Volume 13, Number 1 (2011)

Irreantum Staff
Editor Jack Harrell
Fiction Editor Lisa Torcasso Downing
Poetry Editor Jim Richards
Creative Nonfiction Editor Brittney Carman
Critical Essay Editor Karen Marguerite Moloney
Lead Copyeditor Elizabeth Petty Bentley
Copyediting Staff Lotte Willian and Liz Jensen
Design Eric Lyman
Layout Marny K. Parkin

Association for Mormon Letters Board

President Margaret Blair Young
President-elect Todd Robert Petersen
Past President Boyd Petersen
Board Members Mark Brown, Dennis Clark, Eric Samuelsen, Philip Snyder,
Charles Swift
Secretary Darlene Young
Membership Secretary Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury
Treasurer D. Matthew Jarman
Awards Coordinator Dennis Clark
Webmaster Jacob Proffitt
Blog Moderator Jonathan Langford
AML-List Moderator Stephen Carter

Front cover: Angel, Galen Smith

Irreantum (ISSN 1518-0594) is published twice a year by the Association for Mormon Letters (AML), PO Box 581422, Salt Lake City, UT 84158; www.irreantum.org.
Irreantum vol. 13, no. 1 (2011) 2011 by the Association for Mormon Letters. All rights
reserved. Membership and subscription information can be found at the end of this
issue; single issues cost $14 (postpaid); double issues, $16. Advertising rates begin at
$
50 for a full page. The AML is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, so contributions of
any amount are tax-deductible and gratefully accepted.
Views expressed in Irreantum do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or
of AML board members. This publication has no official connection with or endorsement by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Irreantum is indexed in the
MLA International Bibliography.

 5 From the Editor

Fiction

Critical Essays

Poetry

Creative Nonfiction
Reviews

9 Karen Rosenbaum Aunt Charlottes Secrets

23 Josh Allen Conceiving God
35 Courtney Miller Santo Flight
71 James Goldberg Wrestling with God: Invoking Scriptural
Mythos and Language in LDS Literary Works
83 Kathryn Lynard Soper On the Redemptive Alchemy
of Memoir
89 Helynne Hansen Mormonism 101 as LDS Literature
Enters the Mainstream: Elna Bakers The New York Regional
Mormon Singles Halloween Dance
99 Nancy Chaffin The Other Women:
The Reality of Polarity
8
34
66
123
124

Liz Chapman Disco Hero

Jared White Boy Sledding
Melissa Dalton-Bradford Aninut; Swaddling
Jared White Mother Flexing
Darlene Young Digestion in the Garden

51 James Goldberg Four Faces of a Rhetorical Triangle

63 Sheldon Lawrence Of Gods and Waterfalls
109 Jonathan Langford Candidate for
the Great Mormon Novel
Douglas Thayers The Tree House
116 Jeffrey Needle A Mix of Ancient Mystery and
Ponderous Prophecy: A Cautionary Review
Phyllis Gundersons The Jaguar Prophecies
119 Scott Hales Modern Mormon Family
Angela Hallstroms Bound on Earth
127 About the Artist
128 Contributors

Volume 13, Number 1 (2011)

-r-ntum
And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum,
which, being interpreted, is many waters.
1 Nephi 17:5

Irreantum is a refereed journal published twice annually (Fall/

Winter, Spring/Summer) by the Association for Mormon Letters.
We seek to define the parameters of Mormon literature broadly,
acknowledging a growing body of diverse work that reflects the
increasing diversity of Mormon experience. We wish to publish the
highest quality of writing, both creative and critical.
We welcome unsolicited submissions of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and plays that address the Mormon experience either directly
or by implication. We also welcome submissions of critical essays that
address such works, in addition to popular and nonprint media (such
as film, folklore, theater, juvenile fiction, science fiction, letters, diaries,
sermons). Critical essays may also address Mormon literature in more
general terms, especially in its regional, ethnic, religious, thematic, and
genre-related configurations. We also seek submissions of photos that
can be printed in black and white. We welcome letters and comments.
Please visit www.Irreantum.MormonLetters.org for submission instructions. Only electronic submissions will be considered.

From the Editor

A lot of people are questioning the future of print media. The print
publishing world has suffered two serious blows in the last couple
of years. The economic downturn has been devastating for a number
of publishers, journals, and magazines. And the explosion of digital
mediablogs, ebooks, and devises like Kindle and the iPadhave
changed the publishing playing field completely.
So many of our experiences with text, film, and television are different now. Just the other night my wife and I were watching something from Netflix when we heard a word used in an unfamiliar way.
I took my cell phone from my pocket, logged on to the Internet, and
went to my favorite dictionary search tool, Onelook.com. Within seconds I had twenty dictionary definitions of the word. And, I should
mention, we were watching an episode of the 1960s TV show The
Fugitive, which wouldnt have been available to us just a few years ago.
Of course, the advantages of electronic media are quickness and
ease of use. These qualities have been touted so much that I wonder
if weve begun to believe theyre the only standards that matter. Wed
be foolish to think so. When it comes to producing literature, quickness and ease may be irrelevant. Has any great work of poetry, fiction,
drama, or literary non-fiction ever been the result of ease or speed
of production? I doubt it. Even an enduring poem that might have
been dashed off by a master poet in a hurry (perhaps something by
William Carlos Williams?) isnt the sole product of that moment, but,
instead, the product of years of experience and practice at a particular
craft. Good writing takes time. Quality takes time. In all meaningful
endeavors, one can discern levels of quality, and those levels are, in
part, the result of caring individuals who put into their work a good
deal of time.
5

Irreantum

Like every installment of Irreantum, many, many hours went into

the publication of this issue. The writers of the stories, poems, essays,
and reviews herein collectively spent hundreds of hours working on
the contents in these pages, doing so long before they submitted their
work for publication. That alone should give us cause to wonder as we
turn these pages. After the works were submitted, those involved in
the contests read submissions and spent hours sifting them and discussing their qualities. Once pieces were selected for publication, section editors worked with writers to polish final drafts. Volunteer copy
editors (and everyone at Irreantum is a volunteer) revised for punctuation, grammar, and style. The individual pieces passed over my desk
several times in the process, before going on for typesetting and printing. You may read this issue in a couple of hours, but I hope what you
read stays with you much longer. When we read a book we love, we
put it on a shelf and keep it. We keep the books we love for years, even
if we never reread them. Perhaps we do so out of respect for the many
hours it takes to make a good book. I hope youll read something in
these pages that youll remember for years to come. Ihope youll keep
this issue around for a long time.
Irreantum, like its sponsoring organization, the Association for
Mormon Letters, was established to explore the convergence of literary expression and the Mormon experience. Such a convergence can
be deeply enjoyable and deeply edifying. A meaningful understanding of literary expression can help a Mormon reader to move his or
her beliefs beyond clichs and stereotypes, into the realms of complex, beautiful, and troubling humanity. The profound implications of
Mormonism can enhance ones vision of literature and humanity, too,
making the struggles of art and life eternal and significant. Will the
poems, stories, essays, and reviews in this issue of Irreantum endure?
Will something you read in this issue inspire you for years to come?
Are there pages herein that will call to you a decade from now, asking that you to pull the issue off the shelf or out of a box and reread,
reconsider, re-experience their offerings? I hope so.
A lot of people are questioning the future of print media. I think
it will be with us as long as were humanand perhaps forever. But
6

From the Editor

maybe their asking the wrong question. Maybe we should ask ourselves, when it comes to our reading, do we want quickness and ease,
or writing that endures? Of course, the answer to that question is
sure: we want both. Readers want fun blogs and informative newspaper articles on City Hall, as well as great literature that lifts humanity
with its art and purpose. So what if in twenty years you return to
this issue of Irreantum after its been digitized and uploaded to your
holographic handheld imaging device? At least that means something
in it was worth returning to. In the meantime, I hope youll talk about
this issue of Irreantum with others, whether or not you like what you
read in these pages. Talk to your friends. Be pleased or angry with the
quality of writing you find here. In response, submit your own work.
And by all means, renew your subscription! Please! If you do this, if
we all do this, Irreantum itself will endure.
Jack Harrell

Disco Hero
Liz Chapman

A hero, dying,
gives off stillness to the air.
Robert Hass

I have only twice

seen true heroes.
Tonight,
there is a ward Thanksgiving party,
and I watch a
young mens leader
stand among the wards youth
in a special dance number
and do the historic hustle.
His face is stony,
even stoic.
We are watching a hero die
in glory.
He does not know the steps,
but he will impress his wife
and dance before God, angels, the world.
Knowing smiles from Relief Society sisters
be damned.
He will hustle and hustle and hustle.
In line between high school juniors
and prepubescent Boy Scouts,
he will avert his eyes
and straighten his shoulders,
as, dying,
he dances
before God,
angels,
and the world.
8

Aunt Charlottes Secrets

Karen Rosenbaum

Aunt Charlotte, cocooned in her flowered pillows and comforter, looked out the bedroom window at the tulip magnolia tree.
Curled beside her on the bed was a particularly scrawny cat named
Jenny Craig, who had joined the household last fall, about the time it
became clear that Aunt Charlotte was not going to get well.
Lauren unbuckled her sandals, dropped them next to her day-pack,
sank onto a big cushion, and tucked her legs into the lotus position.
She stroked the white fur of the one decorative cat, Moby Mick. Occasionally Aunt Charlotte would look over with a small smile. Mom said
Aunt Charlotte had never been happy, never satisfied, always restless,
even reckless, but it seemed to Lauren that Aunt Charlotte didnt look
as desolate as the circumstances warranted. Every Thursday she was
frailer, but still she summoned small smiles. On Thursdays Laurens
last class ended at two, and she took the train across the bay to the
city and the Geary bus out to the flat on Tenth Avenue. She would
stay till after supperusually an omelet which she and Uncle Baxter
assembled and sharedand she would kiss Aunt Charlotte and the
cats goodbye, and he would drive her back to the Embarcadero station.
Uncle Baxter tolerated Aunt Charlottes menagerie, paid the medical
bills for the four feline strays, and cleaned the cage of the cockatiels, but
his heart belonged only to Betsy, the black Lab he had inherited from
his mother. Lauren wondered if afterward he would keep the rest.
She scratched Moby Micks neck. It seemed right just to sit quietly and
hum a little and pet the closest cat. Sometimes Aunt Charlotte uttered
epigrams that Lauren would later record in her journal, like Pain makes

3rd place, 2010 Irreantum Fiction Contest

Irreantum

us pay attention, and Even an orchid withers. That was what Aunt
Charlotte said last week when she was showing Lauren the scar from the
November surgery, the one they didnt bother to complete. There were
other scars. The one running like a zipper up her calf recalled a fall from a
motorcycle in Genoa the summer she was twenty-one. The thin red line
that ridged her left eyebrow and disappeared into the hair on her temple
was the aftermath of a scramble up Half Dome with a man named Jackson. And then there are the scars you cant see, Aunt Charlotte said.
Sometimes Aunt Charlotte asked questions, mostly ludicrous questions like What would you do if your Martin joined the Marines? or
How would you feel if your mother stopped nagging everyone to go to
church? Now, as Lauren drifted into a daydream in which Martin was
untypically tender, in which he actually touched her, Aunt Charlottes
voice punctured the reverie. Are you happy, dear? There was always a
kind of catch in Aunt Charlottes voice.
Lauren put the dream on hold. Was she happy? She must not be
or the word yes would have burst from her mouth. But she wasnt
miserable either. Maybe she was like Aunt Charlotte. Im okay, she
said after a while. Aunt Charlotte looked at her, a long look, and then
turned back to the window so that Lauren could see the dusky red
braid that Uncle Baxter must have twisted that morning and bound
with a lavender ribbon. The braid was short and stubby. It was the
only substantial part of Aunt Charlottes body.
The hospice nurse came every morning now and measured the
morphine, and Uncle Baxter, who was on family leave from the FAA,
patrolled the flat in his red suspenders and plaid pants. He kept the
furniture dusted and the dishes washed up in between the Friday visits of the cleaning lady. The cleaning lady was a male drama student
named Kyle, who used a lawn rake on the carpet in the living room.
After their Thursday supper, Lauren and Uncle Baxter would stomp
around in the living room to flatten down the carpet so that Kyle
would have something to do.
You were a gorgeous baby, Aunt Charlotte said suddenly. Her hollow face looked saintly, ethereal in the late-afternoon light glinting on
her pillow. You had curly black hair, long eyelashes.
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Rosenbaum: Aunt Charlottes Secrets

Lauren leaned back against the armoire. My hairs only curly when
its very short. She tugged her bangs down to the tops of her eyebrows. Like now.
We used to call that a pixie cut. You always looked like a little pixie.
Back then I thought Id probably have little pixies of my own. She
stroked a circle between Jenny Craigs ears.
Why didnt you, Lauren wanted to ask, but she rubbed a circle
between Moby Micks ears instead.
Open the third drawer there. Aunt Charlotte motioned with her
head toward the big dresser. On the right.
Lauren dumped Moby, pushed herself up, and pulled open the
drawer. Bright scarves were stacked in neat, soft piles. Mom said that
Aunt Charlotte had been a terrible housekeeper until she got sick.
Then she set about putting everything in order. Everything but her
spiritual affairs, Mom had said, clearing her throat for emphasis.
Aunt Charlotte cleared her throat, too. Theres a box at the bottom.
In the back. Lauren found it and lifted it up. Aunt Charlotte nodded.
Open it.
Lauren unfolded two little crocheted dresses, one peach with black
ribbon, one pearl white. Those were yours, Aunt Charlotte said.
Imade them for you. I think Nita wore them after. Your mother gave
them back to me, in case I had my own daughter. I want you to have
them. Maybe someday youll have a little girl.
Lauren laid the dresses out on the comforter. Oh, Aunt Charlotte,
she said.
But even if you dont have children, you should have them. She
breathed out. They probably arent fashionable any more. Even babies
have to be fashionable now.
I want them, Lauren said. Thank you. She sat on the bed and fingered the white dress. I didnt know you could make things like this. I
never saw you crochet. She couldnt picture Aunt Charlotte sitting on
the sofa doing needlework in front of the television like Mom. Before
the cancer, if the television in the den was on, Aunt Charlotte would
be stretched out on the carpet, pumping an imaginary bicycle in the
air and scowling at Uncle Baxter, slouched in his recliner.
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Irreantum

I havent done handwork in years. But when you were little, I even
sewed. I liked making you things. Once I made you a green dragon.
And when you were first born, I pieced a crib quilt out of your grandmothers old cotton scraps. You dragged the quilt everywhere, wore it
right out. I dont know what happened to the dragon.
Maybe Nita got it.
Maybe.
Lauren felt brave. She touched the tiny flowers on the bodice of the
little dress. Did youwant to have children?
Aunt Charlotte didnt answer for so long that Lauren thought
maybe she hadnt heard. Finally she said, Sometimes. If Id been able
to believe in something, then maybe. Or if Id been able to believe in
nothing at all.
Lauren waited but no more words came. And Uncle Baxter?
Aunt Charlotte paused again. Either way was okay with him. She
reached for the peach dress. I dont see this color much nowadays.
No, Lauren said. But its very pretty.
Betsy wandered into the bedroom, put her paws up on Laurens
jeans, tongued Laurens chin. Lauren fended the Lab off with her
elbows. Baxter! Aunt Charlotte called. For good measure she buzzed
her intercom button. Baxter, come get this dog!
When Uncle Baxter peered into the room, Betsy abandoned Lauren, bounded to Uncle Baxter and licked his hands. Come on, girl, he
said, ushering Betsy out the door. We know when were not wanted.
Lauren gave a half wave.
I heard a great dog story yesterday, she offered. From my math
teacher. He had a turkey, a pet turkey, I think. Anyway they werent
going to eat it She looked at Aunt Charlotte, who was stroking
the peach dress. Last summer when they were going on a long vacation, they took the turkey up to his dads farm in Marin County. His
dad had a Rottweiler pup. Aunt Charlotte cringed, maybe from the
pain, maybe for the turkey. When my teacher got back from his trip,
he went to his dads place. His dad said, Im sorry. You cant have the
turkey back. The Rottweiler And my teacher thought, oh no, even
a baby Rottweiler can probably, well, deflate a turkey, but his father
12

Rosenbaum: Aunt Charlottes Secrets

took them around to the back to see. The Rottweiler pup and the
turkey had bonded. The pup followed the turkey everywhere.
Aunt Charlotte sighed in relief, then gave a short laugh. Bondings
a big thing nowadays. When I was young, we didnt use that word.
When a woman had a baby She smiled as if looking at something
inside her, then shook her head and brought herself back to the bedroom. Im always reading about bonding now. Women ask for maternity leave so they can bond with their babies. They dont say they want
to be with their babiesthey want to bond with them.
I dont feel bonded with Mom, Lauren said. My friend Sarah
shes in the dorm, across the hallshe claims thats normal. Its always
so complicated, the feelings you have about your mother.
Maybe thats what bonding means. Developing complicated feelings.
Well, if thats so, said Lauren, its overrated. She stood and reached
for her daypack and carefully put the two little dresses on top of her
calculus book. I feel more bonded with you than with Mom.
Thats a different kind of bonding. You mean comfortable with.
True, Lauren said. You worry about me just the right amount.
And you dont worry about my eternal salvation. She turned to look
at Aunt Charlotte. Do you?
Aunt Charlotte laughed.
And you dont feel any guilt about me, Lauren continued, and I
dont feel any guilt about you. Women shouldnt have daughters. They
should have nieces.
I dropped you once. Aunt Charlotte lifted her hand to her forehead as if she were taking her own temperature, then flinched and
closed her eyes before starting again to pet Jenny Craig. That made
me feel guilty.
I must have recovered.
Maybe we did bond, Aunt Charlotte said gently. The first three
months of your life, I spent more time with you than Ramona did.
Lauren stood up. What do you mean? She rounded the bed and
scrunched up cross-legged on Uncle Baxters pillow.
Aunt Charlotte didnt turn her head. Your mom kind of freaked
out. Now its called postpartum depression, but we didnt know much
13

Irreantum

about it then. She closed herself up in the bedroom and wouldnt

come out. She didnt have enough milk for you anyway, so you were
already on formula. Didnt seem to have hurt you any.
Lauren bent closer to Aunt Charlotte. So you took care of me?
Your dad phoned, all upset. It was the first week of June. I had a
summer job lined up. I called and told the boss I had a family emergency. I moved in with the three of you, into that tiny apartment in
Culver City. I slept on the couch. By the start of fall semester, Ramona
was pretty much okay.
Mom never told me that.
Aunt Charlotte drew her lips in. No. Better not to mention it to
her, I think. Its nothing to be ashamed of, but shes not proud of it.
Im pretty sure she never told any of her church people. She let them
think she had physical complications.
She did okay after Nita was born?
Aunt Charlotte grimaced. Not really okay. But better. Only about
six weeks. I was in St. Louis, and I couldnt come, so your grandma
took care of Nita and you.
So it was Grandma who bonded with Nita, Lauren said. There
were so many puzzles. She thought back to when Grandma died.
Nita had been inconsolable. So was Nita a formula-fed baby too?
I expect so, Aunt Charlotte said. She leaned toward her nightstand and grasped her water glass. What will you do, she asked, as
if they had been talking about it all along, with a degree in biology?
If I get a degree, Lauren said. I dont even start taking classes in
my major till the fall. Maybe I wont like it.
Youll get a degree, said Aunt Charlotte, in biology or something
else. Do you want to teach?
I dont know. Did you know from the start you wanted to be a
dietitian?
I didnt really want to be a dietitian. But my cousin Melba was a
dietitian and she could always get work and it wasnt bad work. It left
her time to play.
What did you want to be?
Aunt Charlotte shrugged. A folk singer.
14

Rosenbaum: Aunt Charlottes Secrets

Really? Lauren slid off the pillow onto her knees so she could see
all of Aunt Charlottes face.
Aunt Charlotte didnt seem to mind that the bed jiggled. Most
of us cloistered little girls in the youth choir wanted to be folk singers. She pushed herself up a few inches higher, and her eyes gleamed.
Ihad a bedroom to myself when Ramona got married, and I would
swirl around the bed, clutching a shoe like a make-believe microphone,
and shout out the lyrics to the songs on my radio.
Did you have a guitar?
I saved up and bought one. She chuckled.I could empty the house
with Go Tell Aunt Rhody! And I grew my hair long and straight like
Joan Baez. Your grandma was appalled.
Lauren laughed. Joan Baez looks sowell, respectable.
Aunt Charlotte nodded. She does now, doesnt she?
What I really want to do, said Lauren, is study bird migration.
And I want to go to Antarctica.
Aunt Charlotte whistled. I wanted to go to Paris. Antarctica! Her
veiny hands smoothed Jenny Craigs fur.
And New Zealand, said Lauren. Are you sorry now you were a
dietitian? She winced. She hadnt meant to use the past tense.
Aunt Charlotte didnt seem to notice. No. It was my job, but it
wasnt my life.
Maybe Ill go into the Peace Corps, Lauren said. My math teacher
was in the Peace Corps. He went to Sri Lanka.
I planned to go into the Peace Corps, Aunt Charlotte said. I filled
out the forms. I talked to people. Her voice suddenly became limp.
Icouldnt pass the physical. I got a job in St. Louis. And then I met
Baxter. Two sheep whod lost the way. She said it in almost a whisper,
then cleared her throat and found her voice again. Could you eat a
chocolate chip cookie? Someone brought us a big plateful, and I cant
eat them. You can afford the calories better than Baxter can.
Lauren slid off the bed and headed toward the kitchen.
I think he put them in the breadbox, Aunt Charlotte called, and
Lauren found them there. There were crumbs on the cabinet top and
a few ants. She wet a paper towel and squashed them. Martin would
15

Irreantum

not approve, but Martin was in the anatomy lab, not here. She made
a small stack of cookies, poured herself a glass of orange juice, and
carried it all back to the bedroom.
Would you like anything? she asked.
Aunt Charlotte shook her head. All those years working with
foodand foods the last thing I want to see.
Orange juice though? Something cool to drink?
Water. Room temperature water. Aunt Charlotte gestured toward
her nightstand where a glass with a straw sat atop one of Grandmas
doilies. Thats all that tastes good to me.
Yummy cookies. Lauren held up the remnant of one. Who made
them? She pushed Uncle Baxters pillow aside and leaned against the
headboard.
Maggie, downstairs. I think shes scheming to snare Baxter when
Im gone. She laughed as if she cared only a little. One day, she said,
I was at a patients bedsideit was when I worked at the convalescent home in Daly Cityand there was a bag of cookies there. I was
thinking that I would like to try one when the patient, he was an old
man, said hed like to try one. His granddaughter had made them. But
I need my teeth, he said. He pointed to a margarine container and
there was half a set of false teeth. She paused. Have you ever even
seen false teeth?
Lauren shook her head.
Well, imagine a row of teeth set in pink plastic. The man had his
own teeth on the top and these were for the bottom, but I didnt really
know what to do with them. I put them in upside down. She chortled. Finally I got it figured out. I keep seeing his face, his eyes so big,
knowing something was wrong, but not sure what!
Did he offer you a cookie?
No. And the next day he died.
Oh.
Death isnt the scariest thing, Aunt Charlotte said after a moment,
in case you were wondering.
Lauren settled herself sideways. Moby leapt up on the bed and
pushed his forehead against her hand until she began to stroke him.
16

