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IRREANTUM
EXPLORING MORMON LITERATURE
MAGAZINE OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR MORMON LETTERS

AUTUMN 2001 • $4.00
Eugene England’s Literary Legacy

Fall 2001 issue.qxd 2/11/03 3:28 PM Page 1
IRREANTUM
MAGAZINE OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR MORMON LETTERS
E D I T O R I A L S T A F F
Christopher K. Bigelow . . . . . . Managing editor Marny K. Parkin . . . . . Speculative fiction coeditor

Gideon Burton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Associate editor and AML-List Highlights editor
Scott R. Parkin . . . . . . Speculative fiction coeditor
Tory Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Fiction editor Todd Robert Peterson . . . . . . . . . . . .Essay editor
Harlow Clark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Poetry editor Jana Bouck Remy . . . . . . . . . . . . . Review editor
Tracie Laulusa . . . . . . . . . .Assistant review editor Edgar C. Snow Jr. . . . . . . . . Rameumptom editor
A M L B O A R D
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A M L S T A F F
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Autumn 2001 2 IRREANTUM

IRREANTUM
Autumn 2001 • Volume 3, Number 3
C O N T E N T S
Editorials Essays, Letters, and Tributes

The Literary Legacy of Eugene England Beyond the Wheat, Behind the Veil
Gideon O. Burton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Jane England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Room to Be, Harlow Clark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Eugene the Guileless, Richard H. Cracroft . . . 27
Personal Essays and Personal Progress in
Essays by Eugene England South Africa, Kristen Allred . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Great Books or True Religion? Tending the Garden with Eugene England
Defining the Mormon Scholar . . . . . . . . . . 8 Lavina Fielding Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Enduring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 A Letter to Gene England
Easter Weekend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Dian Saderup Monson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Mormon Literature: Progress and Prospects . . 67 A Model Faithful Voice, Gideon O. Burton . . 46
Hearing Gene’s Voice, Margaret Young . . . . . .50
Poetry Letter to Gene, My Eternal Brother
Mary L. Bradford . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
My Kinsman, Eugene England . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Repaying My Debt to Eugene England
Black Walnut, Eugene England . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Krista Halverson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
The Year’s Last Banquets, Dixie Partridge . . . 25
November 22, 1963—and After
Marden J. Clark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Short Tributes
Your Comfort Close By, Eugene England . . . . 48 Steven C. Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
To Gene: My Teacher, My Friend, My Brother Rob Lauer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Suzanne Evertsen Lundquist . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Madison Sowell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Valerie Holladay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Karen Lynn Davidson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Dean Hughes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Christopher K. Bigelow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
IRREANTUM 3 Autumn 2001

E D I T O R I A L manifestations.” It is not exaggeration to compare

Eugene England’s tandem faith in God and writing
The Literary Legacy of with that of Leo Tolstoy or Flannery O’Connor or
Eugene England C. S. Lewis—or John Milton. Gene England was
equally at home with great literature and with the
By Gideon O. Burton, Associate Editor great vibrancy of Latter-day Saint Christianity, and
he invited everyone into a parlor (often literally
The Association for Mormon Letters pays trib- enough in his Provo home) where good words and
ute to one of its founders in this special tribute good religion could mix in a free and fertile way.
issue of IRREANTUM. Our regular news, reviews, Yet he was no armchair dilettante. Gene was
and features about the Mormon literary world will driven by his dissatisfactions as much as by his
resume next issue. For now, we pause to begin optimism. He read and knew intimately the revela-
repaying a debt owed to G. Eugene England Jr. by tions, sermons, and biographies of Joseph and
so many writers, readers, literary critics, students, Brigham (having written a biography of the latter),
and lovers of Mormon literature. It is as much a and his view of Mormon culture was steeped in the
pleasure to celebrate what he has done for us as it is prophetic vision of our religion’s founders and their
a sadness to endure his early departure. aspirations for the Saints’ improvement both spiri-
As brain cancer first attacked Eugene England in tually and culturally. Like those great men whom
February 2001 and finally took him in August, this he quoted and revered, he expected much of Mor-
became a time of sober reckoning. Those who mons, and the plainness of his speech went hand in
knew him, either in person or through his many hand with the depth of his love for others and his
writings and public appearances, began to tabulate manifest faith in the restored gospel.
the depth and breadth of his extraordinary life. Time and again he quoted Orson Whitney’s
Eugene England’s voice has been a perceptive prophecy that we will yet have Miltons and Shake-
and persistent one in many Mormon circles, and speares of our own, or he repeated Spencer W.
his influence is certainly not circumscribed solely Kimball’s gospel vision for the arts. Mormon liter-
by his literary contributions. But literature contin- ature had been given its patriarchal blessing from
ually mediated his view of Mormonism just as apostles and prophets; Eugene England set about to
Mormonism forever impressed itself on all he ever effect its realization.
said and did. Indeed, Gene England brought liter- He did this most measurably and remarkably by
ature and Latter-day Saints into closer proximity, teaching LDS literature at BYU for over twenty
offering page after page of evidence that the two years, and for a few years at Utah Valley State Col-
could thrive in a richly reciprocal relationship. lege. Gene was also constantly reviewing new LDS
That relationship, with its inherent tensions and literary publications and addressing Mormon literary
possibilities, is explored in his essay reprinted here, topics in This People, BYU Studies, Sunstone, Dia-
“Great Books or True Religion? Defining the Mor- logue, and elsewhere. He constantly spoke on LDS
mon Scholar.” He charts a path for those wishing literary topics at conferences of the Association for
to be true both to themselves and to Latter-day Mormon Letters and many other symposia, leaving
Saint culture, to their literary or intellectual gifts behind him an enviable trail of substantive literary
and to their God. and cultural analysis that has shaped and will con-
Not everyone has had such faith in religion and tinue to shape generations of readers.
literature; few have been so hopeful, so doggedly Eugene England created his literary legacy by play-
optimistic, so celebratory of the literary word and ing a principal role in founding or supporting jour-
the atoning Word. “In the beginning was The nals and associations that continue to perpetuate
Word,” quotes Mary Bradford in her letter herein, LDS literature and the mode of critical engagement
“and you were devoted to The Word in all of its he modeled: Dialogue, Sunstone, The Association

