriptions of dreams of people in suspended animation, refined by an AI, and subsequently discussed by “cousins” in a speculative Mormon future (“The First Six Dreams”). Maybe “The First Six Dreams” is a good example of what I liked about these stories. Not only is their content interesting, but the frames of the stories include an even more speculative setting. I freaking love that. The dream texts themselves were surreal. The numbered discussions and commentaries on the discussions gave a level of close reading between members of a community and a sacred text I only myself dream of in my scripture studies. There was enough information to sort of understand what was going on, but a feeling of being plunged into a completely different reality.
Not every story has these layers of confusing weirdness. “With All Our Dead” is a more straightforward narrative of a woman who is visited by her dead ancestors in her mind. They act as observers and commentators of her life. I’ve often thought that my ancestors could visit me in certain moments, and I think other people and members of the LDS Church feel the same way. So it was interesting to see Morris take this folk belief to its logical conclusion!
I could write more about each story, because they explore interesting speculative Mormon theology. Tell me if you read this book! I want to talk about it, haha. If you want to hear more from Morris, he appeared on episode 5.3 of the Face in Hat podcast, which discussed the King Follett discourse.