Rosenbaum: Aunt Charlottes Secrets

What was the scariest thing? What was scarier than dropping off the
edge of the world into nothing? But she waited too long to ask, and
Aunt Charlottes eyelids lowered and her mouth sagged open and she
coasted into sleep. Lauren watched her for a few minutes to make sure
she was breathing okay, and then she deposited Moby on the floor
cushion, retrieved her orange juice glass, and padded down the hall.
In the kitchen, black ants were swarming on the floor, radiating out
from Betsys food bowl. Uncle Baxter was in his study, at his computer,
so Lauren looked under the sink and found a plastic spray can of Raid.
It wasnt at all ecological to spray poison on ants, but she couldnt carry
them outside one by one the way she did spiders. She hesitated. In the
broom closet, she found the Dustbuster, and she plugged it in and
sucked some of them up. Routed, the circle spread.
Uncle Baxter appeared at the kitchen door.
Ants, she said.
Here, he said. Just spray. He put Betsys bowl in the sink and ran
water into it, then took the Raid can and aimed at the now frantic
army of ants. Open the window. He gave the Dustbuster a squirt, too.
The two of them retreated, gasping, into the living room. Uncle
Baxter pushed a side window open. The air was cool outside, but they
stood there, breathing it in.
Martin has become a vegetarian, Lauren said.
Uncle Baxter grunted. Why would he do a thing like that?
He talks about the sanctity of life. Even insect life.
I dont eat insects myself, said Uncle Baxter.
Lauren elbowed him. I hate to kill them. They must be as aware of
things as Betsy is. When they see a thumb coming at them, or a can of
Raid, they must be afraid. We read a George Orwell essay in English
about a man who was hanged in Burma. On the way to the gallows he
walked around a puddle of water. It was such a normal, human thing
to do. It made Orwell feel terrible.
Uncle Baxter grunted again, in a not very convinced way.
Ants walk around puddles too, she said.
All that proves, Uncle Baxter said, is that walking around puddles
is not a normal, human thing to do. And anyway, think about the life
17

Irreantum

of an ant. No books, no music, probably not even any nieces. He

winked. Just work, work, work. Maybe for ants, the end isnt such a
terrible thing.
Lauren looked down at the street below. For humans it is terrible.
She let her voice lift up a little at the end.
Sometimes its a blessed rest.
Is Aunt Charlotte afraid?
He rubbed his hands. He wore a heavy gold band on his left ring
finger. I hope not.
Id be afraid.
Youre young. And you dont hurt.
She shivered a little. Does Aunt Charlotte believe theres something after?
I dont think shes counting on it.
Do you think there is?
I dont know. The oldest of the cats, Susie, poked her head between
his legs. He patted her briefly, then straightened up. Im afraid not.
Would you like there to be?
He sighed. If it could be a good place. A place with no cancer. He
smiled. And no arthritis. And if there were a separate place for ants
and mosquitoes and people who think theyre better than everyone
else. He shut the window. Lets stomp down the carpet, he said,
since were in here.
The buzzer sounded in his study.
Ill go, Lauren said. Ill see what she wants.
They both went. Aunt Charlotte was almost sitting up. Her eyes
looked a little wild, and she was breathing hard. My mother was here,
she said. Lauren and Uncle Baxter looked quickly at each other. She
was standing right there, Aunt Charlotte said, where youre standing.
Char, said Uncle Baxter, moving closer. He took her right hand
and rocked it.
What did she do? Lauren asked. What did Grandma do?
I think she was singing hymns. One of those old hymns. I could
see her. I know you dont believe me, but I could see her.
18

Rosenbaum: Aunt Charlottes Secrets

She was just singing? asked Lauren. Did she say anything? What
did she look like? Did she look the way she did when she was old?
I dont know, Aunt Charlotte said. I just know it was my mother.
Singing. Betsy stopped her. That Betsy came into the room, and
Mother left.
Your mother never did like dogs, said Uncle Baxter.
Aunt Charlotte closed her eyes.
Lauren knelt on the bed and took Aunt Charlottes left hand. Do
you want us to stay here? Do you want anything?
Aunt Charlotte relaxed and lay back. No, dear. Her eyes were still
closed. Just sleep. She motioned with her chin to the bolster behind
her, and Uncle Baxter slid it to the floor and settled her head on her
pillow.
Its the morphine, Uncle Baxter said as Lauren chopped mushrooms and onions and red bell peppers.
Im glad, though, she said. Its probably easier if you think theres
someone there to, you know, show you the way. She scooted the vegetables into the saut pan and nudged Betsy aside. Id like for Aunt
Charlotte to show me the way.
When I was a child, he said, five or six, I used to pray that I
would die at the same moment as my mother. I knew how dreadfully
I would miss her, and I somehow also knew that if I died first, she
would suffer unspeakable sorrow. When I got older, I understood that
I could bear her death better than she could bear mine. Thats what
happened, of course. Shes been gone seven years now. He stirred the
vegetables while Lauren grated cheese. I love Charlotte. Its easy to
still love Charlotte. She hasnt become someone else. Shes the same
cranky, the same sorry afterward. He laughed, then stopped abruptly.
I dont have to try and remember the person I used to care forshes
still that person. But now if I could pray, Id pray that she would die
peacefully and soon. And Im not ready to go yet.
Lauren slipped Betsy a little piece of cheddar. Is Aunt Charlotte
ready?
He sighed. I dont know. Shes almost ready, I think.
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Irreantum

You used to pray, huh?

When I was a child, he said. Your mother still prays. She writes
us how shes praying morning, noon, and night for us. She doesnt say
what shes asking for.
Thats Mom, Lauren said, pouring the eggs into the bigger pan.
She prays for me too. I guess I should be glad. In case there is anything, shes covering my ass.
Uncle Baxter grinned. Id like to think it did some good. But then
I remember all those people who die in earthquakes and plane crashes
and wars, and I just know that some of them were praying. And why
listen to me if he didnt listen to them?
Lauren slid the omelet halves onto plates and set them on the table.
Uncle Baxter poured seltzer water into goblets. He lifted his glass.
To Charlotte, he said.
To Charlotte. Lauren touched her glass to his.
Betsy settled herself underneath the table, her paws on Laurens
bare feet. Another fine omelet, Uncle Baxter said. Does Martin eat
eggs?
This week.
Bring him over. He shrugged with his hands. When all this is
finished.
After supper, they looked in on Aunt Charlotte. She was mumbling in her sleep, so Uncle Baxter pulled over the needlepoint stool
and sat next to her as she slept. Ill clean up, Lauren said. Are you
sure you want to leave her to take me downtown?
Ill call Maggie, downstairs, he said. Shell drive you.
Instead of rinsing the dishes and arranging them in the dishwasher,
Lauren filled the sink. It was satisfying to wash dishes. The dorm
denied her that simple task. Her arms were coolthe kitchen window was still openand the hot water felt good. Betsy wandered
in again and nuzzled her leg, so Lauren crouched down and poured
kibble into the now clean dog bowl.
She knelt, motionless, and listened. In the bedroom, Uncle Baxter
was singing. Abide with me, he sang, fast falls the eventide. La la la
la la la la la la la. A hymn he hadnt quite forgotten. It was comforting.
20

Rosenbaum: Aunt Charlottes Secrets

He even sounded comforted. Resigned. It had something to do with

no longer having hope.
Lauren had hope. She didnt have faith maybe, the faith of her
mother, of her fatherbut she had hope. She straightened up and
stretched. The smell of the insecticide lingered. There on the windowsill were a few confused-looking ants. She waited till they marched
close together, then gently blew them out into the night.

21

Conceiving God
Josh Allen

It was 2:14 am. Michael Dean, in plaid boxers and an old Boise State
University T-shirt, sat at his kitchen table. He held a mug of warm milk
in his hands, and between slow sips, he blew on the milk, causing tiny
white ripples to rise and vanish. He was sitting in the near dark of the
light over the kitchen stove. He didnt want to make a stir and wake his
wife, Lynn, who was sleeping at the end of the hall. He didnt want to
talk to her right now. He didnt trust what he might say in his 2:00am
grogginess. Late nights had a way of bringing things to the surface.
He thought of Lynns face, propped at a slight angle on her pillow.
He closed his eyes and pictured her curly, thick red hair and her skin,
smooth and slightly pale and without freckles. He thought of her tiny
mouth, her straight teeth, and her cheeks that were high and rounded
and fleshy. He remembered a day, a good one three years ago, when
he closed his eyes and kissed her mouth and traced those cheeks with
his fingers, and as he sat, he traced her cheeks in his mind. He still
knew those cheeks. He could call their shape and fleshy softness to
mind. That meant something, he thought. He sipped his milk. He sat.
He took three deep breaths and decided to make a mental list of what
else he knew. Lists helped. Lists were tidy and ordered, and he could
wrap his mind around them.
One. Lynns alarm went off every day, even on weekends, at 6:20.
He knew this. His grip on the mug relaxed a little, and he thought
about writing this down. He kept thinking. Two. At restaurants,
Lynn ordered chicken Alfredo as often as she could. If it was on the
menu, thats what shed get. He listened to the kitchen clock, the quiet
pock pock pock it made, so much louder at night. He breathed and let
another minute pass. Three. Lynn snacked on Cheerios at least once a
daywithout milkbut she never ate it for breakfast.
23

Irreantum

This is good, Michael thought. He liked that last one. Theyd never
talked about it, so he thought his knowing it proved something. Four.
Lynn hadnt changed her hairstyle the whole time hed known her. It
was shoulder length, and she parted it on the side and almost always
wore a bow in it or a fake flower or a ribbon. Five. Lynn had watched
the same handful of classic movies dozens of timesCitizen Kane,
Wait Until Dark, To Kill a Mockingbirdand she always whispered
her favorite lines a second before Gregory Peck or Audrey Hepburn
spoke them. She watched movies on the couch with her legs tucked
beneath her, dressed in her pale blue bathrobe, her head cocked
slightly to one side.
Well thats something, he thought, and he felt hed arrived somewhere. He had proof of something. But there was more. Six. Michael
knew this was the important thing, the unavoidable thing. For twelve
years, Lynn had come home from work just after 5:00. She taught
ceramics at Borah High School in Boise, and some days she showed
up late, but never later than 5:25, not without a phone call. By 5:25,
come rain or snow or gloom, Lynn Dean would step into their threebedroom home, sigh, close the door slightly harder than she needed
to, and hang her keys on the little hook above the light switch. That
was a given.
Michael stood up and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
He took eager sips from his mug. But two months ago, on March
8thhe still remembered the exact dateLynn walked in at 5:50.
She didnt warn him or call ahead. Hed waited for her, pacing the
living room, looking to the street for her car, trying to distract himself
by watching television, and hed tried to remember if hed forgotten
something, one of those rare exceptions like a parent-teacher conference or a field trip to a museum. But there was nothing. Hed tried her
cell phone four times, with no answer, and the fourth time he left a
message that included the words starting to worry and please call.
He got up from the kitchen table. He walked to the living room,
down the hall, back to the kitchen. His list had soothed him for a
minute. But it ended the same way it always didwith the wondering,
the questions, the things he couldnt list.
24

Allen: Conceiving God

That day, at 5:50, shed walked in, sighed, closed the door slightly
harder than she needed to, and hung her keys on the little hook. Then
she said, Sorry Im latecrazy day. And that was it. And that was
fine. Michael started pacing the hall now. That really was fine. That
wasnt a problem, because those things happened, and those things
were normal, and reasonable people didnt freak out about one late day.
But it happened again the next day. At 5:50. Sorry Im late. Missed
your calls. Then there was a week of it.
Michael took three large swallows, finishing the milk. Then she
stopped saying she was late. Then she stopped saying she was sorry.
She just started this brand new thing. At the end of the hall, holding the empty mug, a blue ceramic one Lynn had made him, Michael
peered into the bedroom. She was sleeping on her back, angled on the
pillow just as hed picturedher skin, her mouth, her cheekseverything as hed known it. Her chest rose and fell. He heard her breathing
through her nose. She was so still. He shouldnt worry, he thought.
He should calm down. He should stop being insane. He should get
it together, let it go, chill out. Most of all, he should get back in bed.
It was forty minutes, and forty minutes was nothing. They had a new
thing now, and the new thing was okay. But still, he thought, you can
do a lot in forty minutes.
He slept in, hitting snooze again and again. Eventually, he stumbled, still groggy, into the kitchen, where Lynn was already dressed
and making breakfast. She was in a white blouse that shed tucked
into a form-fitting, knee-length black skirt. Her legs were bare and
smooth and newly shaved. She was standing at the stove and wearing
low heels, which gave her calves shape.
He didnt get it. Lynn spent her whole day working with wet clay
and glaze and dust and clumsy teenagers, and still, she wore dresses
and skirts to work. She told him she covered her clothes up on messy
days with a big blue smock she kept at the school, but she wore the
nice clothes to start out anyway. Michael thought she should be in
worn jeans and an old cotton shirt, with out-of-the-way sleeves. But
she looked great. She always looked great.
25

Irreantum

Scrambled or over easy? she asked, holding up two eggs.

Michael focused on her waist, where her blouse tucked into her
skirt. He wanted to talk to her about the forty minutes, but he knew
what she would saythat she needed the extra time to do her job,
grade the assignments, deal with the larger class sizes. Instead, he said,
Lets eat out tonight.
She looked at him.
Italian, he said. Asiagos. Your favorite.
She cracked the eggs into the pan. They crackled and spit.
That might be nice, she said. She picked up a spatula off the counter and pointed it at the pan. Scrambled? Over easy?
He walked to her and touched his hand to the small of her back.
Ill make reservations for 5:30, he said. Meet me here at 5:10.
She looked at the pan. The whites had gone from clear to milky.
Egg smell filled the kitchen.
No good. She shook her head slightly. I dont get home till 6:00.
Its just one day, he said. Cant you rearrange some things? Put
something off? Later, hed remember saying these words, and hed
hate the way they sounded.
Too late, she said, breaking up the eggs with the spatula. You get
scrambled.
After she left for work, he stepped into the shower. He picked
up her shampoo bottle. It was lime green, with a picture of a split
coconut on it. He uncapped it and held it to his nose. He loved the
smell, soapy and tropical at the same time. Hot water trailed down his
back. She wasnt having an affair. Michael knew that. Lynn was pretty
enough, but she wouldnt. He still knew some things about her. If she
was sleeping with someone else, shed have made a clean break first.
Besides, he told himself, their sex life was still good. That must mean
something. And forty minutes a day probably wasnt enough time to
squeeze in a decent affair. Probably.
He kept her shampoo bottle in his hands.
But she wasnt working longer. Michael knew that. For Lynn, teaching high school was assembly-line work. Shed been delivering the
26

Allen: Conceiving God

same lesson plans for twelve years, with overrehearsed consistency. For
twelve years the kids in her classes had been cranking out the same
vases, the same flower pots, the same mugs with crooked handles.
None of that had changed. Lynn didnt need an extra forty minutes
a day to do her job. Michael was certain. It was something else. She
was going somewhere. She was doing something. He closed his eyes.
He thought of the possibilities. It could be anythinga garage sale
fetish, a secret scrapbooking hobby, a marijuana habit. Maybe she was
volunteering at the Boise Art Museum. Shed talked about doing that
for years. But really, he knew nothing.
He pretended she wasnt already gone. He inhaled the strong coconut
smell of her shampoo and pictured her at the sink, blow-drying her hair
and speaking to him over the noise about something simplewhen
to fertilize the yard or where to get the oil changed. He ran through
a fake conversation with her about visiting her mother in Seattle. He
imagined her holding up two dresses, still on hangers, and asking his
opinion. He pictured the curve at the base of her neck. He imagined her
applying mascara, leaning in close to the mirror and opening both eyes
wide. And he stood. The hot water faded and ran out. When it did, he
decided. It was time to do something. No more of this.
Two days later, he left the office early and waited in the high
school parking lot, slumped in his drivers seat. He checked the digital
clock on his dashboard: 4:47. The parking lot was mostly empty, but
hed found a clump of cars to hide in, near the tennis courtspractice or something going on. As he waited, he listened to the pock of
the balls. Lynns clean, blue sedan was ahead to his left, a few rows
away. He rested his hand on the stick shift and breathed. Hed been
planning this. Hed been practicing for it by choosing random cars on
Front Street or Broadway and following them for a few minutes. Now
that he was here, he knew this was wrong. Regardless of what Lynn
was really doing, this was wrong. It was ludicrous. He was thirty-six
years old. He had a wife and a mortgage. He was a college graduate
and a tax consultant, and here he was hiding in a high school parking lot. Ayoung woman walked out of the brown school doorsnot
27

Irreantum

Lynnand he tamped down a swell in his stomach. This whole thing

was absurd.
But he couldnt stop doing it. This was wrong, but it was also real.
It wasnt thinking, like the shower, and it wasnt talking, like when hed
asked her to dinner. It was something he was doing. Just him. He had
control of it. He could find things out. He could take charge, man up,
get things going. So this was wrong, but it was also important. He
would do it.
She came out at 5:03. Michael ducked onto the passenger seat and
raised himself slowly enough to see. She was in a pink blouse and a tan
skirt. Her walk was slow and a little sensuous with her toes pointed
straight ahead and her hips swaying slightly. Even through his closed
car windows, Michael could hear her heels strike the asphalt. She
didnt look toward him. She stepped into her car, and Michael turned
his ignition.
She went left, then right, then left again. Michael kept two cars
between them and prepared for the confrontation that would come
when she stopped. She weaved through a neighborhood, past stucco
houses, most of them tan or brown. He wished it was dark or at least
raining. How often, he wondered, did she look in her rearview mirror? Had she seen him already? She turned onto Cole Road, a busy
street. If she saw Michael here, hed wave, passing it off as a believable
coincidence. He counted to fifty. He was starting to feel comfortable.
He even reached down and switched on the radio. And then she did
something. She put her blinker on and turned rightinto the parking lot of the Mormon temple.
He braked, accelerated, and braked again. He didnt know what
to do. Hed thought of so many things, from the tragic to the ridiculous, everything from a secret gambling addiction to clandestine ballet lessonsbut not this, not the Mormons. He passed the temple, a
gray and white building with steeples rising up from each corner. He
tightened his grip on the steering wheel and checked his mirrors.
He was trying to think. They werent religious. They never had
been. On Sunday mornings, they walked their neighborhood streets
28

Allen: Conceiving God

and talked about lawn care or home repairs or Michaels unemployed

brother. In twelve years of marriage, he and Lynn had gone to church
for friends weddings and family members funerals. That was it. Theyd
talked about God. Everyone had, and they agreed they had nothing
against Him, if He even existed. But they didnt know. No one knew.
And now Lynn had turned into the Mormon temple parking lot. He
didnt feel right. He was trying to think. It was getting harder to drive,
to pay attention to traffic. He made a few turns and weaved his way
back. He had to brake hard to avoid rear-ending a black SUV.
He pulled into the parking lot slowly. Her car was ahead under a
maple tree in a shaded parking place. She was still in it, sitting in the
drivers seat. He crept closer. Her head was bowed, and her eyes were
closed. Her lips were moving.
She was praying.
He parked where he could see her. He waited and watched. She
really was praying. They never prayed, not even at Thanksgiving. He
waited for her to get out of the car and go into the temple. Was that
it? Had Lynn become a secret Mormon?
But she stayed in the car. Her mouth kept moving, slowly. He
looked at her closed eyes and the small movements of her mouth. Her
lips were thin and lipsticked in a soft pink that matched her blouse.
He tried reading her lips, but couldnt make anything out.
Five minutes she prayed. How can anyone pray for five whole minutes, he thought. What are you saying? And then it was ten. He looked
at the temple. It was an angled building of large, stone bricks. It had
white spires, and on the top of one of them, a golden man in robes
stood, blowing a trumpet. Hed seen the building before, maybe hundreds of times. It was one of Boises landmarks, visible from the freeway,
but hed never seen it like this. Hed never been this close. He checked
the dashboard clock. It had been fifteen minutes, and her mouth was
still moving. This is what Lynn had been doing since March 8th? Shed
been praying and lying to him about it? Lying about prayer?
He removed his keys from the ignition. He opened his car door
and started walking. He felt his chest, each breath in and out, and
his arms, heavy, hanging to his sides. He heard traffic on the street,
29

Irreantum

the hum of cars passing by quickly. Before he was quite ready, he was
there, beside her door.
Through the tinted glass, not three feet away, her high cheek bones
moved just slightly as she prayed. He used to tell people he fell in love
with her cheek bones first.
He knocked on her window three times, fast, with one knuckle.
She startled and looked up. They stared at each other for three seconds, and the pane between then seemed thick and tinted and warped
with reflections. It was hard to see her clearly. Then Michael opened
the door.
What are you doing? he asked.
She didnt answer.
Were you praying?
She touched her hand to the keys dangling from the ignition.
Ishould go, she said.
Tell me, he said. Im your husband, so I get to know.
Not now, she said. Not here.
Lynn. He said her name again and again. He didnt know how
many times. Please.
Then she said it, barely in a whisper. When she said it, she looked up.
When she said it, he knew she wasnt saying it just to him. She was saying it to God, still begging, still praying, finishing her interrupted plea.
I want a baby, she said.
She started her car, pulled the door closed, and drove away.
He stood in the parking lot. He had lost her. She had disappeared,
and this stranger who lied and prayed at the Mormon temple and
wanted a baby had taken her place. Theyd had a joke, a running conversation that had gone on for years. Whenever they saw a screaming
child in a mall or a restaurant or a post office, theyd look at each other,
raise their eyebrows, and one of them would say, Not in my house.
Children changed things. But none of that mattered now. Things had
already changed.
He knew nothing.
The Mormon temple. A baby. Prayer. God.
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Allen: Conceiving God

He walked back across the parking lot. He tried to see when hed
lost her, to go back and find the beginning of all this. It was before that
first day she came home late. It could have been months before. It could
even have been years. He didnt know when, but he knew she was gone.
The praying and the baby and the coming home and even the breakfast were just pieces of it. He was trying to wrap his mind around this.
Lynn was gone. He drove, but he had to go home eventually. When he
walked in the door, she was standing in the kitchen. The fridge door
was open, and she was holding a jar of olives. She looked pale.
He didnt know how to start. He didnt know if he should start. He
had so many options, everything from packing a suitcase to calling a
psychiatrist, from calling her a liar to pitying her and buying her flowers. He didnt know which path to take, so he spoke as bluntly as he
could.
If you want a baby, he said, why are you asking God and not me?
She looked at him. She set the olives on the counter.
I ask you, she said. He was talking to a new creature, as if a curtain
had just come down. I ask you all the time. You always say no.
Michael thought. He tried to remember. Youve never asked me.
He shook his head slightly.
All the time, she said. She took two steps toward him. When
child actors are on TV, I ask you if you think theyre cute, and you
say no. When we see kids playing in the park, I ask you if you want to
be young again, and you say no. At the library last week, I asked you
if you ever missed childrens books, and you said no. Dont you get it?
What is that? Some sort of code? Am I supposed to decipher that?
He picked up the jar of olives and moved it from one hand to another.
You want a baby, but you wont go out to dinner with me? Instead,
you ask me about child actors and spend your time at the Mormon
temple?
She didnt answer. He sat down at the table.
Is that how you talk to God? he asked. In code? You dont even
believe in God.
She looked at him. Her eyes were blue and beautiful and distant
and, most of all, gone.
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Irreantum

I could, she said, as if she was asking for something.