for Mormon Letters, IRREANTUM, etc. His role in truth. Richard Cracroft, in his tribute herein, gives
founding the Association for Mormon Letters and an appreciation for this habit of Gene’s character to
actively leading it is described by Lavina Fielding believe the best in people, which is so welcome a
Anderson in her tribute herein. She also describes contrast to the protective rhetoric of some conser-
Gene’s influential role as an editor. During his career vatives that seems to require assuming an author’s
he arranged the publication of three anthologies of worst intentions. Eugene England had as much
Mormon literature that have helped put LDS liter- faith in Mormons at large as he did in the largeness
ature on the map: Bright Angels and Familiars: Con- of Mormonism. He indiscriminately saw good in
temporary Mormon Stories (1992); Harvest: people and infected them with a faith in themselves
Contemporary Mormon Poems (1989, coedited with and in the potential for their writing to do them-
Dennis Clark); and Tending the Garden: Essays on selves and others good.
Mormon Literature (1996, coedited with Lavina
Fielding Anderson).
Gene knew instinctively to be true what Wayne Mormon literature had been
Booth once said at a BYU symposium on the arts:
Mormonism will never attain a great artistic culture given its patriarchal blessing
until we have achieved a great critical culture.1
Consequently, Eugene England worked his whole
from apostles and prophets;
life toward creating a critical Mormon culture, one Eugene England set about
that could appreciate both revelation and reason-
ing, scripture and artistic literature. to effect its realization.
This most often cast him in the role of mediator,
pulling people back from extremes and balancing
one view against another. The title of a recent arti- Eugene England equally had a sense of vision
cle exemplifies his middle position: “Danger on the tied to his LDS beliefs in our evolving knowledge
Right! Danger on the Left! The Ethics of Recent of truth and the providential unfolding of latter-
Mormon Fiction.”2 There, as he so often did, he day events. This is most notable in his conceptual-
invoked Joseph Smith’s statement that by proving ization of Mormon literary history as a dialectic of
contraries, truth is made manifest. “By ‘prove,’” periods in which contrary currents (the “Home
he explains, Literature” and “Lost Generation” periods) lead to
[Joseph Smith] did not mean to provide a synthesis and reconciliation (the “Faithful Realism”
final proof of one or the other contrary, but to period of today).
test, to try out, to examine both alternatives, The dynamic of these evolving periods is laid out
or all, in the light of each other; he meant that in his most comprehensive essay about LDS litera-
truth is not found in extremes, in choosing ture, “Mormon Literature: Progress and Prospects,”
one polar opposite over another, but in seeing which we reproduce herein. Not only does Eugene
what emerges from careful, tolerant study of England set the terms for the literary discussion of
the dialectic between the two. (14) Mormonism for the indefinite future, but he also
surveys key issues of its critical reception and spells
Such examining of opposites requires both char- out the theological resources of Mormonism that
ity and vision: the willingness to entertain oppos- have not yet been fully taken advantage of by liter-
ing views and the faith that reconciliations are ary critics or creative writers. He lays before us a
possible. Eugene England exemplified such charity, vision of our literary future in terms of a potent
often assuming best intentions on the part of and evolving past.
authors or critics, as though they also believed their Less obvious than his many publications and
views were part of some larger dialectic of evolving public appearances, but equally remarkable, has

been Eugene England’s influence as a teacher, men- find himself or herself gently woven into Gene’s
tor, and literary advocate. He inspired students, narrative of an evolving and improving LDS liter-
encouraged aspiring authors, and critiqued the ary tradition.
work of active writers in a never-ending effort to Gene always believed in the rising generation,
help bring about the vision for LDS letters that and was indefatigable in promoting student work.
he had come to believe in so passionately. Krista Halverson, currently an MFA student at the
University of Washington, tells here how much she
owes to Gene for his encouragement, as does per-
He taught us to write with sonal essayist and student Kristen Allred. I person-
ally discovered his faith in the rising generation as I
both the eyes and the heart sat as a student in his BYU office one day in 1987.
After I mused about the ideal kinds of writing and
wide open. This is Eugene writers I thought our LDS community needed,
Gene commented—both casually and sincerely—
England’s literary legacy. that maybe I could fill that need. As he did for so
many, Gene made me feel that I had something to
say, and his own writings gave me a model for how
Many of Mormonism’s finest writers have gladly to say it.
acknowledged Gene’s direct and indirect support. The magnitude of these two gifts is just begin-
His coaching played a significant role for Margaret ning to dawn upon me: courage to speak at all, and
Young, as she records herein, helping this novelist the pattern for speaking well. In a world cluttered
and playwright have the courage to stand up for her with data and darkness, Gene was incisive and
beliefs and to write from the heart about African- bright, honest and fair, frank and forgiving.
American Latter-day Saints. Dian Saderup Mon- In his many personal essays he taught us how
son, another of Mormonism’s fine writers, recounts to “speak the truth in love”; how to mediate our
how Gene England launched her identity and Mormon identities and anxieties through literary
career as a writer. Valerie Holladay, who for years expression; how to survive—through frank and
has edited at Covenant, tells how a single sugges- faithful expression—the paradoxes of life; how to
tion that Gene made turned around a piece she was write with both the eyes and the heart wide open.
working on. Christopher Bigelow, IRREANTUM’s This is Eugene England’s literary legacy.
managing editor, attributes much of his own drive The personal essay was Eugene England’s genre
and this very periodical to the inspiration he gained of choice. This was not only because of its affinity
from Eugene England. Even the formidably famous to Mormon testimony (as Mary Bradford has
Orson Scott Card, with whom Eugene England pointed out), but also because Gene forever posi-
sometimes sparred in public forums,3 defers gra- tioned himself as a mediator. And as we learn from
ciously to Eugene England’s model approach (see gaining faith in Jesus Christ, mediation must be
his quotes in “A Model Faithful Voice,” herein). intensely personal in order to be meaningful. And
The support Eugene England provided to authors there it is. In Gene England’s writings he was ever
was not simply personal encouragement or solid part of the pain, the process, and the people he dis-
criticism of their work, but an inclusive rhetoric cussed (as exemplified in the tributes by his daugh-
that made writers feel part of something larger and ter Jane England and by Kristen Allred). Whatever
important. As Mary Bradford, Levi Peterson, our subgroup in society or the church, he was one
and others have attested, Gene simply wrote them of us.
into a tradition that they now find themselves In a final interview in April 2001 with Louisa
happily part of. Anyone with ties to Mormonism Dalton, Gene singled out (once again) how his
who wrote in a personal or literary way would essays attempt to “prove contraries,” to explore

very means to deal with the grief over his own pass-
ing—and with other faith-testing realities we are
made to experience, like national terrorism.
I mused to my wife recently that perhaps Gene
was called away from us just in time for him to help
minister to the thousands of souls killed in New
York and Washington three weeks later. (Harlow
Clark’s poetry editorial includes what he thinks Gene
might have said to us here about those events).
Such an idea is small comfort, I know, to his family
and friends. But we can take comfort in a life well
lived, and in gifts fully given to us. I hope we will all
be willing to continue receiving the gifts, literary
and otherwise, that Eugene England has offered to
what seems like a contradiction and hope that the us as brother and friend.
process itself will reveal truth greater than either
part of the contradiction. The popularity of his Notes
personal essays vindicates his method: he showed 1 Wayne Booth, “Letter to Smoother,” in Letters to
how the genre could be an instrument of both rea-
Smoother, etc.: Proceedings of the Fifth Annual BYU
soning and feeling, a means for both reconciliation
Symposium on the Humanities, ed. Joy C. Ross and
and devotion, a vehicle for paradox and for peace. Steven C. Walker (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young Uni-
As Susan Buhler Taber expressed it in a letter, versity Press, [1980]), 32. See also Gideon Burton,
It is the particular gift of Eugene England “Keeping Company with Wayne Booth: Ethical
through his confrontations with experience Responsibility and the Conduct of Mormon Criti-
and literature, both scriptural and secular, to cism,” in The Association for Mormon Letters Annual
provoke us to examine our own beliefs, expe- (Salt Lake City: Association for Mormon Letters,
riences, and their meanings in our lives— 1996), 27–35.
2 Eugene England, “Danger on the Right! Danger
to find our own questions and endure our
own answers. on the Left! The Ethics of Recent Mormon Fiction,”
Dialogue 32 (fall 1999): 13–30.
3 England calls into question the dubious theology
The personal writings of Eugene England have
made us fellow travelers with him as we have set he perceived in some of Card’s fantasy writing, while
about finding questions and enduring answers with still appreciating Card’s overall contribution. “Past-
a trustworthy guide. watch: The Redemption of Orson Scott Card,” in Deep
We are grateful to Charlotte England for allow- Thoughts: Proceedings of Life, the Universe, & Every-
ing us to represent the personal side of her hus- thing XV, February 27–March 1, 1997, ed. Steve Setzer
band in a final poem written for her (“Your and Marny K. Parkin (Provo, Utah: LTU&E, 2001),
Comfort Close By”) and in two personal essays 19–41.
that have connected strongly with readers over
the years, “Easter Weekend” and “Enduring.” Both Gideon Burton, who teaches Mormon literature at
are included as exemplary models of the personal BYU, is president-elect of the Association for Mor-
essay genre. mon Letters.
“Easter Weekend” conveys how broadly and
deeply Gene found and celebrated Christian faith
in his travels and his reflections. “Enduring” was
chosen partly because in it Gene has given us the