He set the olives on the counter. He didnt know what to say.
For two days, they didnt talk. They woke up. They worked. They
slept. They watched television and read books and worked in the yard.
He couldnt figure out how it had happened. He remembered a day,
years ago, when for no reason she gave him a vase shed made for his
office. It was three feet tall and curved and deep orange. Stenciled to
the side were the black silhouettes of a man and woman, their arms
wrapped around each other, their bodies intertwined. That must have
been eight years ago. And now, despite everything, she was still coming home at 5:50. He was still angry. But he wanted to be thoughtful
and reasonable. What Lynn was doing was wrong. The fact that she
was doing it while praying with the Mormons made it no less wrong.
On the third day of silence, instead of heading home after work,
he went for a drive. It was gray and raining, and he didnt want to be
there when she walked in the door. Let her get home first for a change.
Heading west on the freeway, he came to the unavoidable landmark
the gray, angled, inevitable temple. He tried not to look at it. He
knew she was probably there, her head bowed and her eyes closed,
her soft lips muttering, still believing that somehow it could work. As
he approached, he counted the spiressix of them, the highest one
topped with the golden man blowing his silent trumpet, announcing
Gods glory or mercy or wisdom or whatever.
He had to admit this wasnt the Mormons fault. Lynn was just a
desperate, crazy woman, praying in a parking lot. He thought of her
lips, her cheeks, the small of her back, her neck, her hair, her calves, her
clothes. He thought of her laugha high, girlish giggle. He thought
of her reading a book on the couch, standing in front of the barbeque
grill on the back porch, pushing their dirty lawnmower. He thought
of their wedding day and of last Christmas and the pottery wheel he
gave her and how he was so nervous picking it out.
He said her name out loud.
In the rain, the temples gray bricks looked streaked and darker
than they had days before, almost ancient. If she was down there, in
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Allen: Conceiving God

that churchs parking lot, she was asking a God who might not even
exist for the simplest of things. If she got her answer, Michael thought,
shed get more than a baby. Shed get something theyd never had before.
The rain slapped the windshield. He turned up the speed on the
wipers. The temple was behind him now. He glanced at it in his rearview mirror. He scanned the parking lot for her car. He was convinced.
It had been twelve years, and after all this, he wasnt sure he could
make it work anymore. He wasnt even sure he could talk to her. But
he wasnt ready to walk away.
A baby. A God. Prayer. A baby. God.
He drove for hours, heading north on I-84 and back again. Around
eight oclock, she called his cell phone. He didnt answer. When he
got home, she was still up. He ate a bowl of cereal and a banana. He
switched on the television while she read a book. She went to bed first
and was asleep long before he walked into their room.
Late at night, he made his choice. He rolled toward her and draped
his arm over her lower ribs. He caressed her side, slid close, and
pressed his body against hers. She was warm. He kissed her neck. She
woke and tensed but didnt stop him. He moved up to her cheek, her
mouth, back to her neck, and in time, her hand moved gently to his
face. Her fingers traced his lips.
When they joined, he knew.
God, he thought. Dear God.
Everything was going to change.

33

Boy Sledding
Jared White

The boy sits, heavy in his body, on a yellow metal saucer

watching the moon behind winter clouds
glowing them into smoke, and slides backward
down a snow-scuffed ski slope through black woods.
Like a slow-spinning tops
rounding thrust chasing its tail, his sleds
direction is governed by terrain, all
his movements flailing down, his body
falling with gravity, the body into dark air
over bone-white snow.

34

Flight
Courtney Miller Santo

All winter, Kathy kept her husbands leaving a secret. When her
home teachers called, she said Archie was working in the garage. If
the bishop mentioned Archies nonattendance, she claimed hed been
there the week before. Deception proved easy, even with her own
adult children, who were satisfied by the half-truth that hed gone to
the old beach cabin in Netarts to repair a leaking roof. In truth, Kathy
had no certainty of his whereabouts. During those cold, wet months,
it occurred to her that she and her husband had reached the point in
their lives where they were of interest to no one but themselves.
I see him on the weekend, Kathy lied to her youngest daughter,
Julia, at lunch in March.
Why didnt you go with him? she asked. Julias eyes were her
fathers eyesa sea glass green that lightened or darkened depending
on mood.
You dont go with George when he goes on his business trips,
Kathy said. This lunch, at an upscale bistro in Portlands Pearl District, was their third in as many months. Because Julia was the only
one of her six children without kids of her own, she had time for
pestering questions.
Thats different. You know how I get when I fly. And were not
retired. I have the blog, and my calling, and... Julia wrinkled her
forehead.
The gesture was familiar from the girls childhood. Kathys daughter searched for more substantial commitments to offer.
The adoption, Kathy suggested.
Didnt you read my post last week? Julia asked.
Kathy sighed. Archie had always been the one to read the blog. He
was good at editing out the crassness and occasional blasphemy that
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Irreantum

Julia and her thousands of readers found entertaining. Ive been so

busy, she said, looking among the iron tables for the waiter.
Both women stared at their plates, which had been picked over.
Julia ate the strawberry that had come with her sandwich. Kathy finished her soda. The blog was a point of contention between them. To
this day, she couldnt understand how her daughter made a comfortable living off of it. She couldnt believe how many people were interested in Julias life.
Well, Julia said brightly, weve put the adoption process on hold
for now. I found a new doctor who agreed to let me do another round
of in vitro. Shes actually quite positive, says that unexplained fertility
is the best sort of fertility problem to solve.
Its just so much money, and neither one of you have a stable source
of income, Kathy said. Sometimes, she disliked Julia. She wondered
if all mothers felt this way about their grown children, but she was
never brave enough to ask any of the other sisters at church. It seemed
patently wasteful to spend twenty thousand dollars on the chance of a
baby when there were babies born every day who needed homes.
Julia narrowed her eyes. When did you last visit daddy?
The weekend, Kathy said. Hes fine. Got into a bit of a pickle
when he tried to put a new roof on the shed.
You said that before, Julia said.
Well, hes moved on to repainting. Trying to cover up the water
damage. Of course, I had to have him start all over again when he put
a coat right over the wallpaper
No. Not about the roof. Which weekend were you in Netarts? I
cant get ahold of him, and neither can the boys. Phone just rings and
rings and rings.
Kathy took a long drink of her diet soda. You know your father.
He always hated answering machines.
Julia wouldnt let her end it. Timmy saw you on Saturday when he
came to unclog the gutters, and the weekend before that we were all
together for James Jr.s birthday party.
Maybe its been a few weeks. She looked her daughter straight on,
daring to be challenged.
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Santo: Flight

In a rush, Julia said, Im worried about him. Does he have enough

insulin? How do you know hes not in a coma or even dead? Whats
going on between the two of you?
Hes fine, Kathy said. She reached for her wallet to pay the bill, her
hand was shaking so hard she couldnt unzip her purse.
Julia slapped her platinum card down and then slid an article torn
from a magazine across the table. Intimacy can be a struggle when
couples reach a certain age. She didnt meet her mothers gaze.
Kathy pushed the article away.It can also explain childless marriages.
Thats not fair. Im just trying to understand whats going on with
you and Daddy. I posted about it on the blog and a lot of people
seemed to think
You did what? Kathy held tightly on to the table. She wanted
to throw her glass across the room and hear it smash satisfactorily
against the slate flagstone.
Julia flinched.
Hes gone, Kathy said loud enough that the waiter, reaching for
the check, turned tail. You want the truth? Fine. There it is. Your
father left me.
Gone? Julias lower lip trembled. What do you mean Daddys gone?
He wouldnt leave us. Hes got to be hurt. I know hes unhappy with you,
but it doesnt make sense that he wouldnt return my phone calls.
Hes not hurt. Im hurt. Kathy left the restaurant without looking
back.
On her daughters blog, Kathy was called Birdy. At home, after
lunch, she waited for her computer to start up and wondered at the
pseudonym. Birdy had been her nickname as a child and during the
early years of their marriage. Her children, especially Julia, could not
know that, and, in her present, middle-aged state, there was nothing
to suggest a woman on the verge of flight. She was flat chested and
pear bottomed. Her lank brown hair had none of a feathers luster,
and she felt that her solidness, the breadth of her feet, the thickness
of her hands, the stumpiness of her fingers, evoked in those around
her images of bark, trunks, roots.
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Irreantum

Papa left Birdy. There it wasthe secret that Kathy had kept all
winter from her bishop, from her home teachers, from her own childrenposted and open for comments. Its none of Julias business,
she thought. It wasnt her secret to tell. There were hundreds of comments on the post. Dont read the comments, Julia told her parents
when shed first started blogging. Anonymity breeds extremity. They
dont really think I should burn in hell, they just have opinions. And
yet those opinions hurt.
Kathy wondered how her daughter had withstood the stings. She
scanned the comments knowing that she would not, as HotMama45
suggested, thank her daughter for getting all the ugly out in the open.
Nor did she need to, as Chillary33 proposed, see a doctor about depression. She was fine, thank you very much. She let her eyes flit over the
comments from readers who begged Kathy to go after her husband. Her
gaze landed on a comment by FemMorm pleading for Birdy to go after
her husband. How could a self-proclaimed feminist be comfortable proposing Kathy debase herself in such a way? She wasnt the one who left.
Hed left her the day after his sixty-first birthday. It was early January, and the slight breeze, which occasionally sent whirligigs floating
to the ground, had tousled his dark hair as he placed necessities in
the bed of the truck. He had to catch his breath, and as much as she
wanted to go out and help him, she was too angry at what hed said
when they woke up that morning.
Im tired of being told what to do, he said after she prompted him
to say his prayers.
She argued with him, said she didnt nag. Fine, he said. Fine, fine,
fine, but I need to be away from who youve become. I want to wake
up and smell the ocean. He didnt look at her as he drove away. There
were two oceans in their livesand she figured he picked Netarts and
the Pacific, even though he hadnt explicitly told her.
She trudged upstairs and stood in front of their closet. His bright
collection of Hawaiian shirts seemed to radiate light. She undressed,
leaving her clothing in a pile on the floor. Her scriptures were in his
nightstand. Hed not taken his and, for the last several months, shed
been reading through his New Testament, pondering at the verses
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Santo: Flight

and words he underlinedtrying to unlock some secret about him.

It was warm enough that she fell asleep on top of the covers. She
remembered nothing of her dreams, but a feeling of grittiness.
The next morning, she stopped the newspaper, left the keys with
her neighbor, and wrote a mass email to her children. She needed to
store her energy for the confrontation shed have with Archie. She
should have let him be. He begged her to stop telling him what to
do. The day before he left, she bossed him aroundslapped his hand
away when he reached for a second piece of cake at his birthday party.
A man needs a wife, not a mother, he said, and, in the awkwardness
that followed, it had been his own mother who lightened the mood by
saying, Im pretty sure you need both.
Netarts sat along the bayside of a spit. The beach was too far out
for sunbathing, and the edges of the bay were rock strewn and seaweed covered. The house sat two streets over from the towns boat
dock. Kathy turned down the gravel road that led to the house, surprised to find it looked, to her, like a shack.
It was nearly noon, and Archie, as if hed known she was coming,
sat on a plastic porch chair on his lawn. He was wrapped in one of his
mothers quilts. His left foot was propped on the hardened stump the
family used as a chopping block. The precipitation had stopped before
she descended out of the mountains, but the wind had strengthened.
Kathy stepped out of the car, feeling as though she were standing on
the bow of a boat, cutting across waves with such speed it took away
her breath before she could catch it.
She moved a few steps toward Archie, who sat with his eyes closed,
and then stopped. Its too cold to smell the ocean, she said, resurrecting the fight theyd started the day he left.
Itll warm up this afternoon, he said, opening one of his eyes and
squinting at her and as long as the wind is blowing, I can smell the
ocean. Youve got to let your nose get used to things, and, before you
know it, youll be thinking about our honeymoon.
You say that no matter what ocean you smell.
Cant help it. It takes nothing at all to bring to mind that weekend
in Kitty Hawk. The way you could be still then. With your birds, with
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Irreantum

me. Same thing with my mothers perfume. I smell it on some woman

in the grocery line, and in a moment, Im three years old again, falling
asleep on her shoulder in church.
Do you think this is like our honeymoon? A way to start over?
Her arms hung loose at her sides. And you were just what? Waiting
for me to come and get you? Is this your apology? She crossed her
arms and stared down the road, watched a foil wrapper blow into the
gutter. You left me. You told me to let you be. And I did. She stared
at him, shook her head. But you never came back. The wind dispersed her angry words, sending them drifting in different directions.
Im sorry, he said, Oh, God, am I sorry.
She took a few more steps across the gravel driveway, closing the
distance between them. For a moment the scent of pine and salt tickled her nose. The cold air pricked her lungs, bringing her mind into
sharp focus. Something was wrong, something other than their separation. She turned away from the wind, from him, seeing him peripherally. With his full head of thick, black hair, he looked younger than
she didthis had always been the case and it still irked her. At least
now, with the hundred pounds hed put on, he wouldnt be mistaken
for her son, as had happened right after the twins were born. That
had been such a rough year for herfor them. That year, the children
devoured the bit of girlhood she still held on to. The wind blew and
the quilt flapped, getting away from Archies grip. Her eyes followed it.
She wiped her eyes, shielded them, and finally took in every bit of him.
It was as Julia had said in her blog entry. Papa was not a man who
could fend for himself. His left foot was swollen, and the streaky red
lines of an infection burst out the top of his sock and covered his shin
and calf.
Its too damp to be outside, she said moving toward him in a slow
and deliberate way, not wanting him to know that shed seen his leg.
Archie opened both eyes and shook his head. Katherine, he said,
using her given name. You ought to stop dyeing your hair so dark.
Lighten it up a bit. You look too old to be my wife.
There it was. The humor and the ownership, the things she loved
and hated about him. She moved within arms reach, tucked the quilt
40

Santo: Flight

around his waist, and laid her head in his lap.

I will, she said as he stroked her hair. But first, what do you think
about going to the hospital?
Kathy was alone in the house the next morning when a tiny burst
of light caught her eye. She stood on her tiptoes, looking through
the window over the kitchen sink. The windows in the small cement
house hadnt been cleaned in years. She rubbed at the dust with her
dishrag, and the flash, like a piece of coal exploding into ash, came
again.
Outside the window, an Annas hummingbird, hovered under a
sun-faded feeder hung on a box nail. Holding her breath, she climbed
to the edge of the sink and pressed her forehead against the glass.
There were a few downy patches of dull green among the birds firered head feathersindicating an immaturity, maleness. The flashes of
light came as the sunlight played upon the iridescent feathers tucked
underneath the birds neck. He moved effortlessly upward and sideways searching for nectar in each imitation flower before disappearing
into the woods that lined the property.
She let out her breath and remembered the sensation of a hummingbird, moving so quickly it created its own wind against her cheeks.
Glass fronted the hospital in Tillamook. The heavy cloud cover
made the building look like mercury from a distance. She had stood
by the bed while doctor after doctor examined his leg, gauging the
depth of the infection, and discussing ways to avoid amputation. She
didnt say much to the doctors or to Archie, but she knew her husband was going to lose his foot. It hurt to hear them lecture him. Preventable, they said. Nurses, doctors, even the counselor they sent to
prepare him for amputation brought up that this had been preventable. None of it felt preventable to Kathyshe couldnt shake the
feeling of inevitability about their path.
On her second night alone in the house, she took down the feeder,
scrubbed it clean and filled it with sugar water. Shed developed a routine during those weeks. She ate breakfast on the back porch hoping
to catch a glimpse of the Annas shed seen on the first day. This was
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Irreantum

the hour she had for herself, before she had to call Julia and her sons
to update them on their fathers condition and then drive the twenty
miles to Tillamook General. There was a small, tin awning that kept
the drizzle off her shoulders, and she liked to stretch her legs out and
let the rain drop on her bare feet.
During that time, she didnt see the young male Annas, shed
named Cole, but she heard him announce his presence every morning
by repeating one drawn-out creak, followed by two short, staccato
chirps. To Kathys ear, this call seemed to say, I am here, I am here,
Iam here. When she heard him, she would empty the dredges of her
oatmeal into the dirt around the base of the house and call out to the
bird, Im here too.
Archie returned to the house in Netarts in early April. She didnt
tell him about the hummingbird. Instead, she brought him breakfast in bed and followed the guidelines the discharge nurse had given
her for caring for a preprosthetic patient. She checked his wrappings
hourly and gently massaged the stitches when she applied topical pain
medication. He didnt complain about the rigidity of the leg board or
about having to lie prone so that his only view was of the yellowing
popcorn ceiling. She read Great Expectations to him, and they worked
on crossword puzzles together. Archie didnt look at her when she
tended to his leg and when they talked, it was about the children. He
didnt ask where everyone was, why theyd had no visits from church
members, how come the children couldnt spare a weekend from their
busy lives to come down. He absorbed the absence of people without question. Kathy wondered if he knew she was keeping them away,
telling lies about hoping to prolong this quiet between the two of
them. He did ask her one afternoon as he was falling asleep why she
finally came after him. She kissed his forehead and pulled the sheet
up around his shoulders.
As spring took hold, Kathy began bringing back seed packets with
the groceries. After a date had been set for his first prosthetic fitting,
she mentioned her plans.
Id like to carve a bit of yard into the forest out back. Plant some
flowers.
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Santo: Flight

Archie looked at her warily.Mom and Dad sort of let the trees take
over after they retired. Dad said there was no use fighting nature over
a patch of dirt.
Nothing too much for you to handle once youre better, just a few
shrubs and maybe some feeders.
Why do you keep talking as if Im going to recover? Losing my leg
is just the beginning. Itll all go to ruin. Its what the body is built to do.
They looked away from each other and then, because they knew each
others thoughts, he changed the subject. You after the birds again?
Just thought Id see whats out there.
They both stared out his window. Although they could not see it,
the ocean was there, on the other side of the patch of woods that
made up the backyard. What they could see were dozens of trees and
saplings that practically touched the back steps. There was a bit of
lawn still struggling to get enough light under the canopy of trees,
but pine needles carpeted the ground and ferns dotted the yard like
advancing soldiers.
Youve got the morning glories out there, he said. They both knew
his mother had planted the creeping vine along the gutter pipe of
theshed.
Do you think well be here to see them bloom? he asked.
Hard to say. She wasnt sure how long she could keep him there.
Julia always hid them under her pillow, thinking theyd bloom
again when she woke up, he said with a smile.
The morning glories bloomed in May about the same time Archie
became comfortable with his prosthetic. The backyard was alive with
blossoms at that time. Shed had enough time to ready the space. She
did much of the work when Archie was sleeping. She brushed aside
any questions he asked about the garden, about the birds, as quickly
as he did questions about his health. She was careful not to let him
see her motionless under the feeder, or with the feeder in her hand,
as Cole became more comfortable taking nectar in her presence. The
closer she got to feeding the hummingbird by hand, the closer she
also got to North Carolina, to her ten-year-old self, and to those days
when her thoughts went no farther than her fingertips.
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As a girl, Kathy had discovered her one true talent was being still.
She grew up next to the Atlantic ocean, close enough to the beach to
have sand for a front yard, but far enough away that her backyard was
filled with wildflowers, marsh grasses, and migrating hummingbirds.
She spent hours watching them feed as they flew north in March and
again when they returned for their southbound flight in August. At
five or six, while she was sitting outside watching the birds, one of
them mistook the bow in her hair for a flower. At that moment, as a
hummingbird hovered over her hair, the entire world slowed, and she
felt the birds movement as strands of her hair floated. She spent the
next fifteen years finding ways to bring the birds back to her.
Archie found her when she was twenty-one and paying her tuition
at N.C. State with a hummingbird show. She had transformed her
parents acreage into a hummingbird estate and, over the years, it had
become a sanctuary for hundreds of migrating, ruby-throated hummingbirds. In addition to planting the flowers and shrubs, she filled
dozens of feeders with nectar, and, at dawn and again at dusk shed
stood in the circle of feeders with a bucket of sugar water. Dozens of
birds would hover around her waiting to sip nectar from her cupped
palms. She became a curiosity and then a tourist attraction.
Archie began to look familiar to her the second or third time he
came to her show. It was not uncommon for young men to take an
interest in Kathy, although few continued the attention after getting
close enough to realize her face was both plain and pock marked.
When they quickly walked away after stammering out an inane question about hummingbirds, she receded more deeply into herself. She
expected Archie to be one of the boys who walked away. He looked
like an astronaut, but there was something in his eyes that reminded
her of the abandoned dogs she sometimes found after the tourists left.
He was at once wary and hopeful.
I know where your birds are going, he said, standing next to her as
she scrubbed sticky liquid off her hands.
She didnt turn toward himafraid for him to see her face. She let
her hair drop over her cheek. South, she mumbled.
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Belize, he said quickly enough that it covered up her response.

You cant sit underneath a cashew tree and not see one. When I was
younger, I thought hummers were like shooting stars, but I saw so
many of them when I lived in Belize, I stopped wishing.
On stars?
No, on hummingbirds. It was something my mother taught us.
She got carried away pretending. Id lost all my baby teeth before I
discovered the tooth fairy wasnt real.
They laughed and the conversation was easy enough that, without
realizing it, Kathy turned toward him and tucked her hair behind her
ear. For the first time she could remember, she wanted to know more
about another person than she did about her hummingbirds.
Archie and Kathy married a little more than a year after they met.
Shed expected her parents to protest the quickness of their courtship
or her conversion or, at the very least, their decision to move across
the countryall because of a handsome, returned Mormon missionary. But they only smiled at each of these announcements, and Kathy
thought she detected a bit of wistfulness in their smilesas if theyd
not known their daughter would become an adult.
Archie had grown up with his father in the military and change, to
him, was like breathing. She told herself that hed taught her to feel
the same casualness, but she always felt out of sorts every time she
visited Netarts and found that the ocean was on the wrong side.
It took five years for them to conceive their first child, and during
those long years filled with longing for children, while Archie graduated from Portland State University and started working as a CPA,
Kathy became attached to children shed not even had yet. This cleaving had carried over. Kathy inserted herself far too much into her
own childrens lives. This intrusion was a contention in her childrens
marriages, and she understood part of the reason theyd left her and
Archie alone so much. The last few months was the relief the spouses
felt at not having Kathy hover over their lives.
In early June, the hummingbird finally drank nectar from her cupped
palms. That night she dreamt of watching the sun rise over the Atlantic
and was surprised to find when she woke up that dawn was hours away.
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She crept into Archies bedroom and lay down beside him. She lay as still
as she could and breathed silently. It had been nearly a year since theyd
been together, and she told herself that he would have to reach out for
her before shed touch him. His breath changed, and then he slid his arm
under her back and rolled her on top of him. She touched her forehead
to his and after a kiss that was unlike the pecks theyd exchanged since
coming to Netarts, she pushed off his shirt and carefully took off his
shorts. It was unusual for Kathy to take charge. Afterward she put her
head on his chest, mindful to let her legs rest naturally against his.
I still miss my ocean, she said, wanting him to know that she understood the need to go home.
I should never have taken you away. It changed you.
She wasnt sure what to say, thinking hed misunderstood her. This
wasnt about her.
My knee hurts, he said and rolled away from her.
Kathy found one of Coles mating partners in late June, just after
the first of the wild flowers shed planted began to bloom. Hummingbirds rarely shared territory, even with their offspring and mates, but
when nectar is plentiful, their natural instinct to chase off competitors
is lessened. Shed been keeping the feeder full and clean, but so far her
only hummer was Cole. As she stepped into the backyard and smelled
the perfume of the blooming flowers, she felt that would soon change.
Cole came out earlier than usual and, not finding Kathy in her usual
spot, he returned to the feeder. She hurried inside and poured some
of the sugar water shed just made into her hands and then walked
quickly outside to try to lure him back. He didnt come, but while she
was waiting, she heard an Annas whistle followed by two attempts
to mimic it. The birds passed their songs from one generation to the
next in this waytheir calls werent instinctual, they were learned.
She opened her palms and let the nectar fall to the ground. Then she
crept toward the forest and dropped to her knees. She peered into the
bushes that lined the backyard.
The phone began to ring inside, and she knew it would be Julia.
Kathy sometimes went to the public library in Tillamook and read
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Santo: Flight

the blog. Once again her daughter had used the blog to expose family
secrets. Earlier that week, Julia had called Archies doctors and gotten the full story of his amputation. Kathy had told the children that
their father was sick. Since then the phone hadnt stopped ringing.
She refused to talk with any of her children. She let them be livid with
her instead of with their father. Archie told her the kids werent angry,
just hurt and scared.
She was about to turn toward the house when she spotted the nest.
It was the size of a silver dollar, and the two hummingbirds within
took up every millimeter of available space. Theyd be fledging soon.
The mother was most likely out hunting insects. Few people understood that nectar was more fuel than food for hummingbirds, who
were carnivores. For a hummingbird, delicacies included gnats, flies,
beetles, waspsreally any flying thing they could catch with their
beaks. It was extraordinary, really, how their long, thin beaks opened
wide at the base of the mouth and acted like a net to catch these bits
of protein as they flew.
She marked the nest with a piece of golden ribbon tied to the salmonberry bush and ambled toward the house. Her hands, which had
still been sticky from the nectar, were covered in bits of dirt, moss, and
pine needles. She brushed her hands against her pants and noticed
that her hands were shaking. Through the open window she could
see his back was to her, and the phone line, which had long ago lost its
curl, dragged on the linoleum in the kitchen. She started up the porch
steps, but then stopped.
Julia, dont cry. Tears arent going to do any good at this point,
Archie said.
Kathy dropped underneath the kitchen window so shed be out of
sight. The feeder was directly above her, and it swayed gently in the
breeze.
She thinks Ill leave again if we come back.
That was true, but she wouldnt have believed Archie knew that
about her. She pulled at the bottom of her sweater and balled it up
tightly in her hand. Of all their children Julia was least like her mother.
Kathy couldnt understand how the girl saw the world.
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Tell me exactly what youve done, he said.

There was a long pause as he listened, and then, You are playing
with fire. No amount of being away justifies this. It is not your mothers fault that your marriage is falling apart.
Kathy unclenched her fists and let go of her stretched sweater.
When the children were small, Kathy used to envy the grandmothers
in the wardthinking they were done with parenting. The truth was
you werent done until you died, or Heaven forbid your children did.
You cant leave him if you still love him, he said. It was his patriarchal voice, the one he used when he counseled the kids through their
adolescence. It was a voice of a man who trusted himself. Marriage is
about more than happiness. You make a life with a person, and they
become your witness, your existence. Without them, you cant find
meaning in what you do.
Kathy longed to hear what Julia answered. She sensed movement
at her feet and looked down to find ants swarming the ground where
nectar had dripped from the feeder above. Their frenetic energy scared
herthey carried away dirt clods, pine needles, and bits of grass that
the sugar water had touched.
You leaving him is not the same. I didnt leave, he said. I moved,
knowing that if she followed, we might have a chance.
Kathy stood up and stormed inside the house, working hard to
compose herself as she went. Archie hung up the phone, and she
asked, casually, who had called. He shrugged his shoulders and lumbered from the room.
Two days later, Cole didnt appear for his morning feeding. The fog
took longer than usual to burn off, and when it finally did, Kathy stepped
out onto the back porch with the nectar in hand. She stood silent and still.
As the dew evaporated off the grass and shrubbery, a breeze blew in from
the woods, bringing with it the smell of salt and pine. She smiled and
closed her eyes as it took her back to North Carolina. Archie had his final
fitting with the prosthetic leg scheduled for later that day. Although hed
been using it consistently at home, there were still concerns about the fit.
She felt another breeze, smaller, like the breath of a newborn baby
held close. She opened her eyes and saw two Annas feeding from her
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palms. They waltzed upward when she blinked and then away toward
the morning glories on the side of the house.
There were two or three white flowers tucked among the greenery,
and Kathy almost laughed as she watched the baby hummers drinking nectar. She began planning a larger and more elaborate garden
one that would bring in not only Annas, but Allens and Rufous. The
two Annas flitted off toward the wood, and she started to walk the
property, taking in the patterns of sunlight. As she neared the feeder,
she saw that the ants were again amassing underneath it. She knelt
down to brush them aside. Theyd been swarming over a small carcass.
She gasped and jumped back in revulsion, and then looked again as a
ray of sun burst from the clouds and lit up the remains, the feathers.
It was Cole.
The bird had impaled his long, narrow beak on a wasp and then
had been too weak to pry its jaws open to free itself. Without the ability to drink nectar, the bird had starved and fallen from the sky. The
image of the flood of ants came to her and she gagged, swallowing the
bile in her throat.
You will do this, she said loud enough for all the creatures in the
backyard to hear.
Then, with jerky motions, she picked the bird up, cradling him in
her hands. Using her thumb and forefinger, she tugged at the wasp
until it slid off Coles beak. In her mind, she listed the next steps she
had to take. Go inside. Find a box. Get the garden tools from the shed.
She found the more tasks she listed, the harder she cried. Archie burst
through the door onto the porch, then stopped when she held the
bird out to him.
He took Cole, who seemed even smaller in his large hands. Ive
been watching you with him. It brought me so much joy to see you
feeding the birds again. To see you still.
Kathy wiped her eyes with the bottom of her shirt. Its not fair.
Oh, Birdy, he said, shifting the bird to one of his palms and slipping his free arm around her shoulders. Its never fair.
She bowed her head and then he, his. Their prayer was long, and
when one of them paused, considering what else to say, the other took
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up entreaty with the Lord. By the end of it, they were both in tears.
For the first time in six months, Kathy felt unburdened. She took the
bird back so he could use his hands to help himself inside. He kissed
her forehead.
She asked him then, Why did you leave?
He looked away from her and chewed the inside of his cheek.
You left me, she said, keeping her voice even, unemotional.
I left to give you a chance to become you again, he said, wrapping
his arms around her.
She felt his prosthetic leg against her. It was hard, without any give,
any warmth.
The next week, Birdy watched Archie boil water on the stove and
add two parts sugar. He moved more easily on his prosthetic than she
would have thought, and hed stuck to his restrictive diet, which surprised her. She fingered her hair and thought that he was right. She
needed to pay attention to herself. In addition to the two Annas shed
seen several days before, other hummingbirds had started to show up
at the feeder and in the yard, and, although she couldnt bring herself
to feed them, Archie had been keeping them in nectar.
He came inside and sat down next to her. I think Julia has cheated
on her husband.
Birdy thought back to the eavesdropped conversation and was not
surprised. What are we going to do about it?
I think its time for us to go home.
She nodded, and they looked out the kitchen window and watched
Coles offspring drink from the feeder.

50

Four Faces of a Rhetorical Triangle

James Goldberg
Illustrations by Nicole Wilkes Goldberg

1
I teach college freshman about writing using the rhetorical triangle, a handy little diagram which looks something like this:

Its a beautiful picture. Love the straight lines and sleek form of the
triangle. Love the simplicity of the writer-issue-reader relationship,
but with the exotic flair of the Greek on the periphery to give writing
that arcane, sophisticated aura college students need in order to feel
justified making tuition payments. So what if theres nothing in the
middle but blank space?
The diagram seems to genuinely help their writing. After thirteen
years of education, theyve often forgotten their writing will someday
Third place, 2010 Charlotte and Eugene England Personal Essay Contest

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have an audience other than their teachersthe triangle fixes that!

After eighteen years of getting sensory and emotional overload from
their mortal experience, they often forget that writing should engage
a single issuethe triangle fixes that, too! And after a few weeks on
campus, they often have trouble believing theyll actually master anythingthe triangle fixes that, by distilling writing down to its most
basic six elements (three, if you cover up the extraneous Greek parts)!
This single triangle, it seems, covers all my students most pressing
problems, and for a fee much lower than those of most trained
psychologists.
When I write, I meditate on the rhetorical triangle. Or rather, Ilie
to my audience by claiming to meditate on the rhetorical triangle.
When I write, the triangles power fills me, until the inside of my soul
is full of light. Sometimes, the light makes me drowsy and I fall asleep
somewhere late in the first page. Other times, the light keeps me up
all night, and I end up going to school unshaven and incoherent the
next day.
My wife cant see the light inside of me most of the time. This is
probably because she sees through all my lies. What my wife most
often notices, when I am writing, is how irritable I become. She says
Im seldom curt or sharp except when Im writingwhich wouldnt
matter if I didnt write so much.
Why does everything you love make you grouchy? she says.
I dont know!
Youre such a nice man except when you cook, or go to a play, or
write.
She says this because she knows that before I was going back to get
an MFA in creative writing, I was in theatre, and before I was involved
in theatre, my dream was to become a chef.
I think you like being miserable she says, and draws her own triangle on a napkin.

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Goldberg: Four Faces of a Rhetorical Triangle

If I had not been so busy being grouchy the last time she said such
things, I could have told her I dont love being miserable. I could have
told her the misery is a symptom of my passionate belief in the rhetorical triangle, that it comes of desperately wanting to connect with
ideas and with people with the intensity the triangle suggests I can.
If I had not been so busy being grouchy, I could have told her there
are many secrets to the rhetorical triangle, discovered only by those
who examine it closely, and one of them is that what appear to be dark,
straight lines between the three corners are actually ropes. I could
have told her its hard for me to interact with the outside world while
I am writing because all my strength is invested in pulling on those
ropes, on keeping the line between myself and the reader so taut that a
passing tightrope walker would find him- or herself irresistibly drawn
to it. I could have told my wife that though my hands burn with the
effort, my dream is that someday, tightrope walkers will forget where
they were going and come dance between the reader and me, that on
our ropes they will perform their finest work.
Ive been working on stories lately that involve the places my ancestors came from. History is a rope I feel particularly compelled to
pull on. If I pull on this rope hard enough, maybe, some phantom
tightrope walker from a bygone age will perform a dance that shows
how this world I was born in came to be. If I pull on this rope tight
enough, maybe Ill catch a glimpse of the scars on my ancestors hearts,
memorize their crooked shapes. But in the triangle, to pull the rope
taut takes two, and when I started work on one recent essay about
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Irreantum

my grandfathers experience as a twelve-year-old in Punjab in 1947,

Icould already feel the coming slackening on the other end.
Sure enough, my teacher returned that paper with =? above the
word Partition.
If only my readers in graduate workshops would hold on to their
end of the rope!
Evidence that they consistently dont can be found in black, purple,
and green marks across my behind.

2
I teach college freshmen about writing using the so-called rhetorical triangle, a visual metaphor for their situation which looks
something like this:

It sort of reminds me of a wrestling ring: the writer is crouched

in one corner, about to jump out and try to tackle the reader. If the
writer is lucky, hes old friends with the issue and they team up successfully and attack the reader from both sides. If the writer is unlucky,
he doesnt know the issue and soon upsets it, then gets double-teamed
and smashed into the ground. In some cases, of course, its the issue
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Goldberg: Four Faces of a Rhetorical Triangle

who is unlucky instead: neither writer nor reader understands nor

cares to understand it, and their natural prejudices align in such a way
they trample merrily across its back without any awareness that they
are doing so.
In all three cases, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos look on serenely. They
might have been referees once, but theyre ancient Greeks and long
since dead, so they tend to hold their marbly peace. (Not that they go
entirely unnoticed: if the reader is holding up the writers legs while
the issue slams the writers face repeatedly against the floor, the writer
might glance over to Pathos for a moment and feel as if his pain is
understood.)
Its a good metaphor, I think, in terms of preparing young students
for an academic experience in which they as writers will be jumped in
a succession of (metaphorical) dark alleys. They may soon learn, by
means of this metaphor, that the trick to surviving as a writer is to
carry a sharp knife, both as a deterrent to issues and readers, and to
cut yourself out of the messes you may find yourself in.
When I teach freshmen writing next semester, I may go so far as
to draw this knife into my diagram. It will be there, in the center of
the triangle, and when the writing gods shout Go, writer, reader, and
issue will rush for it, wrestle for itand who, in such a contest, can
remain unscathed?
Since I am writing now, of course, I find myself trapped in the
world of my metaphor. Like my freshmen, I am at a disadvantage.
Their disadvantage is that I, their reader, am both older and scrappier.
My disadvantage is that you, my readers, vastly outnumber me. (At
least I hope you do. If not, this journal is far more exclusive than Ive
been led to believe.) Also, I do not know you and can only guess at
your specific strengths and vulnerabilities. Many of mine, in contrast,
are likely already embedded in this text.
Although you have yet to physically arrive in this moment, as I
write, I can sense your impending presence. My eyes grow wide with
fear. The real issue is, inexplicably, late, and I have no idea whether,
when he comes, he will be my friend or my foe.
My one great consolation is this: I have the knife.
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3
When I teach freshman writing, I use my knife to carve the following diagram into the wall:

I do this mostly to persuade as many students as possible to drop

my class. Because the hardest part of teaching writing is reading and
grading student papers, I find I am always happiest when I can get
down to about fifteen students. Any fewer, and the university may
cancel my section. Any more, and Im afraid Im losing my edge.
I think the diagram is genuinely useful for those students who
choose to stay. It teaches them to keep things nicely discreet and contained. Issues, when not carefully Partitioned, have a way of becoming inexorably connected with other issues, which in turn reveal
themselves to be inexorably connected with yet other issues, until it
becomes impossible to take up any issue without feeling the weight
of the whole universe. The sharp walls of the triangle help keep
unwanted parts of any given issue out, while the appropriate part, like
a slab of raw meat, is kept in. The same goes for people, including
readers. Without intervention, the reader can easily become like the
hydra, a creature notoriously difficult to successfully write for. The
diagram helps students select a single head before they begin indiscriminately hacking. This is what we teachers of writing like to call
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Goldberg: Four Faces of a Rhetorical Triangle

audience awareness and focus.

Last, and quite possibly also least, the diagram safely compartmentalizes the writer. If a (male, for the sake of linguistic tradition) writer
tries to approach the rhetorical confrontation with his whole self, the
excessive load of information will likely overburden the (female, for
the sake of sentence-level clarity) reader, who will in turn drop her
end of the rope and leave the writer sprawled out on his back, aching.
An uncompartmentalized writer also risks a problematic relationship with the issue; his mixed loyalties will almost inevitably lead to
a writer-issue relationship far too complicated for words, and then
where would writing be? Best to take the advice of the diagram and
chop yourself up nicely, too, before starting on any serious communicative work. Specialization! Thats what I say. (Not all the time, of
course. I usually only say that after saying things like Best to take the
advice of the diagram and chop yourself up nicely, too, before starting
on any serious communicative work.)
When I teach using the Rhetorical Triangle diagram, I feel Ive successfully warned my students about the importance of respecting clear
and internationally recognized borders, borders which may have been
written in blood. I do not warn them that as years pass and papers
lengthen, the rhetorical triangle will begin to tighten on them as the
issues they engage with become more specific and the audience with
the tools to understand them shrinks. I do not warn them that the
time comes when many scholars only find time to read in their own
areas and are no longer able to see beyond their own tightly focused
rhetorical triangles walls. I do not warn them that claustrophobic
individuals should steer clear of academia. I do not warn them that
even for nonclaustrophobic individuals, being trapped in a steadily
constricting, hard-edged triangle can be extremely deleterious.
Most scholars, I believe, do not die of natural causes: they are crushed
because at some point they are trapped in work that has become so
tightly focused no one else can even see it, no one else has the proper specialized vocabulary to hear their screams. This is why so many geniuses
die so young while mediocre scholars tend to hang on in departments
forever.
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Irreantum

Not all geniuses die young, of course, because some have the knife.
In a tight spot, the utility of a good knife should not be underestimated. Heres some free advice: clean yours; sharpen it regularly.
Sometimes, when I feel trapped, I want to use my knife to cut
through the walls of the triangle, to make room beyond its borders
to stretch my very long legs. I like to cut off the whole top, to expand
the issue until it approaches infinity, running my mind along both
discovered and undiscovered routes of connection. I like to reach out
across the triangle with my kirpan and cut a hole in the far side large
enough for me to see and remember that God is always, always in the
audience.

4
My English teachers always told me Write what you know, but
I teach my freshmen the rhetorical triangle, which emphasizes what
they dont know. The triangle I draw looks remarkably like this:

After Ive drawn it on the board, I assign my students to write a major

paper. I then schedule at least a week in the library to demonstrate
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Goldberg: Four Faces of a Rhetorical Triangle

just how much they dont know their issue. Next, I expose them to
different positions and perspectives so they realize how much they
dont know their audience. Last, I make them read postmodern theory
until theyre convinced they dont and cant know themselves and that
Socrates advice on that subject was the sort of cruel ironic joke youd
expect from someone whos just been condemned to drink hemlock.

That last part is a lie. I wont look now, because I have a sneaking
suspicion Ive been lying on and off for several pages. I am a very honest person, in real life, I swearat least whenever Im not obviously
lying.
My basic philosophy of lies is this: if your lie is designed to be
obvious enough that a reasonable person, as defined by California
state law, could clearly distinguish it from 90% of truths, then your lie
doesnt really count as a lie. Its just another kind of pulling, another
way of keeping taut a relationship between you, the reader, and some
sort of truth.
When I teach college freshmen writing, I dont typically teach them
my philosophy of lies. I teach them the rhetorical triangle. I teach
them to do their best talking about issues they have intensely limited
experience with to audiences they have intensely limited experience
with because Ive been taught thats how life works, and to a certain
extent, I believe its true.
I believe in the efficacy of the rhetorical triangle for their writing. Ibelieve in only pulling as hard as the reader is likely to pull, in
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wrestling the issue into the ground so it cant create havoc, in cutting
yourself to pieces when the triangle grows too small.
My own writing process is different, though, because I wasnt
taught the rhetorical triangle in high school or as a college freshman.
I was taught the rhetorical triangle when I was twenty-five years old,
after it was, quite frankly, too late. Before it was too late, all I was
taught was Write what you know, a maxim which, if converted into
a diagram in my case, would look something like this:

I am a bent-over stick figure. My back strains under the weight of

a thousand and one stories, under the weight of the layers of history
between me and the Garden of Eden, of the layers of history between
me and the Messiahs return.
My maternal grandfather, Gurcharan Singh, is there, and near him
is Shaffee Muhammad, his childhood best friend whose family fled
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Goldberg: Four Faces of a Rhetorical Triangle

their homes for Pakistan after it became clear that nothing would be
the same after Partition. Around them are sixty years of silence: words
they could never speak to each others absence, stories my grandfather
didnt tell after he came to America (where teachers put =?s next to
the word Partition), silence on silence on separation.
My grandmothers father is there; hes a boy too, though in the
Mormon communities in northern Mexico during that countrys most
recent revolution/civil war. He has scrambled up a tree after seeing a
band of Villistas approach in the distancePancho Villas men, like
fire and passion, are best encountered in controlled situations and not
on the road home in the space between day and night. Although they
havent seen him in the dim light of this dusk, the band chooses to set
up camp under the very tree hes hiding in, and so he stays there the
night, terrified in ways that I, God willing, will never have to be.
My fathers fathers father, Julius Goldberg, is there, standing absolutely silent. He is a cutout figure for a shadow play in which the foreground is in Los Angeles and the backdrop, onto which the shadows
are projected, has been destroyed. There is a hole in the center of him
through which I cannot see the place of his birth, though tattered
papers suggest to me it may have been a half-Jewish city in Rumania
called Jassy, a town that was home to the worlds first Yiddish newspaper, that may have been the birthplace of Yiddish theatre. A town that
is no longer home to living Jews.
On my back are ancient Jat tribes, long before they were Sikhs,
migrating out of Central Asia and into Punjab. On my back are
prophets in ancient Israel and nineteenth century Missouri, being
thrown in prisons and crying out to God. On my back are millennia of mothers nursing their young, millennia of hearts stretched taut
with love and its companion, pain. On my back is flint-edged, flameeyed faith counterpoised with the cooling apathy that comes from the
pressures of day-to-day mortal life. On my back is a strong feeling, at
once wound and salve, that all of this is not simply memory because
at the most fundamental level, all time is coexistent. On my back, on
top of everything, Shiva dancesdestroying and recreating the whole
load plus a thousand and one universes with every step.
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My five-year-old daughter is also on my back, holding close the

siblings she does not yet have but for whom she has already chosen
names: Kalena, Balraj, Phalanges, and Scapula. They are wrapped in
the blessings I have not yet pronounced, as the Patriarchs of old, upon
their heads. I wonder: what blessing will I speak which will be sufficient to the challenges their generations, and their childrens generations after them, will face? What blessings will I speak to help them
carry the loads which are already prepared for their own backs?
In my metaphor for my own writing, I am a bent stick figure under
this great weight. My shoulders, too thin for depiction, struggle to
contain the load I carry, to keep it from losing balance and sliding off,
falling apart in pieces around me, bruising my arms and smashing my
feet. Because I am a stick figure, my muscles can do little to help. It is
left to my bones, as though they were lightning rods, to tie the force
of the weight to the ground.
I stagger back and forth, in this metaphor, and my feet disturb the
dust. It is into the dust that I write. This is the signature of one who
tries to carry eternityto be read (perhaps only) by the wind and
understood (perhaps only) by those in whose souls the winds voice
is still resonant.

62

Of Gods and Waterfalls

Sheldon Lawrence

Ancient Romans believed that natural phenomena like waterfalls had a genius locia kind of demigod or guardian spirit that
protected the place. I can understand why one would believe that
something like a waterfall needs a divine presence to keep it going, to
maintain the miracle. Few things demonstrate so well the inexhaustible extravagance of nature. A waterfall never stops to rest. It doesnt
perform for spectators, yet it somehow asks to be seen.
At the age of five, my son was at the peak of an obsession with
waterfalls. He couldnt get enough of them. I would Google waterfalls and let him look at the pictures, which he studied for hours.
When playing outside he would perch our garden hose atop a pile
of rocks and watch the resulting cascades. When pouring a glass of
water into the sink, he would do it slowly, raising the glass high into
the air. So one weekend in July, I decided to take him on a trip to see
some waterfalls in person. We drove to Yellowstone Park and spent
the day paying homage to falls great and small. I would try to keep up
as he skipped down the well-worn trails. He would urge me to hurry,
and, once at the lookouts perched atop cliffs, I would stand behind
him nervously with a finger hooked on his shirt collar as he leaned
out for a closer look.
At Canyon Village, I bought him a book called A Guide to Yellowstone Waterfalls and Their Discovery. The book is a marvel of specialized research, and a testament to the authors passion for any stream
in Yellowstone that happens to wander off a cliff. It documents more
than 250 waterfalls and cascades, most previously undiscovered, and
provides the history of exploration of some of the more famous falls.
Honorable mention, 2010 Charlotte and Eugene England Personal Essay Contest

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The book became a kind of scripture to my son. Now, two years later,
its pages are bent and worn from use, like a preachers Bible. He knows
the names of many of the falls, how high they are, whether they are
a plunge or a cascade. He still studies the pictures and imagines
himself there. I know this because he asks me how tall he would be
compared to a rock or tree in the photographs.
I cant remember how I felt about waterfalls before my sons passion.
I probably liked them as much as the next guy. I remember taking short
trips up Logan Canyon while attending Utah State to sit next to a ten
foot waterfall and let it wash away the academic noise in my brain. I
remember visiting Yellowstone as a child and hiking to the brink of
Lower Falls, the famous 300-foot falls that carved out the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. I remembering feeling the cool mist of the back
spray, and imagining myself, probably like many children, floating lazily
in an inner-tube down the river above the falls, not knowing what was
ahead, but then realizing too late. I imagined what an exhilarating way
this would be to dieto glide softly over the edge, too frightened to
cry out, amid white spray and thunder, experiencing the long drop that
never ends. Actually, I still imagine this when I visit the brink of Lower
Falls, and the beauty and terror of such a death thrills me all the same.
But when it comes to a waterfalls ability to capture my attention,
my son has changed my approach. When he sees them, he sometimes
jumps up and down out of sheer exuberance. I would like to think he
has taught me how to see them anew, but its hard to tell if I truly love
waterfalls now, or if I am just trying to catch up, envious that I cannot see their magic as he does. His joy in the falling water requires no
reflection; it happens to him. This is his gift, and Im happy for that.
We are allmy wife, the other childrenbeneficiaries of this passion, for now we have a family waterfall of sorts. On the southern border of Yellowstone, about a forty minute drive from my home, a short
hike beyond a dead-end road leads to Cave Falls, one of several waterfalls formed by the Bechler and Fall rivers. The waterfall is only twenty
feet high, but it measures about 250 feet from bank to bank.
Approaching a waterfall such as Cave Falls from a distance is part
of the excitement, for you hear it long before you see it. A waterfall
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Lawrence: Of Gods and Waterfalls

seems to fill its surroundings with its presence, so that when you
enter its gravitational force, you measure progress according to your
distance from the falls. Few moments in life offer the sense of purpose, the sense of hope and excitement of approaching a waterfall
from a trail. You hear the slight but perceptible increase in the roar
of water, at first faint, almost indistinguishable from the wind. When
you approach a waterfall from a distance through a forest, you know
exactly where you are going, and why, and that something beautiful
awaits you.
We have a favorite spot at Cave Falls, a sandbar not far from the
bank where we eat our sandwiches and wade in the water. To get to
this island, as the kids call it, we must leave the trail and drop off a
steep embankment. We cling to roots and rocks and slide to the rivers
edge. Invariably one or more of us falls and gets scratched and scraped
in our swimsuits. My four-year-old daughter complains of the shortcut, and the baby whimpers. We go there in good weather, warm summer days. And on those days, there is no place Id rather be. With
its long white curtain stretched cliff to cliff, the falls is the center of
the scene. Even the surrounding pine forests seem to recognize it. My
son is happy in its presence, and he has it right. So did the pagans of
ancient Rome.
Im not sure exactly what it means, in Mormon theology, to become
a god. But I think I would be content when I die to be the god of a
waterfall. One could do worse in this universe. It would be a good job,
hiding behind the plunging white veil, with my immortal back against
the glistening rocks. I would spread the waterfalls fame throughout
the land and create devout followers in young children. Then I would
help the mortals, with their soft and delicate bodies, inch down the
steep trails as they came to the pool to worship.