E S S A Y in the midst of desperate struggles of the fledgling

Church to survive. Read his King Follett funeral
Great Books or True Religion? sermon, where he proposes the most intellectually
Defining the Mormon Scholar exciting as well as spiritually satisfying vision of
man’s nature and destiny in human history. Then
By Eugene England he says:
This is good doctrine. It tastes good. I can
In addressing students (this essay was originally pre- taste the principles of eternal life, and so can
sented as the Phi Kappa Phi Honors Address at BYU you. They are given to me by the revelations
in March 1975), England urges a new generation to of Jesus Christ; and I know that when I tell
appreciate the intellectual, spiritual, and literary tra- you these words of eternal life as they are
ditions of Mormonism. Partly dissatisfied with the given to me, you taste them, and I know that
genres and methods of current literary criticism, Eng- you believe them. You say that honey is sweet,
land proposes a Mormon aesthetic willing to value and so do I. I can also taste the spirit of eter-
moral and religious commitment and the personal nal life. I know that it is good; and when I tell
genres that express and reveal that commitment. This you of these things which were given me by
essay has also appeared in Dialogue (autumn 1975) the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, you are
and in England’s collection of essays, Dialogues with bound to receive them as sweet, and rejoice
Myself (1984). more and more.
I propose to explore what it might mean in these That is the perspective and language of an intel-
last days to be a Mormon Scholar, a Latter-day lectual, one to whom ideas taste sweet. Or read sec-
Saint intellectual. Perhaps some of you flinch at the tion 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which
label, “intellectual”; it isn’t always a complimentary Joseph Smith gave a special name, “The Olive
term in our society—or even in the Church. I use Leaf.” It is an incredible revelation of how God
it in an essentially neutral way, as descriptive of relates to the physical universe, how physical light
your gift from the Lord that makes you delight in relates to intelligence. Think of the kinds of ques-
ideas, alive to the life that goes on in your mind as tions Joseph must have asked to move the Lord to
well as outside it, that makes you question set forms give it. Surely that man was an intellectual, as well
and conventional wisdom to see if they really are as a charismatic leader, a fine husband and father, a
truth or only habit, whether they endure because city-planner, and a Prophet of God. Think of the
right or merely because of fear or sloth; I use the Pratt brothers, Parley P. and Orson, one a mar-
term intellectual to refer to the gift from the Lord velously creative theologian and writer, the other a
that makes you curious about why as well as how, first-rate mathematician and astronomer. Many of
anxious to serve Him by being creative as well as you, I hope, have seen the calendar published by
obedient. You, more than most people, have it the Sunstone Foundation, a group of your peers,
in you to exemplify Sir Thomas More’s phrase in young LDS intellectuals who are selling the calen-
A Man for All Seasons, when he says God made dars to raise money to publish a journal in which to
animals for innocence and plants for their simplic- explore and express their gifts; the cover picture is
ity, but humans he made “to serve him wittily, in of Temple Square in 1875, with the temple walls
the tangle of our minds.” just starting up, and in the corner of the Square is
The Restoration has been characterized from the Orson’s observatory, a witness of the amazing intel-
first by such people as you, by intellectuals, though lectual vitality of that pioneer community still
our histories have so far tended to slight them as struggling to survive in a desert frontier. Think of
such. Take Joseph Smith, founder of the School of Eliza R. Snow, accomplished poet, fine thinker,
the Prophets, student of Hebrew in frontier Ohio energetic leader in the late nineteenth-century

women’s movement, or her

niece, Louisa Green, first editor
of the Women’s Exponent, or
Eliza’s brother, Lorenzo Snow,
an early graduate of the experi-
mental Oberlin College and
himself a poet and writer of skill
as well as a courageous and
inspiring president of the
Church during the darkest
hours under the polygamy per-
secutions. Think of Orson
Spencer, appointed first presi-
dent of the University of
Deseret by Brigham Young,
and Emmeline B. Wells, and
Brigham Young himself (whose
lesser known qualities as a thinker and writer are tuberculosis while serving in St. Louis. And B. H.
perhaps best revealed in his letters, such as those to Roberts, whose combination of commitment to
his sons just recently published), or of B. H. historical truth with a clear sense of ultimate values
Roberts or James Talmage—or of Juanita Brooks. and a conviction of the divinity of the Restoration
(I recently heard Sister Brooks praised in a totally shines out from his Comprehensive History of the
non-Mormon group as a supreme example of the Church in a way that remains a standard for all
historian’s ideal because she was able, in her book LDS historians. This B. H. Roberts, man of con-
on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, to attain a science and integrity, after real struggle humbled
remarkable degree of objectivity despite a clear con- himself to the authority of the Presidency of the
tinued loyalty to her own people and faith.) These Church when that authority came into conflict
are our intellectual heroes—or ought to be. with his political convictions and ambitions. What
But let me remind you of something about all of is my point? These intellectual heroes I hold up to
them. Juanita Brooks served the Church devotedly, you were also spiritual and moral heroes; these men
as a Stake Relief Society President among other and women pursued the truth with courage, and
things, for many years, and she then remained an new ideas and creative expression with delight, but
unembittered and faithful Latter-day Saint wife they finally put their faith in the Lord and loyalty
and mother despite the almost total rejection of her to his Church over everything—over their pride,
and her husband by her own people because of that their comfort, health, lives—even their gift itself,
book on Mountain Meadows. Not only Joseph when it came to that.
Smith gave his life for the Church; Parley Pratt bled So I propose to you the Mormon Scholar, the
to death after being stabbed by an assassin while Latter-day Saint intellectual of the last generation
serving a mission for the Church, dying, as he said before the year 2000: a person whose standards and
in his last testimony, “a martyr to the faith.” Orson mission will of course best be formed and expressed
Spencer was a cultivated, sensitive intellectual, by your generation itself—perhaps with some little
whose equally cultivated and sensitive wife died in help from what report I can give you tonight of the
a tent in Iowa when the Saints were driven from past and of the stir and struggle in myself and in
Nauvoo; after teaching for a time in the new Uni- my own generation. My call to your generation is
versity of Deseret, he humbly accepted a mission that you help establish a new tradition of intellec-
call from Brigham Young in 1856 and died of tual service to God and his Kingdom, a new style

founded in part on the great tradition of the pio- the Church context provides and which are some-
neer intellectuals and with the benefit of the exam- times so upsetting to us intellectuals.
ple of the successes and an understanding of the One of Martin Luther’s great statements is help-
failures of some in this past generation or two. I call ful here. He said, “Marriage is the school of love.”
you both to affirm your gift with courageous I believe that is true (in even more ways than
integrity and fullness of heart and to develop and Luther meant, of course, if we consider eternal
manifest your loyalty to the gospel and the marriage), but the statement is also true of the true
Restored Church in such a whole-souled and cre- Church. The Church also is the school of love—
ative way that you can have that measure of accept-
ance you need. It will never be total, of course,
given the critical edge of the intellectual enterprise, These intellectual heroes I hold
but you must earn enough acceptance to allow you
to serve the Lord as he intends with a minimum of up to you were also spiritual
apology, of being on guard. I call you to be loyal to and moral heroes. . . . They
true religion, not merely great books, especially
when it comes to a choice, as sometimes it does. finally put their faith in the
Of course, what I’m really doing is trying to
chart a new course for myself, because I span these Lord and loyalty to his Church
two periods—I have been part of the growing pains over everything—over their
and mistakes of the recent past, of improperly
resolved loyalties and defensiveness and uncertain pride, their comfort, health,
role in the Kingdom, but I have also had some lives—even their gift itself,
experiences, especially these past few years, includ-
ing a reacquaintance with the pioneer intellectual when it came to that.
tradition, that are changing me and make me want
to be part of what I hope for your generation to
define and exemplify—the new Latter-day Saint the place where, through being given assignments
intellectual life. to serve, while being taught true principles by
Since early in my teens I have loved the gospel which to understand and act in the world, we are
with my mind—rejoicing in the great concepts of continually confronted with the personal and social
God and man, of our uncreated, eternal existence, challenges that can teach us how to love in that
our divine parentage, and our endless journey of unique, unqualified way Christ showed us and
increased knowledge and power and joy that lies taught us was the only way to salvation.
ahead. But I have in recent years, while serving as a One reason I can quote Luther is that I have
branch president in Minnesota, learned again to been teaching at a Lutheran college, and that has
love the Church, as well as the gospel, and with also helped change my perspective on the Mormon
both mind and heart: I have both a broadly based intellectual in the past five years. St. Olaf College
intellectual conviction and a deep spiritual witness encourages its teachers, just as Brigham Young
that the Church structure, informed by Restored did the teachers here at BYU, to deal openly and
Gospel principles, is the means that the Lord has continually with the religious and moral implica-
given us to bring us to Christ—to involve us in a tions of their subject matter. I didn’t need any par-
saving struggle with the great moral and spiritual ticular encouragement for that, but I did find at
imperatives from God for attaining the possible God- St. Olaf, compared to Stanford or California State
hood within us. I am convinced that the Church is University, much greater freedom—from legal and
the only place we can really do that, partly because professional as well as social pressure—to be forth-
of the very challenges that human association in right about my convictions. Incidentally, some of

you may have felt or imagined that being at a world that was limitless and which they could never
Church school decreases your freedom and that of use up. Worse, they rested in the arrogant assumption
your teachers—and it may in some ways. But you that they had the right, nay, even the religious duty,
have a much greater amount, at Brigham Young to exploit it as quickly and fully as they could. We
University, of what is the most important academic know the moral consequences of such a vision in
freedom, in my opinion, the freedom to express our polluted, tacky, alienated modern world, which
and discuss openly your positive religious and derives directly from a frontier past in which a nat-
moral views and convictions rather than merely ural balance was destroyed and materialistic concerns
your negative ones or your criticism. took precedence over solving problems of human
In this process of exploring openly with my stu- relationships. Much of the literature in that great
dents the religious and moral dimensions of litera- Midwestern tradition derives its power from bril-
ture, the principal subject I teach, I have been forced liant satirizing of the quality of life that resulted.
to consider certain things much more directly than In a private conversation after his address, Pro-
ever before—the intellectual perspective and moral fessor Scholes and I discussed other pioneer
vision of the authors, and the qualities of the soci- visions—I mentioned the Mormons and he gener-
eties they describe or from which their writing alized to other mountain peoples. He pointed out
emerges. I have also been more forcefully con- that most of these groups had avoided the arro-
fronted with the effect on my students’ thinking gance of “prairie consciousness.” Why? Partly
and life decisions of all those things I expose them because they were forced to humility by more strin-
to. And I have come to be increasingly uneasy with gent physical circumstances in desert and moun-
the perspectives of formalist literary criticism in tain country. But the Mormons, I reflected, were
which I was trained under some of the great mas- saved from arrogance mainly by a sense of religious
ters of such criticism. Over the past few years I have consecration and the prophetic leadership that took
become increasingly uneasy about the inadequacy them to the mountains, rather than to the gold of
of formalist criteria (I mean those concerned with California, and kept them there, continually facing
aesthetic qualities—structure, style, organization, new struggles and challenges. We then talked about
etc.) to account for the experiences of my stu- the lack of a “great” literature among such moun-
dents—and myself—with certain literature, espe- tain peoples, including the Mormons, a lack, that
cially some which powerfully affected us despite its is, in terms of general fame and by traditional for-
obvious lack of formal or aesthetic perfection. malist standards. And Scholes risked a rather
Some of these rather vague concerns were astounding conjecture: It might have been because
brought into focus last fall by Robert Scholes, the their social vision was more successful that the liter-
fine critic from Brown University. He spoke at ature of such peoples has been less successful than,
St. Olaf in a symposium honoring Ole Rolvaag say, that of the Midwest—at least less successful by
(who wrote his great novel, Giants in the Earth, fifty those orthodox literary criteria.
years ago, while a member of our St. Olaf faculty). Suddenly some things clicked together for me
Scholes traced, in the work of Midwestern writers and I began to consider some new directions for
Rolvaag, Willa Cather, Sinclair Lewis and William defining a Mormon aesthetic, a set of principles
Gass, the building of one “great” tradition of liter- upon which to assess and encourage our own liter-
ature on pioneer vision that he characterized, in ary tradition. I thought how often I had heard sim-
both its social and religious dimensions, as “deeply ilar explanations for the lack of a great Mormon
and tragically wrong” because it was “too limited, literature, though they were offered condescend-
too material, too rapacious.” ingly by Gentiles and apologetically by Mormons,
Scholes calls the basic flaw in that vision “prairie including myself. Many have said that Mormonism
consciousness”: The Midwestern pioneers had the answers so well so many basic questions and provides
illusion, facing those ever-receding plains, of a such a satisfying way of life for most of its people

that there is not sufficient tension or tragedy. What about, should more anxiously pursue in the future
I have finally clearly realized is that there is no need than my generation has.
to apologize: Religious success is infinitely prefer- Part of the reason for this defensiveness is that
able to literary success. Mormons and Mormonism have had from the
Of course, we may not have to choose, and I’m beginning a bad press, both at the popular and at
certainly not advocating that we intentionally neg- the more sophisticated or academic levels. Our
lect the formal and other values of great literature, incredible history of physical persecution has car-
just because we rejoice in our religion and the com- ried over into various forms of misunderstanding
parative greatness of the societies it has produced. and prejudice in the world of print and scholarship.
But we must more clearly and intelligently face that It has been assumed, even by those like Wallace
fact that there are values, even in literature itself, Stegner who have been able to praise some aspects
other than purely literary or aesthetic ones; there of our achievement, that our beliefs are absurd and
are social and religious and moral values, and they our perspective essentially anti-intellectual. This
are not always intrinsically bound up in the formal has been partly because of our superficial similarity
perfections. In fact, it is somewhat sobering to to groups that developed on the American frontier
reflect that, at least in America, Robert Scholes’ that were rabidly anti-intellectual and partly
conjecture seems all too accurate: The “great” liter- because in some ways we have been anti-intellec-
ature of the past has almost invariably grown out of tual, or at least stressed other values more. But
the religious failure of a group (e.g., The Scarlet some of this rejection has been outright prejudice
Letter) or the religious despair of an individual based on intentional ignorance and unscholarly
(e.g., Moby Dick), and at least in the twentieth cen- assumptions by Gentile thinkers; and perhaps some
tury, the so-called “great” literature has mainly been of it is even a semi-conscious shying away from
content to describe a morally barren or depraved truth claims that, if they proved convincing, could
contemporary landscape or has been based on a not be dismissed as merely interesting ideas—as the
vision that has itself been shot through with moral ideas of most other churches and groups can. In
or philosophical error. To the extent we have to contrast, the gospel assertions about history and
choose between great books and true religion—and about physical, moral and spiritual reality make
you will discover increasingly, I believe, that the absolute claims on the action and thinking of those
choice must sometimes be made—we should who seriously entertain them. How else explain, for
rejoice that we can choose true religion, and with- instance, the continued avoidance of serious con-
out apology. sideration of the Book of Mormon by scholars of
But let me be more optimistic and back off a bit American history and literature? In its very exis-
from the offensive (and perhaps false) dilemma that tence, and the response of millions to it, it is a pow-
I posed in the title of these remarks—“Great Books erful and incontrovertible fact about America, no
or True Religion?” Of course there is value in great matter what initial assumptions one makes about
literature—in great books of all kinds that you have its origin. Or how explain the general avoidance in
studied and will, I trust, continue to study. My theological circles of Mormon ideas about the
point tonight is that they are not the most impor- nature of God? Those ideas both precede and in
tant things in your lives—even in the exercise of important ways move far beyond the thinking of
your special intellectual gifts—and that you have Alfred North Whitehead and the “process theolo-
near at hand some great literature, great books and gians,” which thinking has been hailed by many in
ideas of all kinds in your own tradition, that you America as perhaps the most exciting new develop-
perhaps have neglected, and for which you may ment in twentieth-century theology.
even need to develop some special insights and cri- Take Christopher Lasch, for instance, a fine his-
teria in order to appreciate properly. And these are torian, who, in a review of some literature on the
things you should be less defensive, less apologetic Mormon experience in the New York Review of Books