65

Aninut
Melissa Dalton-Bradford

Heavier than Something is Nothing.

Gravity-like, Nothing drives to the ground, leveling
Compressing, leaning with ghostly force upon the upright
(Or the bent or the already broken) reducing,
Grinding cheekbone flat into bedrock.
Louder than Presence is Absence,
Its throbbing thickness a vacuumy summing behind the eyes.
Breath-holding.
Fermata.
For size, Loss is more sweeping than any found
Thing beyond price or words.
(Words, with their toothpicked approximations.)
Dearth, more impenetrable than lead.
Death, more devouring than light.
Tonight the crook of my pale arm strains under the weight of emptiness:
Mass, Abyss, Anvil, Black.
Tonight my mutedness rasps along
This night sky hung like three-hundred-sixty degrees blown glass
vaulted vacancy
Drilled through with one insouciant marbled moon
Or the white point punctuating black flatness, pinning infinity in place,
Demarcating this spatial phraseology of blank verse.

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Threatening, gaping,
Big and billowing oxygen, enough to suffocate as
I crouch on this graveyard dirt,
Yokes edge cutting into the nape of my neck,
Hands over my head in submission.
All this cosmos.
Every endless inch empty of my child.
Let me say it now or
Hold my bluegray breath in silence,
Hands high, head low,
Cupped on every side in black.
I am parentheses.

67

Swaddling
Melissa Dalton-Bradford

I, the Lord, am bound ...

Doctrine and Covenants, 82:10

Her palm strokes flat linen weave, quieting

the lengths draped then folded
drawing smooth the swaths
wrapped round wet warmth
swabbed clean of blood and vernix.
Bending to where their eyes meet,
adoring, swaddling,
she binds her son at birth.
Their moans heave along the slow sweeps
stretching planes of bone-white gauze, wrapping
round fixed limbs, laying
across flesh wounded-cold and washed-clean,
ointment-glossed.
Bowing shrouded heads over his,
consecrating, waiting,
they bind their master at death.
Our birth invites our death, and living,
we are taught lifes inescapable wounds.
Stretched or pierced, the ravaged soul oozes sap
till with his strips (waves of gleaming light)
it is healed.

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Healing, sealing
He binds us again and forever.
And they, who since have burst earths bonds,
they, whose absence scores the side, do now bound,
plaiting those holy filaments, binding with streams of light
this wounded orb and all her scarred children,
reweaving that natal linen.
Winding, binding,
we are bound to them.
Winding, binding,
We are bounding toward Him.

69

Wrestling with God:

Invoking Scriptural Mythos and Language in
LDS Literary Works
James Goldberg

For a moment, lets imagine that meaning, like matter, can be transported according to Newtons laws of physics, effectively removing the
distinction between the role of a writer and the role of an engineer. Lets
imagine that metaphors, true to their Greek roots, are actually vehicles
designed to carry (phero) something between (meta) one person and
another, that even the most diverse sorts of stories are made of the same
simple machines, the way the zip line resembles the guillotine and the
toilet flusher the catapult. If these things were trueand maybe they
almost area writer needs two things, which Ill call craft and materials.
First, lets talk about craft. Just as its impossible to make a catapult
without a lever, it would be impossible even in our imaginary world
to fling a bundle of meaning over a city wall without, say, an analogy.
Knowledge of the principles and techniques by which meaning can be
moved is absolutely prerequisite to effective writing.
Second, we need materials. Its difficult to make a catapult without long, strong pieces of wood. And though either heavy rocks or
plague-ridden cows will do as payload, there must be something to
fling if the catapult is going to be worth much. In writing, of course,
the materials count only if theyre shared between writer and audience: speaking the same language, for instance, is useful, and analogies
work only when the audience has experience compatible enough with
the authors to know what is being compared to what.
The position of this essay is that while relatively few LDS literary
writers will ever make money writing for LDS audiences, the rare
abundance and richness of materials in this relationship means that
especially effective writing can take place given a little craft. Taking
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scriptural allusions as our sample case, well talk first about the properties and qualities of the material, and then discuss the types of simple
machines contemporary LDS writers are assembling out of scripture.

Materials
An allusion is a powerful thing, because it turns the story being told into
at least three stories at once: the story being told, the story being alluded
to, and the story of the relationship between these two stories. Like any
powerful hero, whether Siegfried or Superman, an allusion also has a crippling handicap: it can work only to the degree the audience understands and
is invested in the story being alluded to. When a culture is relatively static in
terms of narratives, this is not a significant problem: for a long, long time
every Greek probably knew all about Achilles. But when a cultures canon
is in flux, allusion becomes more difficult. Last year, my wife assigned her
advanced writing students George Orwells Politics and the English Language. To help give them some context for who Orwell was, she began
listing off some of his works and asking who had heard of them. To her
surprise, only two of her twenty-five students recognized Animal Farm or
1984. A recognition rate of less than 10 percent among college juniors and
seniors does not bode well for the prospective allusionist. Why bother to
drop Snowballs name or to say darkly have you ever seen a dead donkey? Alluding to Big Brother might work better: although given that a
reality TV show has competed with Orwells text over the terms cultural
meaning, I wonder how many educated Americans wouldnt think to
automatically associate Big Brother with government.
Contrast this with experiences at church. Even the newest convert
will likely catch passing references to Nephi without explanation. By the
age of twelve, most children will have a fairly detailed narrative framework for the plan of salvation and for the way four books of scripture as
well as numerous non-scriptural stories from the first generations of the
Restoration interconnect. And while average adult Mormon scriptural
conversance certainly isnt perfect, three hours a week of church for years,
individual and family study, seminary attendance, and countless conversations with religious friends have to have some positive effect.
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By the standards of the century in which we live, this is about the

best raw material for allusion a writer can get. I suppose those writing
literary fiction for audiences composed almost exclusively of English
professors have a wider range of potential narratives to access. But even
a highly literary audience likely wont have the same level of investment
in those narratives as LDS audiences have in scripture: how many living people really connect with and care about Achilles the way many
Mormons are invested in Nephi?
Lest we overlook the richness of what weve got to work with, lets
consider at least four layers of knowledge and feeling a scriptural allusion can tap into:
A larger narrative
With the two words prodigal son, I can instantly evoke an entire
narrative involving three main characters, two journeys, a specific and
powerful image of poverty, a moving redemption scene, a dialogue
about jealousy, and an exultant feast. To mention a great and spacious
building gives me access to a more detailed imageI dont have to
mention the pointing people or disconcerting lack of physical foundation for the audience to know they are there. That four-word phrase
also gives me access to the frame story of a richly symbolic dream,
should I need it. Not bad if Im up against a strict word count.
A deeper ideology
In my discussion of allusion in American discourse, I neglected to
mention that a writer could instantly evoke six faces or so, and probably a TV show premise, among most people in the Western world
simply by capitalizing and italicizing the word friends. I left this
example out because recognition doesnt necessarily translate into
investment that can be used to move meaning. After all, its hard to
find an audience that genuinely believes Friends has much meaning
to move. With scripture stories, though, its virtually guaranteed that
an LDS audience already has one or more ideological interpretations
easily accessible in their minds. The words prodigal son dont just
provide a story, they evoke a whole set of values, concerns, and beliefs.
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To speak of a great and spacious building provides a dramatic social

dynamic and view of the world in addition to the more detailed image.
Personal experience/memory
Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott is the only living person Ive heard of
who has expended significant effort likening the Iliad unto himself.
And while I know many serious Star Wars fans, I have yet to hear any
of them talk about turning to their DVD shelf for guidance during
the metaphorical dark nights of their lives. But, ah, the scriptures!
When I speak about a great and spacious building, you may well have
a sense from your own life of what that feels like. If I talk about the
prodigal son there may be someone or some time youre thinking of.
An example: when I was a missionary in the former East Germany, I
helped give the new member discussions to a sister in her early seventies.
During one discussion, I asked her what part of the Book of Mormon
she liked best, and she said Jacob chapter five: the allegory of the olive
tree. It surprised me that someone whod been an atheist most of her
long life would relate so strongly with a complicated allegory about the
history of the house of Israel, so I asked why. She explained, first of all,
that she was an avid gardener, so shed been able to connect well with
the images. But the real reason she loved it was because it was while
studying that story that she first understood why a good God would
let children suffer. I didnt have that experience with this story, but she
did. And any creative work that taps into the allegory of the olive tree in
Jacob chapter five, if read by that woman, may evoke the extra weight of
her personal revelatory experience. These stories are bound up with our
lives and with our souls: if a writer speaks of them in the right way, he
or she can speak to depths that are unattainable with ordinary language.
While this is the case for most religious audiences, my guess is that
its especially true for Mormons. After all, a central point of difference
between the early church and mainstream Christian denominations
was the distance at which scripture should be held. All Christians
honor scriptures, but for many they were a sacred historical record, a
closed repository for wisdom and doctrine. For those who called themselves Latter-day Saints, the scriptures were also a direct and accessible
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description of religious life: the Restoration aimed to overcome the geographical and chronological boundaries between the sacred past and the
routine present, reopening the scriptural age and making its members
lives into scripture. Because the scriptures are a living reality as well as a
reference work in our tradition, LDS audiences are more likely to associate scriptural references closely with experiences from their own lives.
The weight of scripture
Audiences whose primary exposure to narrative comes through TV
and digital media tend to see stories as passive entertainment, something to move through and then move on from. This presents a significant challenge to English teachers: the very concept of interpretive
work is foreign to many students who feel that just finishing a book
ought to be enough. Most Mormons probably feel this way about the
stories and novels they read, the TV shows and films they watch. But
they dont feel this way about scripture.
On the contrary, as sacred text, scripture deserves all the attention
the reader or listener can afford to give it. While alluding to scriptures
doesnt make an authors text into sacred text, even an unfamiliar allusion which is still recognizably scriptural will change the way audiences
treat the text. An example: Sarah Page opens her poem Coring the
Apple with two italicized lines: Instead of the thorn / hast thou found
honey? I dont know my scriptures well enough to have any automatic
context for these lines in terms of larger narrative or personal memory,
but the words sound scriptural and a note at the bottom of the page
informs me that these lines are taken from Isaiah 55:13 and Proverbs
25:16. And that alone is enough to give the lines some of the weight
and patience I give to scriptural texts. I dont pause to criticize the
image: is the beehive supposed to be in a thorn bush? Wouldnt a rose
be a better image? I believe in giving God permission to use unusual
images, and so Im willing to give Sarah Page the permission to quote
His words and assume we end up with some realdepth.
I dont have to wait longshe plays these first passages off a second allusion in the next two lines: I would like to ask Eve someday / what she saw in the apple. And now, magic is happening. The
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reference to Eve instantly gives Page access to the Eden narrative; the
question about how she saw the apple evokes the extensive Mormon
investment in reversing the traditional ideology of that narrative. The
optimistic Mormon view of that choice in turn gives meaning to the
hanging weight of the first two lines: because I believe in scripture, I
wanted those lines to mean something moving and important, and so
its a particular delight when Page lets them operate as images for the
dual consequences of Eves choice.
Im not convinced the same magic could have happened had Page
used a non-scriptural image in the first two lines, because without the
ethos of scripture, it would be easier to gloss over them. Only by using
the weight of scripture, even unfamiliar scripture, is Page able to create a distinct opening that leaves the audience with a genuine thirst to
interpret, to connect the borrowed sacred text with worthy meaning.
Rereading scripture isnt the same as surfing reruns on TV, because
the scriptures are an inexhaustible source of truth. By extension, its
harder to treat a text that alludes to scriptures the way we treat reruns
or the paperbacks sold in airports.
To summarize the preceding four points: the average Mormon can
have a far deeper relationship with texts that invite him or her to read
as a Mormon than with texts that invite him or her to read simply as a
secular member of society. When Mormon writers find the time to turn
their attention to Mormon audiences, they can use the craft of scriptural allusions to tap quickly into the rich materials already in Mormons
minds: ready narratives with considerable ideological and emotional
weight attached.

Craft
I last took a physics class over a decade ago, and Im pretty sure I still
remember a few things correctly. For instance, a boulder on top of a
cliff has enormous potential energy, but if someone wants to convert
that energy into kinetic energy, he or she would have to find a way to
push that boulder off the cliff. I hope the previous segment of this essay
shows to your satisfaction that there is incredible literary potential
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energy stored in Mormon audiences. But how can that powerful energy
be used to move meaning between an author and an audience? I am
interested in craft primarily to the extent that it can provide a wide
range of answers to that question. In this section, Ill describe four patterns in which Ive seen LDS authors use scriptural allusions to make
Mormon audiences vast meaning-making potential energy useable:
Weighting
One way to use a boulder is to simply put something under it: the
boulder will do a very good job of holding that thing down. This is
no small feat: in a century flooded with narratives, telling a story an
audience will remember a week later is fairly impressive. One way Ive
seen LDS writers use scriptural allusions is to add weight and memorability to their own narratives.
Take the 1990 church video Prodigal Son. I dont know how the
film came to be made, but lets assume, for purposes of argument, that
co-writers Michael McLean and Kurt Dahl wanted to have a conversation with audiences about forgiveness, jealousy, and the Atonement
and that using a scriptural allusion was a choice and not a project
requirement. How is the film different for having invoked Jesus parable of the prodigal son than it would have been without the persistent allusions?
For one thing, connecting their story to one of Jesus stories gives
the film its weight. We see melodramas involving jealousy and forgiveness all the time, but the connection with the parable signals the
audience that this one matters more. Were not just watching a drug
addict: were watching the Prodigal. Jesus knows him, talked about
him, cares about him. This isnt just someone elses story: its an investigation into a God-given hint about the principles that lie at the heart
of our mortal experience.
When I presented this paper at the 2010 AML conference, I took a
quick audience poll: everyone present remembered Prodigal Son while
only a few remembered the 1992 church video On the Way Home. In
my opinion, the two films are similar in quality and tone: my guess
is, though, that Prodigal Son is better remembered in the Church in
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general as well as in my informal sample, and that its the weighting by

scriptural allusion which makes the most difference.
A text does not, of course, have to position itself as a complete
scriptural retelling in order to use a scriptural allusion for weighting.
My own poem Old Bishop is about the 1850 murder of a Ute man by
that nickname at the hands of three Mormon settlers in present-day
Provo. Old Bishop was killed in a dispute over a shirt, and the men
who killed him tried to hide it from his tribe by cutting him open, filling his bowels with stones, and sinking the body to the bottom of the
Provo River. The final stanza of the poem is as follows:
Get drunk now on your courage
boast loud in the fort of the bloody deed
Weve become Mahan, the masters of a great secret
(so why do I wake in the middle of the night,
see his shoulders curved against the silt
eyes blank beneath the waters but still open wide?)

The allusion in the third line is not, in this case, part of a large strategy
of casting the whole story as a Cain and Abel tale. But even the fleeting reference to the story in the Book of Moses of the original secret
combination gives the murder additional narrative and philosophical
weight. In six words, the murder of Old Bishop is transformed from
a fight gone wrong into a new chapter in the history of wickedness.
Newtons law says that for every action there is an equal and opposite
reaction. While I wouldnt carry over the adjectives opposite and equal
into this discussion of writing, I think its worth noting that the use of
scriptural allusion to weight a text also adds some depth to the original
scripture. People who see the film Prodigal Son, for instance, are more
likely to pay attention to and remember the older son in that parable. And
I hope that Moses 5:31 will become a little more immediate for people
who have read my poem, that the association between the two will enrich
their subsequent scripture reading as well as their experience with my text.
Expansion
Let us return to the image of a boulder on a cliff. Maybe the weight in
the sitting boulder is already in the right place to weigh our story, but
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if it isnt well have to get it moving. One way to do this is to use the
scriptural allusion not to reinforce a theme within the alluding text,
as with the uses Im describing as weighting, but rather as a starting
point for an unexpected exploration into the gaps left in the scriptural
texta use of allusion Im calling expansion.
Take Davey Morrison Dillards short play Adam & Eve. The play
starts just after Adam and Eve have left the Garden, but instead of
moving along the familiar narrative or thematic lines of the story, it
imagines the beginning of Adam and Eves mortal courtship. An audiences prior investment in the characters and their vulnerability is
drawn out across a story that touches on hurt feelings (Eve ask Adam
if he would still want her if she werent the only woman in the world,
and Adam, struck by the unexpected question, has to take a minute to
think), on the early awkwardness of physical attraction (holding hands
seems weird before it grows appealing), and on the continued presence of the Spirit (the play closes on a beautiful sequence in which
Eve explains that she both misses God and feels hes still there). This
isnt exactly the same kind of weight the original story carries for most
audience members, but Morrison Dillard is able to transform audience
investment in the root story into a very different type of energy.
Although expansion is by no means exclusively a theatrical technique, another good example comes from Eric Samuelsens play The
Plan. One of the scenes in that play imagines a conversation between
David and Bathsheba after she has become pregnant. Again, the scene
takes the scriptural starting point in directions not extensively pursued
by the Biblical narrative, such as the probable life circumstances of many
women at the time, the differences between romantic love compromised
by coercive social conditions versus less-compromised motherly love.
Like weighting, effective expansions not only benefit from audience members prior experience with scripture, but may also enrich the
audience members future experience with scripture: after encountering literary works that fill the gaps of scriptural narratives, audience
members may return to the scriptures with reawakened imaginations,
more full of wonder about realities which couldnt be wholly expressed
within the constraints of ancient texts.
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Inversion
To review: some texts can be given extra weight through an allusion
to a scriptural passage or story that makes a similar point; other texts
use audience investment in a scriptural passage as a starting point and
then expand the story in a different direction. What I call an inversion is different from either weighting or expansion in that obvious and intentional differences exist between an authors text and the
scriptural work it references.
This is the central craft at work in my play Prodigal Son. The plays two
central characters are a man who left the Church in his youth and his
son, who rediscovers the Church through a girlfriend, joins, and spends
his savings on a mission. By making the backward comparison of the
convert with the prodigal, Im able to leverage audience sympathy for the
Biblical father into my plays antireligious father. By referencing a Biblical
story that climaxes in a joyful return, Im able to raise questions about
how reconciliation can occur when the return to a shared ideology or
faith doesnt happen. All throughout the play, I draw audiences through
the emotional world of the characters by creating intentional tension
between the scriptural allusions and the situations depicted: the weight
of the scriptures is there, but the meaning is sideways or backward.
Another interesting example text is Katherine Woodburys Scattered, which features the trio of Jezebel, Ahab, and Elijah inexplicably
transported into the twenty-first century. In the story, Ahab has done
pretty well for himself, easily making the transition from kingship to
the corporate sector. Elijah and Jezebel, on the other hand, remain
consumed by their opposition to each other. Over the course of the
story, Jezebel gradually realizes she has always felt more drawn to Elijah than to Ahab because Ahab doesnt care, while Jezebel and Elijah
share the characteristic of passionate commitment to their own ideologies. After tapping in to audience awareness of Jezebel and Elijah as
absolute opposites, Woodbury is able to turn the story upside-down
and thereby suggest something significant about the nature of our tolerant and often religiously under-committed age.
In an engineering metaphor, this is maybe akin to the work of a
lever that transfers input force coming one direction into output force
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exerted by another. I prefer a wrestling metaphor for this technique,

though: its like scriptural jujitsu, relying less on ones own strength
than on turning ones fighting partners weight in a direction he or she
did not anticipate.
Origami
None of the previous three categories accounts entirely for what Sarah
Page did with the first four lines of Coring the Apple, quoted in the
first section of this paper. Taken alone, the first two lines (Instead
of the thorn / hast thou found honey?) use what Ive called weighting,
while the second two lines (I would like to ask Eve someday / what
she saw in the apple) suggest a coming expansion beyond what the
scriptural texts give us about that moment of decision. As described
earlier in this essay, though, extra meaning takes place when the
authors text makes itself a literary link between the two, folding one
scriptural passage onto another. I call this mode of folding together
multiple allusion scripture origami.
The opening scene of Samuelsens The Plan is another good example of this technique: it imagines a conversation between a premortal
Eve and Lucifer during the early stages of the war in heaven. The allusion here is dual: to the council in heaven story, and to the conversation between Eve and Lucifer in the Garden of Eden. Folding the two
stories together creates a good space for a rich literary text.
In the same scene, Samuelsen also employs what I call multi-mythic
origami by folding together scriptural and non-scriptural myths. One
of the dominant non-scriptural myths Samuelsen uses is the narrative of evolution: in his scene, watching the pain of evolutionary processes unfold motivates Lucifer to rebel from the Plan. This folding
together of the familiar narrative of evolution with scriptural narratives is intensified by a reference to the angel Gabriels work of saving
mammals from the forces that cause the extinction of the dinosaurs. In
the exchange that follows, Goulds theory of punctuated equilibrium
is brought together with the story of Noah and the ark, the literature
linking science and religion, making effective use of both types of raw
materials in audience members minds.
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Conclusion
Mormons who choose to write for Mormon audiences dont always
feel lucky. In addition to all the usual challenges of writing, they face
culturally specific challenges such as handling exceptionally delicate
audience sensibilities and finding their niche within a fairly small
market with limited publishing and distribution capacity. But Mormons who choose to write for Mormon audiences are lucky because
their audience has a fairly large body of literary knowledge and investment to tap into, raw materials for story building that the worlds best
writers would be jealous of if only they knew about them.
In this paper, Ive described four ways LDS authors have used
scriptural allusions to make meaning from rich audience resources
weighting, expansion, inversion, and origami. These techniques are
hardly unique to Mormons: they show up in the Jewish Midrashic
tradition, in the New Testaments use of the Old Testament, and in
the works of authors from Mark Twain to Toni Morrison. But they
are of particular interest to us because our community still speaks the
language of scripture particularly well in an era that has seen public
conversance with any canon failing.

Works Cited
Goldberg, James. Old Bishop 2009. TS.
. Prodigal Son. The Best of Mormonism 2009. Ed. Stephen Carter.
Salt Lake City: Curelom, 2009. 6993. Print.
Morrison Dillard, Davey. Adam and Eve. Mormon Artist Nov 2009:
2124. Web. 9 March 2011.
Page, Sarah E. Coring the Apple. Mormon Artist Nov 2009: 12. Web.
9 March 2011.
Prodigal Son. Dir. Michael McLean. LDS Distribuition Services, 1990.
Video.
Samuelsen, Eric. The Plan. Sunstone July 2009: 6+. Print.
Woodbury, Katherine. Scattered. Irreantum 9.1 (2007): 5567. Print.

82

On the Redemptive Alchemy of Memoir

Kathryn Lynard Soper

Alchemy is commonly known as a medieval experiment in protochemistry to change base metals into precious ones. We may be inclined
to cast its practitioners as Midas-type figures driven by greed, but gaining worldly riches was not the alchemists goal. Rather, alchemy was an
allegorical practice with profound Christian implications. Its purpose
was to symbolically redeem nature as Christ had redeemed humankind,
and thereby hasten that redemption within the alchemist herself. The
transmutation of lead into goldand beyondwas a threefold metaphor for refining the corrupt material world to a state of purity, the
corrupt human body to a state of wholeness, and the corrupt human
nature to a state of godliness.
I see intriguing parallels between the work of alchemy and the
work of writing memoir, which Ill define as a literary narrative based
on personal experience. By delving deep into nature the alchemist
reveals the latent divinity of a fallen realm; the memoirist makes similar revelations by delving deep into her journey within that realm.
Our fallen state is one of separation from ourselves, from God, and
from each other; Im convinced that writing can reverse these effects
by fostering convergence and connection.
Like the alchemist, the writer prepares for her work by gathering
first matter (raw material) from the natural world; instead of a base
metal such as lead, she uses the coarse initial narrative generated by
free writing from memory. From there, the writer pursues her own
version of the alchemical work, or opus, which is designed to release
and develop the rich potential of the first matter. Ive chosen three
tasks of the memoir writer to relate to the major steps of the opus:
explore opposition, structure meaning, and invite communion.
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The initial task concerns the writers need to reveal the contradictory forces at work within herself and her story. William Faulkner
said that theres only one topic in good writing, only one thing that
is worth the agony and the sweat: the human heart in conflict with
itself. This echoes the work of the alchemist, who seeks enlightenment by symbolically reconciling the opposition of good and evil (the
coniunctio). The two initial steps in this process are the nigredo (the
blackening) and the albedo (the whitening): the first matter is blackened via fire, vitriol, or putrification, and then whitened or purified
through the application of aqua vitae, the water of life, thus symbolizing the fall and redemption of humankind. This two-step process
transformed the corrupt first matter into pure silver, which represented the light ofthe moon ( Jung 126).
Like the alchemist, the writer must evoke and attempt to reconcile
the darkness and the light in her raw material, which is her remembered experience as well as her remembering self. Carl Jung, who has
written extensively about the parallels between alchemy and psychology, describes the self as the unfathomable union of good and evil
(21). This opposition is vital to the authentic portrayal of the self, and
it constitutes a heavy burden for the writer, for uncovering the tensions in her experience requires her not only to relive them but to
keep living with them throughout the writing process, turning them
inside out in her heart as well as her head. Memoirist Dave Eggers
describes such writing as an act of self-destruction, a necessary violence in the pursuit of truth. This truth is found in the reflective convergence of light and dark that gives meaning to every life and every
story, enables the existence of all created beings, and mirrors the luster
of the divine nature.
Yet finding convergence through the exploration of opposition is
messy business, both psychologically and on the pagetheres good
reason why we refer to our early work as a rough draft. The truth
the writer is discovering cannot fulfill its purpose in an incoherent
unorganized state, so the second task of the memoir writer is to structure meaning in her story. To quote Marden Clark, Freedom can find
meaningful release, meaningful expression only in significant form
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(This paradox of creativity, argued Clark, is also at play in creating a

meaningful life: without plans, rules, and structure, our lives become
chaotic and painful. Thus the writer must echo the divine creative act
of shaping unorganized elements into a form. This begets a unique
textual creature, which must be named and given the gift of speech.
Indeed, this is the question that vexes the writer whos rereading her
rough drafts: what am I trying to say?
The answer is found in a process that parallels the third step in
the alchemical opus, the citrinitas (yellowing), which symbolized the
solar dawn, the spiritually quickening touch of the sun. Yellowing was
achieved by distilling and fermenting the silver matter into gold, a
higher state of being. Likewise, although it possesses a beauty of its
own, the writers rough material must undergo a rigorous process of
refinement to reach its full potential. The complex reflections produced by blackening and whitening must expand, condense, vaporize,
and coalesce into purpose.
Ann Patchett describes this process in her afterword to Lucy
Grealys memoir, Autobiography of a Face: In the right hands, a memoir
is the flecks of gold panned out of a great, muddy river. A memoir is
those flecks melted down into a shapeable liquid that can be molded
and hammered into a single, bright band to be worn on a finger, something you could say, Oh this, this is my life (Grealy 232).
Indeed, fulfilling the demands of form endows a story with mentally palpable coherence and identity, and this work has the potential to
change the writer as much as the text. The rites of the alchemical opus
were not merely symbolic; they wrought an actual change within the
practitioner as she adapted the divine role of redeemer in the microcosm of her practice. As she labored to refine nature, her own nature
was refined in turn. As the memoirist labors within her own microcosm of words and sentences, she has a similar opportunity for spiritual refinement. Memoirist Azar Nafisi, who wrote Reading Lolita in
Tehran, explains how this is so:
In all great works of [literature], regardless of the grim reality they
present, there is an affirmation of life against the transience of that life,
an essential defiance. This affirmation lies in the way the author takes
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control of reality by retelling it in his own way, thus creating a new
world. Every great work of art, I would declare pompously, is a celebration, an act of insubordination against the betrayals, horrors and
infidelities of life. The perfection and beauty of form rebels against the
ugliness and shabbiness of the subject matter. (Nafisi 47)

I would add that this triumph can be wrought on a metatextual

level as well as a textual one. As the memoirist wrestles order out
of chaos, she may discover benevolent potential in the destructive
aspects of her story; she may realize the pain in her story has worked,
or can work, for her good. Alchemists refer to the yellowing as the
touch of the sunmemoirists may, even subconsciously, recognize in
their stories the touch of the Son. Even if the timing isnt right for this
revelation, the writers labor to create textual order, truth, and beauty
from the material of her rough drafts nonetheless casts her in the role
of redeemer as well as organizing creator: she is fashioning something
valuable out of matter which would otherwise be unremarkable or
even undesirable.
The redemptive aspect of writing memoir only intensifies in the
third literary task Ill highlight: the work of inviting communion with
a reading audience. A memoirist can structure meaning in her text
before she begins to consider her audience, yet there comes a critical point at which she must envision her intended readers and begin
speaking directly to them. The textual yellowing from silver to gold
yields personal enlightenment for the writer, but in order for the story
to reach a state of wholeness, she must reveal its relevance to others.
Such revelation parallels the final step in the alchemical process,
the rubedo, or reddening, which changes gold into a translucent red
gem known as the philosophers stone. The reddening signifies the
total fusion of spirit and matter, the point at which the self unites
with God and thus discovers her true nature. Further, the philosophers stone enables the alchemist to reveal the divinity within all of
creation and bring nature to its ultimate state of completeness ( Jung
232). Likewise, as the writer discovers and expresses the luminous
universal truth at the heart of her story, she creates a tool for unifying
human beings living in a state of separateness. By offering intimate
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glimpses into her struggles, her weaknesses, her fears, by allowing

herself to bleed red in the presence of others, she achieves the translucence necessary for communion.
This vulnerability, of course, brings tremendous risk. When laying
bare ones private self to the world at large its a guarantee that some
will reject that offering. Some miscommunication is inevitable given
the limitations of written language, but in addition, the writer will be
judged, and misunderstood, and even reviled by readers who are not
ready for the truth she successfully conveys to those with ears to hear.
This hurts.
But in my experience, the benefits to self and others from allowing
this vulnerability are worth the risks. I was compelled to begin writing my memoir for my own benefitI needed to understand what
happened during a tumultuous year of my life and what it meant,
and I spent two years investing enormous time, energy toward that
therapeutic end. But when the manuscript went to press I had mixed
feelings, aware that Id gained the desired insight yet still feeling
unsatisfied. Reviews came, and while enough of them were complimentary that I stopped worrying that Id produced an embarrassment
of a text, my unrest didnt begin to ease until I began receiving emails
and cards from readersspecifically, readers who contacted me in
order to say one particular thing: you understand. Upon feeling the
empathetic connection between reader and writer, I realized this was
what Id been waiting for, hoping for, from the time Id sat down to
begin. Id known from the start that I wanted to help others as well as
help myself, but I hadnt understood how much I needed their help
in return. I realized that my purpose in writing was not just to say
something, but to say it to somebody else, and be heard. Not just to
understand myself and my experience, but to be understood.
Thus I feel profound relief and satisfaction each time a reader
echoes the essential meaning of my story back to me. As a memoirist
I forged that golden ring-story in isolation, laboring to circumscribe
its truth into a whole. But wholeness isnt reached until someone
else holds the ring in her hand, and slips it on her finger, and finds
that it fits. The human heart in conflict with itself is healed through
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communion with other humans, which also brings communion with

the God who created us all. The ultimate reward, the ultimate state
of being, and the ultimate redemption for nature, as well as for the
alchemist and the writer, is found in the translucent red gem of unity
forged from the chaos, pain, and separation of humanitys fall.

Works Cited
Clark, Marden. Liberating Form: Mormon Essays on Religion and Literature. Provo, Utah: Aspen Books, 1992. Print.
Eggers, Dave. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. New York:
Vintage Books, 2001. Print.
Faulkner, William. Banquet Speech. Nobelprize.org. Nobel Organization, December 10, 1950. Web.
Grealy, Lucy. Autobiography of a Face. New York: Houghton Mifflin,
1994. Print.
Jung, Carl Gustav. Psychology and Alchemy. Great Britain: Routledge,
1953. Print.
Nafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran. New York: Random House,
2003. Print.

88

Mormonism 101 as LDS Literature Enters the

Mainstream: Elna Bakers The New York Regional
Mormon Singles Halloween Dance
Helynne Hansen

My life is a constant balance between saying no to substances, sex,

porn, and Starbucks, and saying yes to adventure. I am a Mormon in
New York (22). The short, funky book The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance reads like a novel, but its author Elna
Baker calls it a memoir. As such, its her true-life adventures as a
twenty-something single gal in New York City, 20032007. At first
overweight, then newly slim, Baker struggles with a fairly common
dilemma: will she stay true to her faith, including the law of chastity, and thus repel every non-Mormon man who comes her way, or
will she put her religion, culture, and the expectations of her loving
non-New York family aside in favor of a more typical modern urban
lifestyle (which includes an assumedly exciting premarital sex life)?
This book was not published by any of the usual LDS book companies (it comes from Dutton in New York), so Bakers narrative,
geared mostly to non-Mormon readers, functions partly a Mormonism 101 course as she clues her audience in on such cultural issues as
singles dances, Family Home Evening, Joseph Smith and the golden
plates, temple garments, praying for guidance, and living with freakishly conservative parents and ward members. The book is definitely
not in the same realm as works from Deseret Book and other Utahbased companies that publish writings with LDS themes. At the
beginning of the book, Baker thanks her mom and dad for a lifetime
of support and teachings in God, faith and dreams, then adds the
caveat, This book ... aside from the nine F-words, thirteen Sh-words,
four A-holes, page 257, and the entire Warren Beatty chapter ... is
dedicated to you.
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In her seemingly impossible quest to blend her Mormon background with the worldliness of New York City life, Elna explains in
the first chapter some brief basics about the Standard Works, BYU
(where she was originally accepted, but really felt better about choosing NYU), the Book of Mormon and its origins (so, said a friend,
according to you, Pocahontas was actually a Jew? [9]), and the ritual
of getting baptized at age eight. Baker muses over a basic question
about the ordinance and its promise of forgiveness of sins: Why not
wait until youre 70? That way you could lead a fun life, do whatever
you wanted to do, and have a Get Out of Jail Free card at the end?
(10). In short, she determines that Mormonism interferes with having
a fun life: Mormons are known for saying no. No sex, no drugs, no
alcohol, and no caffeine. NO. And this whole saying no philosophy
makes me seem like a very boring person. But Im not boring because,
while I say no to certain things, I try to say yes to everything else (18).
Elna is anything but boring, and her determination to say yes to
a lot of (non-alcoholic and non-sexual) proposals leads her to some
crazy exploitseven before her epic weight loss. She notes, however,
that once she admits to anyone else that she is Mormon, all other
conversation falls away and Mormonism questions are the only focus
(18). She says, After four years of being a Mormon in New York, Ive
become a reluctant spokesperson for my faith ... people just dont get
Mormons. They think Im Mormon because I havent read enough
books yet (17). Much later, a friend who grew up with people in the
Mafia leads Elna to the conclusion that being Mormon is a lot like
joining the mob: If youre too smart and ask too many questions you
could be in big danger. Elna herself confesses that while fellow church
members can render fervent testimonies in Sunday meetings, she herself has doubts: I dont think doubting is bad. I think it makes you
smart (13). She also realizes that Mormons dont know how to laugh
at themselves (15).
This memoir, then, produced outside the realm of Utah LDS publishers, and presented to a nationwide audience of mostly non-LDS
readers, brings up three fundamental questions: 1) Will this book
pave the way for a new trend of LDS essayists and novelists who wish
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to publish to a wider, more heterogeneous audience? 2) Will other

LDS writers describing experiences relating to their religion be in a
similar position as Baker, having to continually explain the basics of
Mormon culture and doctrines to non-LDS readers? And 3) Will the
insertions of Mormonism 101 course material detract from the overall interest in and enjoyment of the book itself, impairing the books
quality as a serious piece of literature?
One of the basic Mormon 101 lessons in the book involves large,
close, and very conservative families. When Elna first decided to go to
NYU, her mother referred to the city as Babylon and warned Elna
that if she lived in New York, she might start to swear, then drink,
then do drugs. Her mother even asked, What would you do if a lesbian tried to make love to you? (4). (Actually, one of Elnas former
roommates was lesbian who wore a strap-on dildo under her clothinga fact Elna doesnt mention to her mother).
After graduating from NYU with a degree in theater, Elna struggles with her weight, her career, and her social life. The first third of
the book is reminiscent of the 1972 novel Sheila Levine is Dead and
Living in New York. Even though Sheila is Jewish and casual about sex,
while Elna is Mormon and a virgin, the stories are poignantly similarthe overweight college graduate desperately seeking romance
and marriage in the Big Apple.
Before her slowly-escalating experiences with men, Baker makes a
chart of basic Mormonism 101 beliefs, including If a man really loves
me hell wait (24). Her virginity and inexperience with sex make for
amused coworkers at the FAO Schwartz toy store where she works.
She explains how her Mormon filter kicks in: Every time I consider
doing something wrong, this happens. I cant just make a bad choice. I
analyze the consequences too thoroughly, and I filter all the information through my religion (63).
After Elna loses 80 pounds in seven months through steely determination and the help of an amphetamine prescription from a Philadelphia diet clinic (she commutes), she struggles with the inevitable
physical and emotional complications of losing a lot of weight way too
fastnot the least of which is her bewilderment at being suddenly
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attractive to men for the first time in her life. Nevertheless, one potential boyfriend after another drops Elna like the proverbial hot potato
as soon as he finds out she has vowed not to have sex before marriage.
One clever description provides the image of a cute guy disappearing
from her life in reverse of how he entered, like a video on slow rewind
(121). Other relationships follow but are cut short for the same reason.
Time for a Mormonism 101 lesson on patriarchal blessings, Family
Home Evenings, girls waiting for missionaries, and eternal marriage:
Since most Mormons believe you need to be married to make it into
the highest level of heaven [she explained earlier about three tiers in
the afterlife], every member of the congregation is operating with the
same agenda. If I dont get married to one of these people, I limit my
eternal progress (129). She also notes that while Catholics depict the
Savior suffering in their art, Mormon artists present Jesus as arugged Idaho mountain manthe kind of Jesus you wouldnt mind
dating(131).
Bakers newly-slim body tempts her to buy a sexy blue slip, which
becomes a segue in the book to a discussion of LDS temple garments:
Mormons arent on big on lingerie. As far as I know my mother doesnt
own any. She wears garments. Eventually I will, too. When I get married Ill go into the Mormon temple and make a further commitment
to my religion. I dont know what the ceremony entails because its
sacred and no one talks about it. All I know is afterward I have to wear
special underwear called garments. People who arent Mormon make a
big deal about it and sometimes they ask questions like Do you wear
magic underwear? (110)

Of course, it does seem strange, this fascination Non-Mormons

have with Mormon temple garments. Baker doesnt provide too many
details, though. She only says that garments are a set of long boxer
briefs and a camisole top that do not have magical powers and do not
allow one to wear sexy clothes. Meanwhile, she says, Ill wear miniskirts as often as I can (111).
But back to the blue slip ... Elna admits that its something no one
will ever see her in. Not until Im marred at least. Or actually, not
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even then. A sexy slip over Mormon garments would just look tacky.
But still, it was just too amazing not to buy (112).
Elna meets Matt, a handsome, Yale-grad, eligible doctor, who happens to be an atheist. Speaking of himor to himshe says, Like
you were my soul mate, except you didnt believe in souls (176). She
delays telling him about her religious beliefs: In addition to being Mormon, I thought, Im many other things, so why should I let my religion
define me? (152). She adds, But the truth is, I wanted to be able to
date him for more than two weeks and I was afraid he might just see
my religion as a cockblock, so I didnt tell him. I figured if I could get
Matt to fall in love with me, the Mormon thing wouldnt be that big of
a deal. In a Cruelty thy name is Mormon sort of way (153).
The topic of religion does come up, and Elna gamely attempts to
share some LDS doctrines with Matt and his friends: I was trying
to teach them about miracles and still sound like a liberal intellectual
(157). When she tried to explain the doctrine that we learn to become
like God so eventually we can create our own worlds and be gods, too
(158), they only stare at her blankly.
In an unexpected moment of boldness, when she and Matt are
alone in her apartment, Elna dons the blue slip, throws her ingrained
sense of caution to the wind, and begins some potentially sinful making out with Matt. They dont get very far, however, before Elna surprises herself by whispering in his ear, You need to pray and find out
if God exists (175). Later, Matt actually does pray, but does not arrive
at the testimony for which she might have hoped.
After wondering if Matt could ever be with a Mormon, she began to
see the flipside: Could she be with an atheist? Dating an atheist means
going against everything I was raised to value: No temple marriage. No
family for eternity. No religion at all on his part. Later, she feels him
slipping away from her emotionally: Its as if now that he knows Im
Mormon, hes teaching himself not to be attracted to me (160).
Baker struggles with the question of chastity until the predicable
breakup, which she calls an existential crisis (208). She ponders in
the same vein that numerous young Latter-day Saints have doubtlessly reasoned over the years: Its not fair ... How can religion take
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away love? But how can love take away religion? ... Is choosing to
follow my feelings for Matt a religious act, or is choosing my religion
over a relationship religious? (166). She continues, Doing what I was
supposed to do and feeling good about it is what helped me to sustain
my faith. It was my anchor, my ballast. Now I wasnt so sure. Id let go
of Matt and instead of a payoff, I got misery. Is it right to repress my
sexuality? ... Is heaven a made-up place and am I just making sacrifices
for an imaginary reason? (209).
A girlfriend later tells her, Your ability to cockblock yourself is
unprecedented. But its too funny not to let it happen (271).
After Elna and Matt go their separate ways, she returns to the regional
Halloween dances and other activities for New York LDS singles in
search of men who understand her standards. Soon she rebounds into
a relationship with a BYU student who is a returned missionary. What
follows is more Mormonism 101 about prayer and how the church was
founded upon Joseph Smiths initial reliance on the if any of ye lack wisdom scripture (208). Elna moves to Provo to be near her new boyfriend,
Hayes, and prays about the decision to marry him.
Regarding this move, she says, This wasnt an original idea; its
what Mormons do. Theres a big emphasis in my religion on receiving a spiritual confirmation about what youre about to do (241). She
feels she gets a positive answer, but still has her doubts. Because of the
doubts, Hayes backs away, and its back to the Big Apple for Elna. She
concludes, I was created to be happy. Hayes did not make me happy. A
document from a patriarch could not tell me how to be happy. I was in
charge of my own happiness (246). She continues, A Mormon man
wasnt going to solve everything. When we were together, Id still questioned my faith. I wasnt sure I wanted to be Mormon anymore (249).
As a belated explanation of the books title, Elnas New York life
seems to be measured in New York regional Mormon singles Halloween dances, all of which only bring her misery and a magnification of
her loneliness. The first dance she describes (when she was still overweight) involved a bee costume she made, something of which she was
very proud. (Her stinger was a funnel stuck to her butt.) At the next
years dance, a slim Elna wears another homemade costume, of which
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Hansen: Mormonism 101 as LDS Literature Enters the Mainstream

she is even more proud. This time she is a human-sized fortune cookie.
But the costume ends up folding in a weird way and looks like something obscene. At the next Halloween dance, upon her return from
Utah, she goes as Cinderella but runs out in a panic when she sees
her ex-fianc there with a new girlfriend. She then concludes, Standing there dressed as Cinderella and waiting for my Prince Charming,
Irealized how terribly wrong my fairy tale had gone ... Ithought about
my eight-year struggle to be a Mormon in New York. Suddenly it was
more overwhelming than ever. Like it all felt pointless because Id never
really win (262).
Still pining for non-LDS Matt, Elna gets back in touch with him,
although he is now doing humanitarian service as a doctor in Africa.
At this point, readers must remind themselves that this is Elna Bakers true story. Overall, the preoccupation with her own naivet and
curiosity about sex become excessive, including superfluous descriptions of unsatisfying kisses, letting a New York man grope her boobs,
and toward the end of the book, a description of her seeking explicit
sexual instructions from an aging woman in Zanzibar who initiates
brides.
Wracked with the frustration of suppressed libido, existential angst,
and the desire to take a little break from Mormonism, Elna follows
Matt to his hut in Zambia. She realizes, Id been seesawing between
two completely different lives. A year earlier, Id moved to Utah in
hopes that Hayes would marry me and make me a Mormonforever.
Now I was in Africa hoping that Matt would sleep with me and make
me a non-Mormon until I ceased to exist (271). She then describes a
bold and uncharacteristic grope of her paramour (underneath his pajamas), and his decision to stop her because he doesnt want to be the one
to hurt her (267).
Ultimately, Baker questions her say yes philosophy: Im refusing
to choose which kind of person I want to be. Im saying yes to way too
many things. I love that moment of unlimited possibilities so much
that Ive accidentally built my entire life there ... [T]heres a name for
someone like me. An observer that floats in between two worlds is
called a ghost (272).
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Elna determines that whichever world she chooses, her life will
become so much smaller (272). If she stops being Mormon, shell
be left out of family temple weddings and eternal togetherness, and
shell break her mothers heart. But if she stays in the church, I wont
be able to wear the sleeveless dress I wore last night. Ill have to stay
fetch instead of fuck and I wont get to spend the rest of my life with
any of the men I love most (272).
She muses,Ive spent a decade trying to say yes to both sides, stalling
and questioning, not ready to choose and watch my life become simpler
and more ordinary. Only without definite and definable values Im a
genuine indeterminate. I am what I might be, not what I am(272).
Bakers story compares with Jonathan Langfords No Going Back,
published the same year by Zarahemla Book in Provo. Langfords hero,
Paul Flitkin, a gay 15-year-old whose best friend is the son of his bishop,
goes through a similar struggle, trying to walk a tightrope between the
world he has always known and respected and the one he fears, but in
which he suspects he really belongs. Like Elna, Paul decides that his
world will get smaller with either path he chooses, and that there will
be sacrifices and painful forfeitures of blessings either way.
Bakers memoir, then, is laced with moments of profundity about
choices and life-altering and eternal consequences. Mostly, though,
her story is narrated with a lot of kookiness, some of which is endearingan obvious part of her ebullient personalityand some of which
is just annoying and makes a reader want to slip this woman a little
Valium just to calm her down. Her five funky little charts and drawings
scattered throughout the book, about kissing, dating, and fluctuating
religious beliefs, go over the top and tend to detract from what is, after
all, a serious story about reevaluating ones entire belief system.
Baker is a latecomer to sexual matters, and, of course, the crux of
her existential crisis is this cacophonic cognitive dissonance between
the law of chastity and the New York lifestyle. But it is difficult to
comprehend why she thinks her non-Mormon readers, most of
whom have probably done a lot more kissing and groping than she
has, would want to hear all the details of her sexual misfortunes, or
see them listed on maps and in graphs.
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To answer my own earlier questions about novels with LDS themes

making their way into mainstream literature: Bakers memoir might
well pave the way for a new trend for LDS essayists and novelists who
wish to publish to a wider, more homogeneous audience. Just as most
of the North American population is already more or less attuned
to Catholic and Jewish doctrines and cultures, it would benefit LDS
authors, present and future, if our continent in general were already
familiar with the basic tenets of Mormonism and the various peculiarities of its culture. As this is not the case, detailed explanations of
our religions numerous idiosyncrasies will continue to be necessary if
and when more Mormon novels enter the national mainstream. Only
if novels with an LDS bent advance further to the forefront of nonLDS acquaintance and familiarity, will such fundamental tutorials
will become less vital to the comprehension and appreciation of the
story or plot.
As to whether additions of such elementary course material detract
from the overall interest in and enjoyment of the memoir itself as well
as the storys quality as a serious piece of literature, I must say I find
most of Bakers Mormonism 101 additions necessary, but still somewhat heavy-handed. Although humor is definitely the authors long
suit, at times, her explanations border on silliness.
For the next nationally published memoir or novel about LDS
characters, I would recommend a more urbane style, less preoccupation with aging virginity, fewer details about kissy-feely experiences,
and less anticipation of first-time sex. I would especially suggest
losing Bakers drawings of the progress thereto and the frustrations
thereof. I am not saying that any of this is bad in Bakers saga, but
simply that it might well be time now to move on to different writing
styles and to manifest a variety of attitudes and modes on the nationwide LDS spectrum.
Lastly, there certainly must be more to the serious and nationallyrespected Mormon novel than the typical crisis of will I stay in the
church or will I leave? More specifically, in Bakers case, the question
is, Will I stay active in the church and remain sexually repressed and
limited in scope, or do I dare bust out and fill my life with all the
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New York-style levity that Ive been missing? Baker takes a particularly nave and adolescent view: that the appeal of the non-Mormon
world is a chance to finally say yes to the formerly forbiddeni.e.,
skimpy clothes, lingerie, Starbucks, sophisticated boyfriends, and lots
of guilt-free sex. By embracing the bosom of Mormonism, however,
she seems to think she would not get much more than the somewhat
compensating, but much less jocular, blessings of attendance at family
temple weddings and not breaking her mothers heart.
Despite her lack of theological profundity in an otherwise honest self-examination (after all, at the time of publication, Baker was
but 26Im a 26-year-old virgin, for Gods sake! [272]), I found
myself cheering for Elnaand not just for the preservation of her
faith, but also that this intelligent, creative, and slightly flummoxed
young woman will continue to pursue and find success in her quest
for self-actualization.