back in 1967, finds much to praise in our early ideals a challenge that the Church was hounded and
and achievements. He puts his finger squarely on driven and almost destroyed. Some of that charge is
what made the Mormon pioneer vision different close enough to the truth to make me uncomfort-
from the Midwestern one that Scholes, you remem- able—the claim that we are no longer persecuted,
ber, characterized as materialistic, even rapacious: are even courted by politicians and the popular
“In Utah, under Young’s leadership the Mormons press, because many of us are no longer a challenge
created a self-sufficient, cooperative, egalitarian, and but have become rather a defense of some of the
authoritarian economy devoted not to individual most reactionary elements in American life: racism,
enrichment but to the collective well-being of the individualistic economic conservatism, middle-
flock.” He cites our present Church Historian, class conspicuous suburbanism.
Leonard Arrington, who in his landmark study of
the Mormon economy, Great Basin Kingdom,
shows how the Mormons accomplished, The most important kind
through a system of cooperative and compul-
sory labor, impressive feats of planning and of academic freedom is to
development—irrigation, roads, canals, sugar express and discuss openly your
beet factories, iron works—without generating
the institutions or the inequalities elsewhere positive religious and moral
associated with industrial progress; indeed,
without even developing a money economy. views and convictions rather
Lasch concludes: “Cooperation and planning than merely your negative
caused the desert to bloom, in marked contrast to
the exploitive patterns of agriculture which on ones or your criticism.
other frontiers exhausted natural resources and left
the land a smoking waste.” But though Lasch rec-
ognizes that those practices of our ancestors were Nevertheless Lasch is essentially wrong: That
uniquely successful from a human and ecological original inspiriting vision that produced almost
point of view, like other Gentile intellectuals he utopian success in our early societies was a direct
fails to see the connection of those successes to our result of a true and in modern times unique reli-
religious truth and consequent heroic devotion to gious vision, an egalitarian, communal ideal in
correct principles; in fact, in obvious ignorance of which all of life—including the social order—is
its content, he characterizes our theology, surely the integrated and is motivated by religious faith rather
most comprehensively rational theology in exis- than economic sanctions, etc. And that same ideal
tence, as inconsistent, even “grotesque.” And, like a remains vital with us today, called to our minds and
number of recent commentators, including some hearts each time we make our covenants of conse-
of our own intellectuals who have left the Church cration in the temple, motivating much that we do
and turned around to criticize, he sees no continu- as the Church expands in the third world, espe-
ance in the twentieth century of those remarkable cially South America, where we are building—
but for him inexplicable pioneer virtues; he claims cooperatively—schools, churches, even whole
that our accelerating growth rate is only possible colonies; it is lived out explicitly right here in capi-
because we have gradually sacrificed the utopian, talist America, even in East Bench Salt Lake City or
communitarian commitments, the very ideals Provo, by individuals who without coercion or even
which in the nineteenth century posed a challenge being asked give all beyond their basic needs to
to the American way of life, that especially threat- building up the Kingdom—in fact, it is maintained
ened exploitive, laissez-faire capitalism, posing such by all of us in the Church who see life whole, not

divided between sacred and secular, as almost all advantage in certain genres, those characterized by
other twentieth-century religion has done. personal witness to faith and experience, ones in
Our own literature has intuited this well. Take which the truth of actual living and of direct con-
Maureen Whipple’s The Giant Joshua, which is, fession is at least as important as aesthetic or
despite its flaws and the way its vision and artistic metaphorical truth—I mean journals and diaries,
force weaken toward the end, probably our best letters, sermons, lyric poetry (especially hymns),
piece of Mormon fiction to date. In writing autobiography and autobiographical fiction, and
about the colonization of St. George, Whipple the personal essay. We should look more closely at
examines the most crucial elements of our pioneer our rich heritage in these genres.
experience—the building of communities under
prophetic direction, against private inclination,
with the aid and challenge of the United Order and We must more clearly and
of polygamy. And she shows, undergirding all, the
search for effective group religious life and individ- intelligently face that fact that
ual redemption. This passage gets at the heart of
the struggle and achievement: there are values, even in litera-
[After one year of the United Order, Apostle ture itself, other than purely
Snow] surveyed his community and was not
ashamed to uphold its accomplishments even literary or aesthetic ones;
to Brigham, whose face these days seemed
more than ever like parchment, whose eyes
there are social and religious
could not hide their longing for proof that and moral values, and they are
this work of his lifetime would stand.
“Enoch hats [i.e., hats produced in the not always intrinsically bound
United Order], a half-finished Temple, brush up in the formal perfections.
grubbed from the sidewalks and the square,”
inventoried Erastus, “and above all, something
you can’t see but is worth much more to a
man—a sense of responsibility toward his The diary of Joseph Millett, which I came across
neighbor, an armor against selfishness and last year in the Church Historical Department, is
greed.” to me a prime example, a major exhibit in the
reevaluation I am suggesting. Joseph Millett’s father
But let me make my point more clear by dis- was converted by Brigham Young and called to take
cussing briefly a piece of Mormon literature that it charge of the masonry work on the Kirtland Temple,
is quite certain none of you has read; I do this in where he invented an extraordinarily hard exterior
part because there has been some reaction among plaster that glittered with the pieces of china dishes
Church members against The Giant Joshua, because that the women sacrificed to be broken up in it.
of its frankness about such things as polygamy and (That plaster, by the way, is a perfect symbol for
Mountain Meadows that may color your reaction our religion and literature because it is rooted in
to it. This other example is a good one also because real experience and expresses concisely and pre-
it, even more clearly than that novel, helps make cisely the difference between Mormon colonists
another point that must be considered in our and, say, Rolvaag’s Midwesterners; rather than
Mormon aesthetic—that a literature such as ours, accumulating and clinging to the material objects
which I have suggested may be inferior in form to of civilization, the Saints gave their treasured china
that conventionally recognized as great but which dishes and precious porcelain ware to be crushed
is superior in content and vision, shows to best up in the plaster used to adorn the walls of their

Temple to God.) After the Saints were driven from business I was on. I felt my weakness. A poor
Nauvoo, the Millett family stayed in Iowa helping ill-clothed ignorant boy in my teens, thou-
others move on until they went to Salt Lake in 1850 sands of miles from home, amongst strangers.
and settled, under Brigham Young’s direction, in The promise in my Blessings, the encouraging
Manti. In August 1852, Brigham Young convened words of President Young to me, with the
a special conference that was an unprecedented faith I had in the Gospel, kept me up. Many
occasion on the American Frontier. Only three years a time I would turn in to the woods and brush
into a colonization effort that had barely escaped in some desolate place, with a full heart, wet
disaster and which still existed on the bare edge of eyes and face, to call on my Master for strength
survival, he called together 2,000 of the Elders of and aid. I believed the Gospel of Christ. I never
Israel and reminded them of their greater task—to had preached it. I knew not where to find it in
take the gospel to all nations. And he sent ninety- the scriptures. I had to give my Bible to the
eight of them, including a number of general boatman [at the channel] for passage across.
authorities, and also Joseph Millett, then eighteen
years old, on missions to literally the four quarters From that low point of loneliness and rejection
of the earth, including Europe, Africa, the West and lack of confidence in his ability, the journal
Indies, China, Siam, India—young Joseph to Nova records a growing self-confidence as Elder Millett
Scotia. Elder Millett’s diary tells of his father’s bless- obtains books and tracts at the branch in Halifax
ing, the setting apart by Apostle Jedediah Grant, and studies the gospel, decides, because a prophet
and then his journey, essentially alone and literally has called him to Nova Scotia, not to return to the
penniless—without purse or scrip—across a conti- states with the other missionaries (who had become
nent that was still mainly a wilderness frontier, to discouraged at their lack of success), crosses over to
his field of labor. But now listen to his own voice, nearby Cape Breton Island and, after being joined
certainly unsophisticated and lacking the formal by a locally called missionary, begins to teach and
graces but with some of that intuitive sense of sig- baptize. He organizes a branch, and starts to have
nificant detail and forthright revelation of self that extraordinary experiences such as the following
are certainly at least as important to good literature (notice the simple but effective narrative skill and
as those other qualities—and more important to sense of drama, combined with sincere, almost
true religion: humorously direct reliance on the Lord):
Apr. 13, 1853 I went to Cranberry Head, near June 30, 1853 At the brothers Bagnal’s they
to Yarmouth. Here I found Brother John were starting out to fish. I said, “Success to you;
Robinson and Brother Benjamin T. Mitchell you must catch a whale,” just in a foolish, jok-
at Mr. Moses Shaw’s. The Brethren (Robinson ing way, and thought no more about it until
I went down to Brother John McGilvery’s.
and Mitchell) said that they were going to
After a while one of the girls came down and
travel together. The Brethren both said I was
said that Brother Millett had promised that
too young and inexperienced to travel with
Uncle Joseph’s folks would get a whale and the
either of them. They said I had better go
Gentiles said that now you see he is a false
to Halifax and see Brother A. D. L. Buckland
prophet, for any fool would know that they
and get counsel from him.
can’t get a whale. I overheard the girls talking
Apr. 14 I went in to Yarmouth. Came back to about the whale. It then came to my mind
Mr. Grace’s. He treated me kindly. I stayed what I had said. I then ran to the woods and
until Saturday. Started for Halifax. Left Cape thought how foolish I was to say such a thing.
Sable to my right hand. Traveled two hundred I prayed the Lord to forgive [me], that I
ten miles around the coast capes and bays to desired to do right. I felt the position we were
get to Halifax. I had to rely upon Him whose in. I couldn’t keep back the tears. I called on

the Lord to help me in his cause. About one me. I went about 3 miles with him. Then we
o’clock P. M. the people noticed six boats parted not to meet again in this land. In the
coming in the Bay towing something. Some last two weeks I have held two meetings in
said it was the hull of a schooner; others said private houses. I have to depend on the Lord,
no, that it was the whale that the Mormon not on Brother Adamson. I have felt rather shy
promised about. The brothers Bagnal’s was about asking favors of people; had rather go
the first boat going out of the Bay. They heard into the woods, pick blueberries, bless them
the report of a cannon and saw the flag and and eat, and felt myself welcome. I find myself
topmast of the packet steamer circling around, in rather straitened circumstances, although
[which] fired their third gun as soon as they I have some friends.
saw that the fishermen were coming; the steamer
went on and Brother Bagnal was the first to Despite those few friends, opposition from the
the prize. And it was a lucky day for all of Protestant clergy was very severe: Elder Millett’s
them that assisted in getting the prize in. The handbills were torn down, schools and halls were
whale I believe was above seventy feet long, closed to him. Finally a Reverend McLeod comes
the biggest fish I ever saw. . . . I never have directly to a home where he is staying and con-
ceased to thank the Lord for his goodness. fronts him. Notice the sense of well-paced dialogue
and of dramatic timing, which conveys both
Notice the well-controlled humor and the sense humor and the steady seriousness of conviction:
of effective diction in this passage: “Are you that imposter that has come to lead
July 27, 1853 Elder Adamson and myself the people astray?” “No sir, I am a servant
went to Mr. Gibbon’s a rich infidel. He said he of the living God and I am preaching His
was an astronomer and philosopher. Said that Gospel.” Says he, “Brother McArthy, what
Mormonism was more reasonable than the rest does the scriptures say? ‘Though we or an
of the religions and as for polygamy it was the angel from Heaven preach any other gospel
only thing to regenerate the human family. than we have preached, let him be accursed.’”
Says Brother McArthy, “This young man has
Or witness the self-effacing but clearly commu- preached the same gospel that Paul did. But
nicated sense of a life lived in great spiritual beauty you are preaching another gospel.”
in this: The dinner was just ready. . . . As he went
July 31, 1853 Brother Allen Adamson says he to sit down he said, “There is a sick woman
must go to Halifax and perhaps on in to the in the other room and you people profess to
States. Wants to make fitout for the Valley. do miracles. Heal that woman; then I will
Anxious to gather with the Saints. He was believe in your doctrine.” Just then the door
from Dundee, Scotland. So I will be left alone opened and the woman came out and said,
with almost every door closed against me. “I am healed.” He said, “Yes, the devil can
Elder Adamson has been with me pretty near do miracles.”
2 months. . . . Some was ready to be baptised Believe me, these are only a few samples of the
at Gabarouse when Brother Adamson came to quality of this record of the life of a Latter-day
me but I had never baptised. So when he Saint. Near the end of his journal, when he is look-
came we were ready to commence. After I saw ing back over his life as an old man, Joseph Millett
him baptize, I could then baptize. Oh, must I shows what seems to me extraordinary ability to
part with a good companion in him. summarize a life in one anecdote, to capture the
August 1 Elder Allen Adamson left me for central moral vision and sense of self acquired by
Gabarouse after I blessed him and he blessed one who has lived a true religion, when he concludes

with an experience from many years before in in quality of the content—the moral and philosophi-
1871. He and his wife had been called in 1856 to cal vision—in most recent literature, especially
that same constantly struggling Dixie Mission that poetry, is a direct result of intentional neglect of
Maurine Whipple tells about, and then later to the form. What we must remember is that, all other
even more harsh life in the Mormon Settlement in things being equal, the more skilled and effective the
Spring Valley, Nevada, where their oldest daughter formal elements the better and more powerful
died of typhoid and many suffered great sickness
and hunger. This lifelong servant of the Lord, who
learned on his mission, and never forgot, what it is To the extent we have to
like to be in need and how to give, leaves us with
this final picture of himself: choose between great books
One of my children came in, said that Brother and true religion—and you will
Newton Hall’s folks were out of bread. Had
none that day. I put . . . our flour in sack to discover increasingly, I believe,
send up to Brother Hall’s. Just then Brother
Hall came in. Says I, “Brother Hall, how are
that the choice must sometimes
you out for flour.” “Brother Millett, we have be made—we should rejoice
none.” “Well, Brother Hall, there is some in
that sack. I have divided and was going to that we can choose true reli-
send it to you. Your children told mine that gion, and without apology.
you were out.” Brother Hall began to cry. Said
he had tried others. Could not get any. Went
to the cedars and prayed to the Lord and the
Lord told him to go to Joseph Millett. “Well, the literature. But if the moral goodness or intellec-
Brother Hall, you needn’t bring this back if tual truth of the author’s vision is flawed, the for-
the Lord sent you for it. You don’t owe me for mal beauty and power will only make the writing
it.” You can’t tell how good it made me feel to more effective for evil—more able to take posses-
know that the Lord knew that there was such sion of the reader. Moreover, the truth and goodness
a person as Joseph Millett. of the author’s vision must be weighed into our
assessment and will sometimes compensate for for-
I have to call that great literature, though, as I’ve mal inadequacy or even give rise to more intuitive
suggested, to do so offends to some degree my for- formal achievements. Especially will this latter hap-
malist training and convictions; so, I have to come pen in unsophisticated and confessional forms like
up with some new criteria and a new ranking of the letters and journals, where the writer is able to proj-
old, some means of judgment and appreciation ect the fundamental and ultimately exemplary qual-
that will recognize that the power of Joseph Millett’s ity of life lived day by day—as Joseph Millett does.
journal derives in large part from the true religion What, then, about you, whom I have character-
that he and his people knew and lived, that will fac- ized, at least potentially, as the new Latter-day Saint
tor in the moral and social truth of the author’s intellectual? How might you generalize what I have
vision and his effect on our own vision as we put said about literature to other great books and ideas
ourselves in his hands as readers. that you are and will be dealing with, in a variety of
Now, don’t misunderstand me; I am not suggest- fields? You must develop your own vision of what,
ing didacticism as an adequate or even good crite- as an intellectual, your contribution to the King-
rion for literature; I’m not advocating a return to dom might be, of how you might love the Lord
the pious moralizing that plagued Victorian litera- as he commanded—with all your mind, as well as
ture. In fact, it could well be argued that the decline your heart, might and strength. You must develop