Works Cited
Baker, Elna. The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance:
A Memoir. New York: Dutton, 2009. Print.
Langford, Jonathan. No Going Back. Provo: Zarahemla, 2009. Print.
Parent, Gail. Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York. New York:
Overlook, 2004. Print.

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The Other Women: The Reality of Polarity

Nancy Chaffin

Marilyn Bushman-Carltons poem The Other Women, from

her recent collection Her Side of It, illustrates a polarity that can exist
between women as they make choices that position them outside the
mainstream of Mormon culture. In the poem, the speaker, a mother
of adult children, acknowledges her awkwardness as she attends a
medical conference with her daughter who is a medical professional.
The speaker recognizes that her daughters decision to become a professional stands in opposition to her own choice to be a full-time
homemaker, and she acknowledges the voices that question both decisions. In Contemporary Literary Theory, Don Bialostsky asserted that,
ones own position or intellectual identity is never independent of its
responses to other positions or identities; as a result, women naturally respond to opposing and encouraging voices as they forge ahead
on their own unique paths (223). Since the founding of the Church,
societal and church positions have polarized women. Through formal
elements, the speaker of The Other Women illustrates the conflict
that exists in the lives of many Mormon women, as well as the selfactualization and understanding that can be achieved through articulation of those tensions.
From the Churchs inception, Mormon prophets have received revelation that has surprised and divided women. The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints is founded on the principle of revelation,
and, as stated in the recent official publication True to the Faith, the
leaders of the Church confirmed that, the Lord continues to guide
the Church by revealing His will to His chosen servants (140). Initially, one of the most staggering revelations for women was the doctrine of plural marriage. In direct opposition to societal norms, Joseph
Smith taught the principle of celestial marriage and was sealed to a
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number of wives. Frankly, it is difficult to imagine a more controversial practice for newly-baptized Latter-day Saints at that time. In an
essay entitled Strength in Our Union: The Making of Mormon Sisterhood, Jill Mulvay Derr affirmed, The practice [of plural marriage]
united and divided Mormon women almost simultaneously (161).
Emma, the prophets wife, opposed polygamy, and others followed her
example and resisted the practice; however, Eliza R. Snow, a beloved
saint and womens leader, was sealed to Joseph Smith and became
an example that strengthened Mormon women seeking to follow the
prophetic revelation.
While some women eventually testified of the blessings of polygamy,
others were very vocal in their opposition. One sister who spoke in
favor of the practice was Margaret A. Smoot, who said in 1870, I have
taken pleasure in practicing this pure principle, although I have been
tried in it (qtd. in Derr, 164). Journal accounts from other women
indicate that Smoots experience was typical; many women had to
overcome feelings of anger, sorrow, jealousy, envy, and isolation in
order to love and accept a sister wife in their lives. Others were never
able to reconcile themselves to it. Kahlile Mehr, author of Womens
Response to Plural Marriage, shared Fanny Stenhouses negative
response to the new doctrine. Stenhouse first encountered the revelation in 1852. Years later she declared, before I had got through one
half I threw it aside, feeling altogether rebellious against God [...] for
I felt that that new doctrine was a degradation to womankind (qtd.
in Mehr 87). Though Fanny allowed her husband to take another wife,
she eventually denounced her membership in the Church and spoke
out against polygamy. Plural marriage was not practiced by every
Latter-day Saint family, yet divisions existed among women in the
Church as they were on one side or the other of the polygamist fence,
whether in word or in deed.
In 1890 President Wilford Woodruff announced an official end
to any new plural marriages. As a result, Mormons became more
accepted in American society; indeed, with the change in Church
policy, many LDS women diversified their associations as they joined
their non-Mormon friends in a wide variety of womens clubs. Thomas
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Alexander, author of Church and Community: Latter-day Saint

Women in the Progressive Era, indicated that an emphasis on helping others both through voluntary organizations and governments
pervaded the United States (9). Mormon women joined their female
counterparts in advocating statehood and campaigning for the right
to vote; indeed, through these clubs [...] Mormon women worked
with Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Greek Orthodox women and
men to promote reform (14). Women were instrumental in initiating
a wide variety of political, educational, and community improvements.
Some of the brethren, including Franklin D. Richards of the Quorum
of the Twelve, applauded this affiliation; however, in later years, the
sisters were chastened by J. Reuben Clark because the Relief Society
had, in his words, taken on the attributes that are attached in the
world to cultural clubs (qtd. in Derr 186). These opposing viewpoints
concerning affiliation with womens clubs mirror the conflicting opinions that have existed among Mormon women throughout the history of the Church, as a number of men and women consider the
Relief Society to be the only worthy womens club.
Personally, I have experienced opposition as I have participated
in organizations outside of the Church. When I was an enthusiastic
member of the 4-H program in Salmon, Idaho, my stake president
questioned my association more than once. He seemed to feel that, in
view of our family, work, and church responsibilities, association in
a club outside the Church was an unwise use of my time. This belief
is shared by some faithful Mormon women and has contributed to
polarization among Mormon women over the years.
Polarizing forces in American culture again resonated in the
Church during the explosive feminist movement of the 1960s and
1970s. During that time, the Church was implementing a new correlation program that would unify the teachings and the auxiliaries.
This resulted in reduced independence for the Relief Society in general, and for women specifically. No longer did the Relief Society have
its own bank account, curriculum, and magazine; all resources were
consolidated to prepare the way for a church that was moving into
an international arena. In contrast, feminists were promoting the
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Equal Rights Amendment, which encouraged self-sufficiency in the

form of equal pay, recognition, and opportunities for women. According to Jill Mulvay Derr, The contrasting messagesexpansive from
the larger society, constrictive from the churchcaused considerable
tension for many Mormon women (195). Mormon women aligned
themselves on both sides of the issue, and when the Church came
out against the ERA in 1976, those women who remained in favor
of it were questioned [concerning] their faithfulness (196). It was a
bitter blow for feminists who pointed to the active suffragist role that
Latter-day Saint women had played in the late 1800s, when Mormon
women campaigned for Utahs statehood and womens right to vote.
Today, divisions among Latter-day Saint women on the subject of
feminist issues remain.
Divisions which had been initiated by the womens movement were
intensified in February 1987 by a significant talk given by President
Ezra Taft Benson. In To the Mothers in Zion, President Benson
asserted, Contrary to conventional wisdom, a mothers calling is in
the home, not in the marketplace (2). Some women reacted with fervor in support, others in opposition. Lavina Fielding Anderson, in an
article entitled, A Voice From the Past: The Benson Instructions for
Parents, effectively illustrated the competing voices. Mothers who felt
approval and support for their choice declared his address was exactly
what our family needed. I know he was inspired (104105). These
mothers felt justified for their decision to stay home and raise their
children, and they tended to view those who worked outside the home
as sinful. According to Anderson, one woman was greatly distressed
because other women in her ward, also not employed, had made strident comments in Relief Society and during testimony meeting about
women in the ward who were violating the prophets counsel (105).
However, Andersons overall assessment was, Overwhelmingly, the
reaction I have heard from women has been one of pain and of anger,
whether they have been employed or not (105). Resentment flourished and feelings of otherness blossomed, as women on both sides of
the issue believed the opposing group was judging and condemning ...
and many were. Reactions to President Bensons instruction opened
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a chasm among Latter-day Saint women that has never been fully
bridged. To some degree, each side believes the others have become
the enemy.
Recently, the issue was further fueled by General Relief Society
President Julie B. Becks 2007 General Conference address, entitled
Mothers Who Know. Sister Beck stated, Mothers who know are
willing to live on less and consume less of the worlds goods in order to
spend more time with their children. To some, this statement implied
that mothers who worked outside the home were doing the opposite.
Due to a number of factors, including increased educational opportunities, the recession, and cultural trends, more and more women
are working outside the home. According to HerbertS. Klein, author
of The Changing American Family, By the end of the century, only
one in five married couples had just a single male breadwinner working outside the home (216). With society moving in one direction
and leaders in the Church encouraging an alternative, women in the
Church can easily line up on opposing sides.
In her poem The Other Women, Marilyn Bushman-Carlton
effectively illustrates the opposition that exists on these matters
through the use of binary pairs. The bold title, The Other Women,
places the speaker in opposition to the professional women in the
poem and realistically affirms that membership in one group makes
participation in the other difficult. The speaker of the poem chose
the traditionally feminine life of a stay-at-home mother, while her
daughter chose the traditionally masculine role of a professional. The
title reveals that such choices can divide women as their daily routines,
goals, concerns, and thoughts differ; indeed, those who work outside
the home are worlds apart from those who live lives of domesticity.
Additionally, the speaker contrasts her traditional homemakers
life with her daughters professional career by illustrating what the
speaker is not. The woman found herself tagging along beside her
professional daughter. She is the odd person out, the one walk[ing]
against contemporary traffic; indeed, she feels somewhat like a child
accompanying a parent to an important meeting. She is not a medical professional saving lives and conquering illnesses, nor is she a
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take-charge expert who commands others to do her bidding. That

she considers herself a tag-along illustrates the sentiment that she is
unnecessary in contrast to her daughters circle of professional friends.
The speaker seems to believe that a homemaker would naturally defer
to the privileged professional woman, illustrating why otherness can
develop even among Mormon women, whether they make their lives
in or outside the home.
Continuing to communicate opposition, the speaker voices her
feelings about the other through alliteration. She indicates that their
badges brag their status; in other words, their nametags illustrate their
worth in a society that prefers professionals. In harmony with their status, they carry bright bags of drug samples that further establish their
authority as well as their connection to the professional world. This
stands in contrast to the speaker who is only visiting and apparently
not carrying anything worth mentioning. The professional women
babble among themselves in tongues; indeed, their specialized dialect
separates and privileges them. Essentially, the daughters career choice
results in a unique language, lifestyle, and persona that places her at
odds with the speaker, her own mother.
Using another series of binary pairs, the speaker reveals how the
others view her position. She is identified as the Guest/Spouse and,
as the spouse is the second term, it is less privileged, thus the identification that still stings with age. The speaker senses that the young,
contemporary professionals rank her below themselves. She asks herself, Did I settle? / Use my children as a crutch / in case I failed?
She assumes that these young professionals view homemaking as an
escape from the challenges and opportunities of the real world, something less than their life choices have delivered. Josh Allen, professor of
English at BYUIdaho, indicates that seeing people as others allow[s]
us to exclude, subordinate, and reject them. Clearly, the speaker feels
excluded and subordinated at the medical conference; indeed, the fact
that the other women crowded [her] over suggests that they do not
consider her presence significant, do not truly see who she is. Even if
this does not reflect the way all professional women feel, I can relate to
the way the speaker feels. I have been a non-professional for most of
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my life, and I have sensed the feeling of being the other in the eyes of
professionalsboth men and women.
Feeling thrust aside by the other women causes the speaker to
carefully consider her own life choices. In the opening lines of the
poem, the speaker views her life through her daughters professional
eyes. Her daughter might assert that the speaker, her mother, spends
her days contemplating ordinary notions such as grocery lists and
carpools, Saturday soccer games and bathroom cleanser. Truthfully,
these mundane activities do not usually provide opportunities for lifesaving or earth-shattering discoveries. A mother lives in the shelter
of home, which may indicate that she is protected from the world
rather than involved in it. She commut[es] to the kitchen and back,
in contrast to professionals who commute between work and home,
in addition to travelling to medical conferences to learn of new scientific developments that might revolutionize health care. Using these
phrases, the speaker effectively portrays her sense of the professional
womens viewpoint concerning a homemakers life.
In opposition to the bold, strident voices of the young professionals, the speaker provides an alternative voice of peaceful reflection.
As a writer and a poet, she lives in temperate quiet rooms in direct
contrast to the young doctors frenetic days at the hospital. Her home
is a haven; indeed, her description indicates that it is a place of rest
and renewal. In contrast to her daughters bold, bustling career, the
speaker lives a generally pleasant life of reflection. Her description is
not accusing, rather it is thoughtful. In the face of vociferous opinions,
the speaker calmly invites the reader to examine and consider her voice.
Through the use of alliteration, the speaker continues to express
an alternate message. She employs syllables and sentences to write
about [her] life; in doing so, she shares her own personal message
with the world. Contrary to the idea that her notions are ordinary, the
speaker uses carefully-chosen words and syllables to share the intricate details of her life. Her peaceful environment has provided the
opportunity for reflection, as well as the time to see the beauty and
complexity of her life. This expression has guided her development
and facilitated her in becoming the woman she is. Indeed, she says
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that, If it were otherwise, I would not be who I am; in other words,

her choice to become a homemaker enabled her to develop her individual talent and her own unique voice as a writer.
Experiencing otherness at the medical conference compelled the
speaker toward thoughts of autonomy and self-actualization. Her
ideas reflect Judith Butlers insights in Imitation and Gender Insubordination: the self only becomes a self on the condition that it has
suffered a separation [...] a loss which is suspended and provisionally resolved through a melancholic incorporation of some Other
(27). Indeed, the speakers interaction with others at the conference
moved her to reflect on her choices and the growth she had experienced as a result of those decisions. Though she will never understand
what it is like / to be those other women, she has come to understand
and articulate who she is.
Otherness exists among women in The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, and while it can and has created division throughout the history of the Church, Marilyn Bushman-Carltons poem
illustrates that it can also lead to articulation. Personally, I have feared
that, in the midst of such diversity, women will not be able to unite in
loving sisterhood. Amy Hoyt, author of The Continuum of Women
of Faith: Examining Rifts Created by the Equal Rights Amendment
between Women in the LDS Church said this: LDS womens lives
are still placed into polarities today. This has contributed to a culture
of judgment that has isolated women and strained relationships that
are central to the Relief Society (72). In this poem, Carlton artistically
illustrates that otherness does not have to destroy relationships; it can
actually lead women to examine their own lives and experience selfactualization. As the speaker interacts with the others, she acknowledges her feelings of exclusion as well as the possible assumptions of
other women. Her introspection brings understanding concerning her
personal identity, which leads her to voice her personal epiphany. Sharing these epiphanic experiences with one another can lead women to
greater appreciation and understanding of one another.
In an increasingly diverse church population, otherness will escalate; indeed, my own family reflects such opposition. My son and his
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Chaffin: Reality of Polarity

wife have determined that she will be a stay-at-home mother and will
not work outside the home. On the other hand, one of my daughters
chooses to take her children to daycare one day a week so she can work
as a part-time social worker. Another daughter is a stay-at-home mom
who designs award-winning scrapbooking layouts. My youngest daughter is a family consumer science educator who plans to work part-time
while her children are at school. I believe we do not need to fear the
diversity that exists in our families. Rather, we can embrace it. As we
interact with one another and examine our fears and insecurities, we will
increase our comprehension of who we are individually. As we share feelings and insights, we can increase our understanding and appreciation of
ourselves and of one another, which, I believe, is exactly what the speaker
in Bushman-Carltons The Other Women had in mind.

Works Cited
Alexander, Thomas G. Church and Community: Latter-day Saint
Women in the Progressive Era, 18901930. New Scholarship on
Latter-day Saint Women in the Twentieth Century: Selections from the
Womens History Initiative Seminars, 20032004. Ed. Carol Cornwall
Madsen and Cherry B. Silver. Provo: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History, 2005. 918. Print.
Allen, James B. Mormon Women and American Culture Since 1950: A
Preliminary Analysis. New Scholarship on Latter-day Saint Women
in the Twentieth Century: Selections from the Womens History Initiative Seminars, 20032004. Ed. Carol Cornwall Madsen and Cherry B.
Silver. Provo: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint
History, 2005. 195209. Print.
Allen, Josh. Dialogic Criticism. Handout. English 351. Brigham
Young UniversityIdaho. Winter 2010. Print.
Anderson, Lavina Fielding. A Voice From the Past: The Benson Instructions for Parents. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 21.4 (1988):
10313. Web. 29 Nov 2010.
Beck, Julie B. Mothers Who Know. Ensign November 2007. Web. 9
Dec 2010.
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Irreantum

Benson, Ezra Taft. To the Mothers in Zion. Salt Lake City: Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1987. Print.
Butler, Judith.Imitation and Gender Insubordination. Women, Knowledge, and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy. Ed. Ann Garry
and Marilyn Pearsall. New York: Routledge, 1996. 37187. Web.
Derr, Jill Mulvay. Strength in Our Union: The Making of Mormon
Sisterhood. Sisters in Spirit: Mormon Women in Historical and
Cultural Perspective. Ed. Maureen Ursenbach Beecher and Lavina
Fielding Anderson. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1987. 153207. Print.
Hoyt, Amy. The Continuum of Women of Faith: Examining Rifts
Created by the Equal Rights Amendment between Women in the
LDS Church. Summer Fellows Papers 2003: Latter-day Saint Women
in the Twentieth Century. 6174. Print.
Klein, Herbert S. The Changing American Family. Hoover Digest.
July 2004. Web. 9 Dec 2010.
Mehr, Kahlile. Womens Response to Plural Marriage. Dialogue: A
Journal of Mormon Thought 18.3 (1985): 8497. Web. 23 November
2010.
Silva, Erin R. Matricidal Patriarchy: Some Thoughts toward Understanding the Devaluation of Women in the Church, Dialogue: A
Journal of Mormon Thought 27.2 (1994): 13955. Web. 3 November
2010.

108

Candidate for the Great Mormon Novel

Jonathan Langford
A Review of Douglas Thayers The Tree House (Zarahemla Books, 2009)

Harris Thatcher has pretty much everything a fifteen-year-old

boy could want, in his opinion at least: a perfect dad, a good family,
and Luke, his best friend. Hes a good Mormon kid living in Provo,
Utah, where his dad is a high school science teacher. Its summer, with
swimming and fishing to look forward to, and high school starting in
the fall. His only complaint is that World War II is winding down, so
the war will be over before he can join the fighting.
And then things start going wrong. His dads diabetes, which he
hasnt been taking care of very well, flares up suddenly. The death of
Harriss father at the beginning of the second chapter brings harder
times, as the same unambitious attitude that made him spend time
with his kids instead of trying to get ahead leaves the family financially
strapped. They take in a boarder, with Harris moving into a room
with his younger brothers. Harris has to get a job at a local cafe, where
he washes dishes and learns how to make pies. A little over a year later,
his girlfriend dies of pneumonia. After graduating from high school,
Harris serves a mission in Germanyand then he and Luke are both
immediately drafted to serve in Korea, where Luke is killed and Harris becomes, in his own eyes at least, a hardened killer.
Coming home to Provo is difficult for him, as he worries that he
doesnt fit there anymore. And then a fire while hes at work kills his
mother and two younger brothers, leaving him pretty much alone in
the world despite the concern of Lukes parents and the bishop and
even the owner of the cafe where he works.
So what is it that makes life worth living and belief worth hanging on
to when you feel like youve lost everything that was important to you?
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Thats one of the Big Tough Questions in The Tree House. For
someone like Luke, more religious than Harris, simple faith might be
enoughthough in fairness to Harris, it has to be pointed out that
Luke doesnt get put through the same things Harris goes through.
Lukes father doesnt die. Luke goes to Korea, but serves as a medic,
his job not killing but saving lives. He dies heroically, trying to save
others, while Harris instead must find a way to survive.
After the death of his family, Harris simply drifts, apparently unable
to move beyond his current mental and emotional state. He stops going
to church. He moves into a one-bedroom apartment. He goes nowhere
except to work, and he visits no one.
And then his appendix bursts and hes nursed back to health by
Jennifer, an active Mormon girl who had been two years ahead of him
in high school. They start dating. She asks what he wants out of life:
Harris, look at me. This is serious. Do you want your kids to go to Primary and Sunday School? Do you want your boys to have the priesthood and pass the sacrament and bless it and go on missions and be
Eagle Scouts and not drink or smoke or sleep around? Do you want
your girls to be Mia Maids and Laurels? Do you want them to get
married in the temple for time and eternity? Do you want to live in a
ward and go to sacrament meeting and hear boring talks nearly every
Sunday? Do you want your kids to grow up believing all the wonderful things you and Luke believed about God and Jesus and the Book
of Mormon and Joseph Smith and eternal families and life after death
and love that lasts forever? (365)

They talk. He tells her about the things that happened in Korea,
the enemy soldiers he helped to kill. She tells him that doesnt make
him unworthy and urges him to move on and make things right in his
life. Harris thinks a little, talks with the non-Mormon owner of the
cafeabout as close to a mother figure as he has left at this point
and makes his decision. A few weeks later, he and Jennifer are married
in the temple.
And then the following April, Lukes body is found. Harris speaks at
the funeral. Afterward, at the cemetery, Lukes mother speaks tohim:
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Oh, Harris, well see him again on resurrection morning! Our boy
will be so beautiful, so beautiful. Well all be here together once more,
wont we, Harris? And your family will all be here too, your dad and
your mom, and Todd and Garth, and your grandmother, everybody,
wont they? [...]
Yes, yes, he said, which was what he had to say, wanted to say, had
enough faith for. Otherwise there was nothing, and there could not be
that. And the suffering and pain had to be paid for too, somehow, the
incredible loss, the waste, the incalculable stupidity, the hate, the greed.
And there had to be mercy, justice, grace, redemption, but mostly
redemption because, oh, sweet Jesus Christ, how the world needed to
be redeemed! (371372)

Its a well-earned, quiet, but powerful and faith-affirming resolution to a challenging and well-written story.
However, I found Thayers style in this book took some getting
used to. The story is told largely in short, third-person declarative
sentences that reflect the wandering, free-associative pattern of Harriss thoughts without a lot of the connecting verbal tissue that mediates the experiences of reading in the most common contemporary
narrative styles. Paragraphs often feature apparently random shifts in
topic, as in the example below:
Luke was his best friend. Harris had a warm, good feeling about Luke,
which was something like he felt for his dad, so he knew how much
he liked Luke, but he never told Luke because it would have been too
embarrassing. Luke was the best player on the sophomore basketball
team. (45)

Or the following, though the connecting threads a bit more obvious here:
The house was frame; all the other houses in the neighborhood were
brick. Harris knew that his mom wanted a brick house because it
was safer, looked nicer, and cost less for fire insurance. Harriss mom
was more religious than his dad. She bore her testimony in fast and
testimony meeting and said she knew the Church was true. His dad
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Irreantum
never bore his testimony. Hed lived in the Sixth Ward all his life, but
he didnt seem to worry too much about going to the highest degree
of the celestial kingdom after he died. Harris wondered why his dad
wasnt more religious, but he didnt ask. It was okay. He didnt think
his dad paid tithing. (12)