your own style and your own standards, not with the Spirit, until they help to give to the truths
arrogant indifference to the standards and resources received a more forceful expression, and carry
of the Western intellectual tradition which has it beyond the earlier and cruder stages of its
helped form you, but with the courage to go cre- development.
atively beyond that tradition in finding a way to be
properly loyal to your special gifts and to the President Roberts, of course, is not suggesting
Church and the Restored Gospel. that the intellectual’s task is to create new doctrine,
Let me read you one remarkable manifesto for but rather to take revealed doctrine and give it new
Mormon intellectuals, one with which some of you formulations that will relate to the changing world
are familiar and which I think ought to inspire and we live in, that will enable us, for instance, to more
give some direction to us all. This is B. H. Roberts, effectively criticize our flawed social, political, artis-
member of the First Council of Seventy, writing in tic and intellectual environment by using the
1906 in an interesting context: In creating a course great germ-truths of
of study for the Church’s Seventies, he had pro- the gospel. We need to
posed a new and more naturalistic understanding respond, affirming where
of the manner in which Joseph Smith may have we can, denying where we
used divine instruments in translating the Book must, to such things as
of Mormon. He received many letters challenging the women’s liberation
or agreeing with his theory, and a lively exchange movement, which is sig-
with his critics was printed in the Improvement nificantly altering our
Era. The following appears near the end of one of perspectives and lives in
his responses: this country, or to the
twentieth-century sense
I believe “Mormonism” affords opportu- of the challenge of evil,
nity . . . for thoughtful disciples who will not focused in the holocaust
be content with merely repeating some of its in which six million Jews
truths, but will develop its truths; and enlarge were destroyed, an event
it by that development. Not half—not one- which has destroyed
hundredth part—not a thousandth part of that much faith in our world
which Joseph Smith revealed to the Church because for many it calls
has yet been unfolded, either to the Church or into serious question the
to the world. The work of the expounder has intentions and nature of
scarcely begun. The Prophet planted by teach- a supposedly good and
ing the germ-truths of the great dispensation all-powerful God. We
of the fullness of times. The watering and the have the resources in the gospel to respond pro-
weeding is going on, and God is giving foundly to these challenges, both for our own
the increase, and will give it more abundantly people and for others.
in the future as more intelligent discipleship What am I saying? As a first principle for Mor-
shall obtain. The disciples of “Mormonism,” mon intellectuals, you should know and use your
growing discontented with the necessarily own great intellectual traditions and the resources
primitive methods which have hitherto pre- of your own true religion, before you get too
vailed in sustaining the doctrine, will yet take impressed with the great books and great ideas
profounder and broader views of the great from other sources. Know and use them both, in
doctrines committed to the Church; and, constant dialogue.
departing from mere repetition, will cast them As a second principle, I call you to a proper sense
in new formulas; cooperating in the works of of self-consciousness as intellectuals and a loyalty

to each other and to your own loose community evidence of your own degree of disloyalty to the
within the Church, but only as part of, and ulti- Mormon intellectual tradition and community and
mately second to, your commitment to full com- your lack of awareness, I ask how many of you have
munion with the full Church. Consider a young read Juanita Brooks and Leonard Arrington as well
Mormon intellectual, a college teacher in a small as Bruce Catton and Samuel Eliot Morison; Parley
ward that badly needs leadership. He has been in Pratt’s Key to the Science of Theology and Sterling
the ward a number of years but has had no signifi- McMurrin’s Theological Foundations of the Mormon
cant effect on it, because his career is apparently Religion as well as Karl Barth and C. S. Lewis and
more important to him. He once agreed to serve as Nels Ferré; Joseph Smith’s Lectures on Faith as well
bishop, but insisted in advance on limiting his serv- as Paul Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith; Lowell Bennion as
ice to a certain period, served efficiently and well well as Martin Buber; The Giant Joshua as well
enough to show how much difference he really as Giants in the Earth or Main Street; A Believing
could make, and then returned to his scholarship People: The Literature of the Latter-day Saints, edited
and teaching and to semi-activity. He will likely by Professors Cracroft and Lambert of BYU’s Eng-
succeed fairly well in his scholarship and teaching, lish department, as well as the Norton anthologies
but he has failed to serve the Lord with his gift— of literature? Do you subscribe to Dialogue, Expo-
and he may truly have lost his soul, and his family’s nent II, and BYU Studies as well as Encounter, the
future, for that mess of honors and publications. New York Review of Books, or Scientific American?
Many of you will be called into similar situations Will you read Sunstone as well as Harper’s or Psy-
where you might strengthen a branch or ward—by chology Today? The past generations have been a
the natural opportunities all over the world that time of seed planting, of struggle and mistakes and
will come to you, in academic life, business, gov- losses. You can nurture and harvest what we have
ernment, etc., because of your intellectual and done if you will and can profit from our experience.
other gifts, or perhaps by the whisperings of the You can be more Christian, better Saints than we
Spirit in your heart, as I have felt, or even by direct have been both helping and sustaining each other
call from the Lord’s servants. May you meet the in the inevitable clashes you will have with uncom-
challenge—the opportunity provided by the Lord— prehending or unsympathetic authority and with
better than this young intellectual I have described. what you might consider ignorance or low-
My generation and the previous one have in browism, in the Church as well as outside it. You
many ways failed to meet the standard I am setting can also act to reduce those clashes and their
for you; I call you to join us in going beyond our consequences by working loyally within the
failures and even our few successes. As one measure Church both serving humbly in all its functions
of our failure, I ask you to name those thinkers and and moving wisely and courageously to increase
writers who are now willing and able to appear in understanding and acceptance of the role and con-
all four of our periodicals for expression of ideas, tribution of the intellectual.
Exponent II, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Since the intellectual endeavor is always easy to
BYU Studies, and The Ensign. I ask you to reject the misunderstand and tends by its very nature—its
labels of this previous generation that have frag- emphasis on analysis, criticism, on ventures into
mented our intellectual community and to some the unknown—to threaten and alienate, you must
extent the larger Church—I mean labels like find ways to show that, in the great phrase from the
“orthodox” and “unorthodox,” “liberal” and “con- 121st section of the Doctrine and Covenants,
servative.” These are Gentile terms and have no “your faithfulness is stronger than the cords of
place in a community of the Saints, if used to hold death.” Your gift will make you inescapably aware
oneself apart and reject others from fellowship, love of problems in the Church, and thus the burden of
and forgiveness. And as one measure of a danger change will be on you, because others, often those
for failure that you may already be slipping into committing the errors, can’t see what is “wrong.”