Or more obviously, the following paragraph after Harris has helped

dig out two fellow soldiers in Korea who were killed by shelling:
Standing back in the trench in the rain, Harris looked down at his
hands. The dirt was so worked under his fingernails and into his skin
that his hands had turned completely brown. The rain did not cleanse
his hands. He didnt think he would ever get his hands clean again. He
knew he still had blood under his nails. Gutting a deer, you got blood
under your nails. He turned his hands palms up. (315)

The effect reminds me of an impressionist painting composed of

thickly laid brush strokes that, viewed up close, form no evident pattern, but seen from a greater distance coalesce startlingly into the
intended image. Once I got used to it, the style was both intimate and
effective.
Despite the age of the protagonist and the coming-of-age theme,
this isnt a book that I think anyone would label as a young adult novel,
largely because of the writing style. Much of the story rests in the
growth and change in Harriss perspective and understanding over
time. It takes a more mature reader to pick out those details.
Stories of missionary service represent one of the most distinctive categories of Mormon literature. The Tree House incorporates one
of the best examples Ive seen, partly because it doesnt try too hard
to amuse or inspire or typify or appall, and because the focus of the
narrative remains steady on describing Harriss particular experiences.
That very specificity works better to depict the spirit of a mission (at
least in my view) than a more self-consciously universal missionary
story could do. Even though Harriss missionary service took place
more than three decades before mine, in a postWorld War II Germany that was very different from Italy in the 1980s, I still found
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much that resonated with my own experience. Im looking forward

to sitting my own son down after he gets back from his mission (in
western Washington state) to see if those parts of the story resonate
for him as well.
I cant speak to the veracity of the war scenes, though like the rest
of the novel theyre well-written, rounded out with the specificity of
carefully drawn details. With quiet insistence, Thayer brings home
the fundamental contradiction between war and the gospel of Christ,
as in the following paragraph:
The body was so easily smashed and destroyed. After a day lying in
the hot Korean sun it bloated and stank. It wasnt beautiful, sacred....
War was an organized way for men to kill and wound each other.
Thats what Harris had spent the last three weeks doing. In the Book
of Mormon, the Nephites and Lamanites killed without mercy. Did
Helamans stripling warriors kill without mercy and without regret?
It didnt say. (316-317)

Harris wonders if he had ever had the faith he thought he had

while he was on his mission. Luke wouldnt have reacted the same way
Harris did, or so he thinks: Others would have to pray for him; he
was now incapable of doing that for himself (316).
So whats the value of a book like The Tree House?
I remember reading a comment about The Tree House from a Mormon reader who didnt like it because it was so bleak. The hope of
the gospel, she felt, was not present as an active force in the main
characters life. I can understand that perspective, though its not one
I share. Sometimes, I think, we are each others angels. Paul may have
promised the Corinthians that we wont be tempted more than we
are able, but the way of escape is often other people. To me, thats a
profoundly moving theme, though hardly an exclusively Mormon one.
One of The Tree Houses great virtues is its faithful, sympathetic,
but ultimately tough depiction of a particular kind of experience.
Ibelieve this book has great potential to help non-Mormon readers
understand part of what it means to be Mormon, in a way that makes
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them see and feel the commonality with their own experience. As a
Mormon, reading it made me feel that I know myself better as well.
Theres a point in Thayers novel when Harris, in Provo and waiting
to ship off to Korea following basic training, thinks back on all the
stories Jack, his trainer in pie making at the Starlite Cafe, had told
him in years past about his own experiences in World War I:
Jack stood silhouetted in the lit doorway as Harris drove off. They
both waved. Harris understood how all of Jacks stories had helped
prepare him for being in the army. Basic would have been a lot harder
if he hadnt had Jacks stories. Harris was grateful. A boy needed a
mans stories to help prepare him for his own life. (267)

Ive never been to war. I hope I never have to, or (worse yet) watch
my children do so. And yet I feel as if, reading Thayers book, Ive
managed somehow to take a portion of his characters experience into
my own life. Im a better man as a result.
Its wonderful that Chris Bigelow and Zarahemla Books published The Tree House. In a way, though, its also a shame, because
Zarahemla isnt positioned to publicize and distribute this book the
way it deserves.
There has been a lot of talk over the years about the importance
and difficulty of writing literature that is intensely Mormon, that
speaks in an authentic Mormon voice while at the same time communicating that experience in a way that will resonate with nonbelievers and those without firsthand experience of Mormon culture. This
book does that. I wouldnt hesitate to push this book on anyone with
a taste for fiction in the realist tradition. It stands up to the best of
Willa Cather, which is the highest compliment I can imagine for a
work of this kind. (Ive read some reviewers who compare it to Stephen Crane, but since I dont much care for Crane, thats not a comparison I want to make.)
This is a book that I think could reach both Mormon readers and a
general non-Mormon readershipincluding the kind of readers who
hang out in university literature departments and creative writing
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programs. Unfortunately, I doubt theyll ever know about it. Who

reviews literary novels these days? It might be worth trying to get
them to take a look at The Tree House, though I personally dont know
how to go about doing that.
I dont believe in the Great Mormon Novel, partly because I think
stories can be great for different audiences and purposes, and partly
because I believe there is no singular Mormon experience that can be
captured in one novel. But if I were making a short list of candidates
for the position, The Tree House would be on it.

115

A Mix of Ancient Mystery and Ponderous

Prophecy: A Cautionary Review
Jeffrey Needle
Review of Phyllis Gundersons The Jaguar Prophecies (Cedar Fort, 2010)

When I reviewed Circle of Souls some time ago, I mentioned two

ideas. First, it was clearly a non-Mormon work of fiction, an effort
by Cedar Fort to reach out to secular writers who produce very fine
works. Second, it was just thata very fine work. And so it was with
some enthusiasm that I received The Jaguar Prophecies during a recent
LDS Booksellers Trade Show in Sandy, Utah. It was one of nearly
one hundred books I picked up during that show, and I determined I
would tackle it while still in Utah.
Heres the story: Matt Howard is a forty-ish university professor of archeology. She has adopted a young girl from an orphanage
in China, naming her Merisa and raising her as best she knows how.
One day she receives an envelope containing an invitation to come to
Mexico, all expenses paid. She is puzzled by the invitation, but goes
anyway. She learns after arriving that the invitation should have gone
to a Dr. Hovard, a professor of astronomy at the same university.
What follows is a strange tale involving the Mayan calendar, the
year 2012, the abundance of tradition and myth surrounding various
prophecies. She receives an irremovable tattoo on the inside of one
arma mark that she is the chosen one, the one selected to warn the
world of the coming catastrophes. Quite a surprise for our Dr. Howard. Needless to say, this is not an assignment that she accepts readily.
She soon learns she has little choice in the matter.
Along the way, we see a developing relationship between Dr. Howard and Dr. Hovard, an ongoing tension between Matt and her foster
child, and a determination by Dr. Howard to fulfill whatever destiny
has befallen her. She has to grow into the role; she does her best to
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Needle: Ancient Mystery and Ponderous Prophesy

accommodate her scientific rationality as she steadily accepts the job

she has been assigned.
If all of this sounds a bit muddled, well, to be honest, it is just that.
Aspects of archeology, mythology, geology, astronomy, and Native
American culture come at the reader so quickly that there is barely
time to breathe. The myths sometimes collide in an attempt to make
themselves central to the storyline. Yes, they are by themselves fascinating glimpses into a world we spend little time in. But so many, and
so quickly!
As a package, The Jaguar Prophecies comes tumbling from the pages
in a somewhat scattered and confused way. Gunderson would have
been more successful if she had been better able to juggle the storyline, moderate the pacing, and make the novel more believable. I can
render no better service than to point out some of the areas which
seemed to me a bit awkward.
First, the matter of voice. Given that Matt Howard is in her forties, has an earned PhD in archeology, and teaches at a university, it
seemed a bit jarring to hear her speaking as if she was a hapless thirteen-year-old. I kept wondering why Matt sounded like such a twit,
like her daughter rather than herself. Let me offer an example. In this
quotation, Matt has received yet another envelope. She stares at the
envelope with some trepidation: The envelope sat there like a spider,
waiting for my move. I knew touching it would bring a Pandoras box
of regret. My hand might swell, turn black, and ooze rotting flesh
onto the paper. Finally I made a surprise attack, ripping it open (61).
In my less-kind moments, I ponder whether people who write like
this should ever be permitted to put pen to paper. Yes, it would have
been more palatable had the speaker been a woozy teenager. But a
university professor? Really?
I must also make a comment about the authors use, or rather
abuse, of simile. An example is given above; many more could have
been supplied. If there isnt a Simile Abuse law, there should be one.
Gunderson is hopelessly in love with the form and, frankly, it rarely
works for her. Reading so many similes in such short order can be a
bit disconcerting.
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Irreantum

There is one story arc, in which Matt and Marisa return to China
to help a young girl search for her real mother. Matt is wise enough to
know that they probably wont find the mother, but she also discerns
that this trip will be a valuable rite of passage for young Marisa. This
part of the story is told very well, with intelligent observations and
fluid writing. But all too soon we return to the main storyline, with
all its bumps.
The Jaguar Prophesies is a book with great potential. The story could
have been handled with deftness and grace. And, indeed, theres a lot
of science, as well as pseudoscience, in the book, enough to satisfy a
devotee of the mythic elements of the coming 2012 year event. I actually learned a great deal about ideas such as precession, lunar cycles,
and even the details of the Enuma Elish!
But the reader must wade through some poor writing in order to
get to the gems. It may not be worth the effort. Im saddened that
Gunderson didnt take the time to hear the voices of her characters,
to see if they comported to their places in the story. And for heavens
sakes, when she writes her next book, I beg her, please, not a single
simile! If she does, I promise to call off the Simile Police.

118

Modern Mormon Family

Scott Hales
A Review of Angela Hallstroms Bound on Earth (Parables, 2008)

You can learn a lot from the Old Testament. For example, if you
ever get stopped in a dark alley by a bunch of Gileadites with switchblades, dont call them fugitives, because they take that kind of talk
personally. More importantly, if they ask you to say shibbolethand,
trust me, they willdont forget to pronounce the sh, because if you
dont, its a dead giveaway that youre not one of them. Gileadites, it
seems, take their voiceless palato-alveolar fricatives very seriously.
Of course, Gileadites are rare in these parts, but I occasionally find
myself occupying their role (sans weapon) when I read novels about
Mormons by those who have not come out of the culture. Mormons,
after all, have their own way of saying and doing things (Google
the phrase nourish and strengthen and youll see what I mean), so
when novels about Mormons fail to capture these cultural nuances
accurately and effortlessly, they can come off sounding as empty
as a church parking lot on a Monday night. Much like the gang of
Ephraimites in the Bible who couldnt pronounce their sh sound to
save their lives (literally), these novels betray their outsiderness with
every syllable of cultural mispronunciation. (If youd like an example
of a novel overflowing with Mormon Shibboleths, check out Jacquelyn Mitchards Cage of Stars, which proves that it takes more than
Wikipedia research and a dependence on protestant stereotypes to
write convincingly about Mormons and their culture.)
Now, Im not saying that Mormons are the only ones who can write
about Mormons. That would be absurd. Nor am I saying that good
novels have never been written about Mormons by non-Mormon
authors, since it takes more than the occasional Shibboleth to ruin a
novel. What I am saying, though, is that the telling of Mormon stories
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Irreantum

requires characters and situations that are more than just Mormon in
name. Indeed, for Mormon novels to ring absolutely true, they need
to ring effortlessly. Thats no easy task, even for a Mormon writer, but
Angela Hallstroms Bound on Earth proves that it is possible.
Bound on Earth is Mormon fiction at its finest. To paraphrase the
old youth fireside clich: if this novel was arrested for being authentic
Mormon fiction, there would be enough evidence to convict it. That
said, it doesnt club readers over the head with Mormonism. Its characters happen to be Mormons, who speak and act and think like Mormons, but the book never belittles readers by explaining to them, as
some Mormon novels do, what thats supposed to mean.
Bound on Earth is about a modern Mormon family, the Palmers,
who have been bound together for eternity by Mormon temple ordinances, but who are mostly struggling to make it through the day.
Their problems are not unique, of course, but they are the kind that
no one likes to talk about in sacrament meeting or Sunday School.
Rest assured, no one in this novel is whining about Dear John letters
or home and visiting teaching appointments. In the first section of
the novel, for example, the Palmers youngest daughter, Beth, is dealing not only with her estranged bipolar husband, but also with her
familys refusal to talk about him. Everything about the situation tells
her that she needs to cut ties, leave him, and start her life over, but she
remains uncertain about the choice. Ive been digging and digging,
she says at one point, comparing her husband to a skier buried in the
snow; I dont know how long Im supposed to keep digging until its
okay for me to stop trying to find him (8).
At 197 pages, the novel is a quick read. Each of its fourteen sections is like a short story or vignette that touches on one or more incidents from Palmer family history. Most sections cover a time between
1981 and 2007, although two important sections cover 1857 and 1969
respectively. No section, I think, is inferior to the others; Hallstrom,
whose writing style reminds me of what I like about Bobbie Ann
Masons, has ensured that every piece of the novel is engaging and has
purpose. By the time you finish reading it, you wonder how so much
complexity can be crammed into something that seems so simple.
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Hales: Modern Mormon Family

Bound on Earth, of course, isnt a perfect novel. While reading it,

I occasionally felt that a few of the stories being told (emphasis on
few) required more emotional intensity and grit. This is especially
true in one section, Who Do You Think You Are? about what happens when Beth, as a freshman in high school, falls in love with her
liberal, non-Mormon English teacher. While much about the story
works, particularly in its characterizations of conservative Mormon
students and parents, it pulls some punches when Beth visits the
teachers house to apologize for her community. Everything about the
visit is creepy and disturbing, and it comes across that way, but in a
slightly restrained way.
Still, despite its restraint, Who Do You Think You Are? is a
memorable part of the novel. So too are the sections Thanksgiving,
Accusation, Trying, Mission Call, Birthday, and Faithful. Each
of them tell modern Mormon stories effortlessly, without the distractions of shibboleths. Indeed, if Mormon literature is going to get anywhere, it needs more writers like Hallstrom. Bound on Earth, with its
authentic Mormon voice, should not be overlooked.

121

Mother Flexing
Jared White

After giving birth six times, the boys mother starts lifting weights.
She changes her diet from sugar, salt, and fat to fish and broccoli. In
the mornings the house smells of broiling fish and steaming broccoli.
Mom? he says, knocking on her bedroom door. He can tell from her
tone shes in a good mood. He opens the door and sees her standing
in front of the mirror in nothing but a shiny gold string bikini. He is
shocked by her lean body of muscle. Her back is all sinew, her arms
and legs defined mass. Her chest muscles boast clear striations from
her neck down toward her breasts. Her stomach is a halved egg carton. See how this pose brings out my legs and abs? And Im learning
to not hold my breath while posing, she says as she turns her feet
slightly inward, placing both hands behind her head as if under arrest.
And this pose is for my back and arms. The boy is in high school and
doesnt know such definition. When he leaves, he goes to his room,
locks the door, and removes his clothes. He tries her poses in the mirror. He sees some muscle but no tightness. He flexes harder. His arms
quiver and he realizes he is holding his breath.

123

Digestion in the Garden

Darlene Young

Cherries and pears, pomegranates, peaches

apricot syrup that zings through the bloodless
veins, courses down to your Achilles and back again
to the dancing heart still cycling backwards.
Parsley, asparagus, kumquat and kiwi
and sometimes potato for big belly sleepiness.
Enough, if you can learn to love the yearning,
trust the manna, never hoard. Call it good,
sweet aching empty, then the filling, then the spending
like the tides, like the branches waving in the wind.
Wax, coil, spring, dance, rejoice.
wane, wink, yawn, bend, breathe.
Enough, a pleasant peaceful place. But
heres a stranger saying maybe theres a way
to do without the yearning, satisfy it once and
for all, achieve in one bite the end,
reach your destination.
(Didnt even know you were on a journey.)

Now you catch
a glimmer of the path beneath your feet:
appetite, imagination, expectation, lust
for all thats goodand how can it be wrong
to have it, whatever it is, ingest, digest,
become, arrive, achieve, be full?

124

Didnt God plant the hunger and the tree?

Now you sit and sigh against the tree
in momentary satiety, feel the changing of your heart
as bubbly spirit turns to muddy blood under your skin
that pools around your still digesting gut and
wakes a new and gnawing lust for meat,
wakes a fear of cold and thirst and death,
wakes, with growing horror and with joy,
a mind to see that yes, it was a lie, and yet
it was a truth as well: there is a destination;
there is a path.

125

About the Artist

Galen Smith lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her partner of ten

years, their seven-year-old son, and their Australian Shepherd. She
has often worked in mixed media on paper, but is currently expanding
her digital art experience. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from
BYU, and has illustrated for Sunstone, Edge Publishing, and Dagan
Books. She recently accepted a position as art director at Dagan Books

Artist statement
Hanging out with my sketchbook, drawing weird stuff, and illustrating for anthologies and magazinesI reside in that tiny intersection where feminism, spirituality, and horror overlap. Art is what Ive
always done, and always knew I'd be doing, though it took me a while
to find my niche (even after a getting a BFA). Illustrating for Sunstone,
Edge, and Dagan has helped me get my feet and find direction. My
online portfolio is at www.galendara.com, and my art blog is www.
miningthenooks.blogspot.com. I blog as 'G' at www.the-exponent.
com. Im the Art Nerd at www.functionalnerds.com. Twitter, however,
is where I am most active as @galendara

127

Contributors

Josh Allen earned an MFA in creative writing from Old Dominion University in 2001. Since then, hes worked as a writing teacher at
three universities including the American University in Cairo. Over
the last few years, hes traveled to Washington DC and to Denver to
present papers at creative writing conferences. His work has appeared
in various literary magazines and journals, and he recently accepted
an invitation to serve as the co-editor of Irreantum.
 fter a thirty-plus year hiatus, Nancy Chaffin returned to BYU
A
Idaho in 2008 and completed a double major in English Education
and Theatre/Speech Education in 2011. Embracing both disciplines,
she acted in Macbeth, Tartuffe, and Arsenic and Old Lace and worked
in the English Department as a Teacher Assistant and TA Coordinator. She has recently accepted a position in the South Fremont School
District as an English, speech, and debate teacher. She is the wife of
a fellow non-traditional student, the mother of five life-long learners,
and the grandmother of fourteen enthusiastic students.
Liz Chapman lives with her husband in Rexburg, Idaho, where she
is studying Theatre and English Education at Brigham Young UniversityIdaho. She is grateful for parents who gave her a love of the
written word early in her life, and for teachers and friends who have
encouraged her in her writing.
Melissa Dalton-Bradford took a BA in German and an MA
in comparative literature from BYU, and taught German, humanities, English, and writing at the university level. She resides in Singapore with her husband, Randall, and the two youngest of their
128

Contributors

four children. This is the sixth international address she has called
home, having lived in Hong Kong, Vienna, Oslo, Paris, and Munich.
Cataloguing this unusual trajectory in the written word, Melissa is
currently expanding her poetry and essay portfolio (her work can be
found in Segullah and Irreantum), compiling an extensive grief anthology, and completing a memoir of her firstborn, Parker.
James Goldberg was a founding member of the New Play Project.
He holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from BYU, where his creative
thesis was partly in and partly about blog form. Goldberg has had work
appear in Shofar, Drash, The Best of Mormonism: 2009, and Mormon
Artist and plays performed in Ohio, Kentucky, Texas, and Utah. He
won the 2008 Drama Award from the Association for Mormon Letters,
2nd place in the 2009 David O. McKay Essay Contest and 1st place in
the 2010 David O. McKay essay contest. His chapter on Punjab's history and the Solar, Lunar, and Fire-born lines was recently translated
into Punjabi and published in Jattan Da Pracheen Ithas. He recently
completed his first novel, tentatively titled In Search of Vanished Blood.
Scott Hales is a Ph.D. student with the Department of English
and Comparative Literature at the University of Cincinnati. His areas
of interest are American fiction, Mormon literature, and popular culture. His various thoughts on Mormon literature can be found on his
blog, The Low-Tech World (low-techworld.blogspot.com), which he
tries to keep updated more or less frequently.
Helynne Hollstein Hansen is a professor of French and English
at Western State College of Colorado in Gunnison, Colorado, and a
former visiting professor of French at Brigham Young University. She
is a former staff writer at the Deseret News and Church News. She
is the author of several published articles and short stories and an
unpublished novel entitled Voices at the Crossroads.
Jonathan Langford is a long-time critic and reviewer of Mormon
literature. His novel No Going Back about a same-sex attracted LDS
129

Irreantum

youth was a finalist for the 2009 Whitney Award. He currently moderates Dawning of a Brighter Day, the Association for Mormon Letters blog.
Sheldon Lawrence is a writing instructor and the director of the
Writing Center at BYUIdaho. He has won first place in the BYU
Studies personal essay contest, and his short fiction has been read on
Utah Public Radio. He lives with his wife and four children in Rexburg and is currently completing a dissertation on Mormon conversion narratives.
Jeffrey Needle is an independent Mormon student and currently
serves as book review editor for the Association for Mormon Letters. He has been published in Sunstone Magazine and is a frequent
speaker at Sunstone Symposia.
Karen Rosenbaum, a retired community college English teacher,
lives in Kensington, California, with her husband Ben McClinton.
She continues to write short fiction and personal essays, an activity
she has pursued for over fifty years
Courtney Miller Santo has an MFA in creative writing and
teaches at the University of Memphis. Most recently she was a semifinalist in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and placed
third in Sunstone's 2010 Brookie and D.K. Brown Fiction Contest.
She received an honorable mention in the 2009 AWP Intro to Journals award for her fiction. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared
in The Los Angeles Review and Segullah. She lives in Tennessee with
her husband and children.
Kathryn Lynard Soper is the author of the memoir The Year My
Son and I Were Born (Globe Pequot Press, 2009) and the founder and
editor-in-chief of Segullah, a journal of literary and visual art by and for
Mormon women. She has edited four published anthologies, and contributes to Mormon forums from Meridian Magazine to Sunstone on a
130

Contributors

variety of topics including gender issues, disability, mental health, sexuality, family life, and spirituality. Kathryn lives in South Jordan, Utah,
with her husband and seven children.
Jared White received a bachelors degree in English from Brigham
Young University in 2007 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the
University of South Florida in 2011. He has taught undergraduate
courses in composition and creative writing. He was born and raised
in East Wenatchee, Washington, with three sisters and two brothers,
and now resides in Tampa, Florida. When he isn't reading or writing,
he enjoys playing sports and board games with his wife.
Darlene Young lives in South Jordan with her husband and four
sons. She serves as secretary for the Association for Mormon Letters.

131

Thanks to Our Donors

The Association for Mormon Letters gratefully acknowledges
the following members who have made an extra contribution by paying AML dues at the Lifetime, Sustaining, or Contributing levels. In
addition, we have listed those who have received an honorary lifetime
membership in recognition of their influence and achievements in
Mormon literature.
Lifetime Members ( $500)

Honorary Lifetime Members

Anonymous
Marilyn Brown
Robert Hogge
LaVerna Bringhurst Johnson
R. B. Scott
The Eugene England Foundation

Lavina Fielding Anderson

Elouise Bell
Wayne Booth*
Mary L. Bradford
Richard Cracroft
James DArc
Terryl L. Givens
John S. Harris
Edward Hart
Bruce Jorgensen
Gerald Lund
William Mulder
Hugh Nibley*
Levi Peterson
Thomas F. Rogers
Steven P. Sondrup
Douglas Thayer
Emma Lou Thayne
Laurel T. Ulrich
Terry Tempest Williams
William A. Wilson

Sustaining Members ( $250)

Merilyn Alexander
Elouise Bell
Signature Books
Mary Ann Taylor
Contributing Members ($100)
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Neal Kramer
R. Don Oscarson
Cherry & Barnard Silver
Bruce Smith
Farrell M. Smith

*deceased

132

Irreantum Subscription Order Form

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