What you can do about such problems is not leave, Be loyal to your peers; learn to help them and your-
desert, turn the Church over to those who in your self find your place in the Kingdom. Be courageous
point of view are perverting it, nor to remain and honest. God does not need your lies, even your
within only to withdraw spiritually through self- shading of the truth, to build up His Kingdom.
righteousness. You must reach out in love, trying to Our history, our theology, our present selves do not
help—and also trying to learn through your coop- need to be censored or dressed up in false clothes or
eration and common service, from the perspective cosmetics. Remember your own inclination to sin,
and commitments of others with different gifts to arrogance, to lack of proper appreciation of the
than your intellectual gift, including learning to see different but equally valuable gifts of those who
your own faults, such as lack of courage, perhaps, aren’t intellectuals. Remember the scriptural warn-
or lack of whole-souled commitment, failings ing about milk before meat and not leading the
which may be, in the long run, more destructive innocent astray; remember the Apostle Paul’s humble
than the ones you naturally see in others. example of not eating the food offered to idols, not
wanting to do anything that might offend his
brother who might not understand, even though
You must develop your he knew it was something harmless for himself.
And remember the simplest, clearest and most
own style and your own stan- effective formula for balancing faith and reason,
given by Elder Marion D. Hanks, an intellectual
dards . . . with the courage who knows from experience: Search the scriptures,
to go creatively beyond that seek the Lord in mighty prayer, and serve faithfully
in whatever Church calling comes to you.
tradition in finding a way to With what power I have, my power as your
be properly loyal to your special brother in Christ and the power of the priesthood
we share, I bless you. May you succeed where too
gifts and to the Church and many of us have not and even go beyond where we
have succeeded. May you be more self-confident,
the Restored Gospel. more accepting of the gift God has given you. At
the same time may you be more loyal, both to your
own intellectual tradition as Latter-day Saints and
Be true to your special gift. Read the great books also to the true revealed principles and practices
and learn to be critical of them. Learn to do with- that have informed the lives of those who have
out the agreement or approval of everyone in the built that tradition. And may you be, above all,
world or even in the Church. Another great speech committed to living such lives, loving and blessing
from A Man for All Seasons is More’s response to your brothers and sisters with your gift, acting
Richard Rich, an ambitious young intellectual who bravely to communicate its values to them and
ultimately betrays More, and loses his soul by sell- freely forgiving and asking forgiveness when your
ing out to that ambition. More, who intuits his exercise of your gifts is misunderstood or mistaken.
problem and probable future, has told him to be In these ways, and in others that He may help us
satisfied with being a teacher; he can be a fine one. discover, I ask the Lord to bless us all, in order that
Rich asks who would know it if he were, and More we might use his gift of intelligence as he would
replies, “You, your students, your friends, God. Not want us to.
a bad public that.” Be satisfied with such a public.

L E T T E R shorten, my mind besieged by woe and wonder.”

I need you to help make sense of it all, like you
Beyond the Wheat, Behind the Veil always have. I miss you. But I feel lucky I got to
know you both as a daughter and friend and stu-
By Jane England dent. That even though you were so generous with
yourself—your thoughts and time—with so many
Dear Dad, others, I felt we had our own time. Thank you for
I hope this gets to you. I may end up really carry- that. And thank you for giving us the gift of getting
ing on a dialogue with myself rather than with you, to nurse you the past few months. It’s been an
but I need to try to talk somehow about all that’s amazing journey.
going on these past weeks, since you haven’t been Love,
able to speak. So I’m taking a leap of faith, like you Jane
always advised, and hoping for a response. Jennifer’s P.S. I have a confession. We found a diary you
been writing a journal about you every day for wrote a few years ago in London. I read a part
months, and I think that’s helped her deal with all of about a vivid dream you had, describing the next
this. I haven’t been able to—maybe I’m in denial. life and seeing Grandpa again. I hope you don’t
I’ve always liked the way you’ve been able to express mind—but, is it what you expected it to be?
even the most personal feelings in writing and
speaking—I think that’s why so many people feel Dear Jane,
like they’re your best friend (you’d be amazed at the The phone at the house has been constantly
e-mails that have come in with stories about your busy, so hopefully you’re checking the e-mail for
involvement in their lives), or your daughters’ quib- Charlotte and you’ll get this. A rough journey, but
ble over who’s your favorite, even up until the end. I’m fine. It was wonderful to see Mom and Dad
Which is what I want to talk to you about—the (tell Doug the fishing holes here are fine), and
end. I keep on wanting, even now, for a different Josephine and Bea, Leonard and Lowell (we’re
one—a happy one. Like how I’ve always told you I teaching a class together on service this fall). My
feel about the ending of King Lear. I reread your essay efforts at getting a writing group together are com-
“Shakespeare and the Atonement.” I know dramati- ing along. So far Shakespeare and Melville are in,
cally it’s more effective for Lear to die, holding with Dickinson (still a recluse) a maybe. I have to
Cordelia in his arms, pleading with her to live, rather admit that some of my assumptions about Will,
than have the happy ending the Victorians insisted (as I now call him), were a bit off, but I think he’s
on performing. But it’s too much. I want Edgar to coming around on my ideas in that essay on the
save Cordelia’s life, and Lear’s heart not to break—for
them to have more time together after reconciling. I
want another chance. Like what Shakespeare offers
us in A Winter’s Tale. A resurrection after the death.
A family together at the end, and not with a 16-year
wait. I loved the gift of our time together these last
few months. Perhaps death does teach us to love. You
dealt with it with such grace.
I also reread your essay “Enduring,” and thought
of Edgar’s encouragement to his blind father in his
time of wanting to die: “Men must endure / Their
going hence, even as their coming hither. / Ripeness
is all. Come on.” But how? Like you in the essay,
“I lie awake sometimes now, as the nights begin to

atonement you mention. I approve of the mission My father’s flesh appears the same,
you’ve chosen for the Eugene England Memorial, Brown clay so burned by summers
“Making Peace, Continuing Dialogue.” Seems a bit In the wheat that still the hat line
pretentious to have my own motto, but I hope Shows lighter into the failing hair.
good things come of it for encouraging Mormon
studies. The submission for sainthood is held up in But more than half the third finger
committee—apparently I’m short a miracle or two. On the left is gone, the fourth clipped
I like your reference to Lear. I guess I did feel By the same saw, and crooked just right
a little like a king losing his throne and mind, in a To hook the twine for tying sacks.
way—and yet, at the same time, finding myself. And on the right two toes removed
You all played the part of my fools—comforting (Years later) against the constant pain
me, humoring me, even bullying me (with medi- From being crushed by the big roan
cines). But, like in Lear, everything else was stripped As she stepped and turned to leave the stall.
away—logic, fairness, boundaries, ego . . . like
Lear, though blinded, I learned to see it, feelingly. A wedge of bone, ploughed from the skull
I’ve attached my poem, “Kinsman,” and a sec- When the derrick fork pinned him to the stack.
tion of “Two Trains and a Dream,” the last poem I The muscles slack, the teeth reduced—
wrote before I got sick, which should answer some The body’s edges worn away.
of your other questions about what I’m experienc-
ing. I’ll write more later. Am meeting Wallace Steg- The tabernacle shrinks and sinks
ner for lunch. You and I never did finish reading Toward the earth, and still the face
Crossing to Safety together. Tell me what you think Juts toward the east, the hands grasp the wheel
of the ending. And I’ll send on some of my current As they did the morning I was eight:
poems for your feedback.
Love to you and all, We drove from town just as the sun
Dad Squinted down Left Fork into our eyes.
We stopped the truck and crossed the swale
Jane is the youngest of Gene’s daughters. She has done To the highest ridge on the lower field—
graduate studies in English at BYU and international
development at London School of Economics. She is The stalks still green, the heads just formed,
currently on a development project in Hanoi, Vietnam. Beards now turning silver-tan,
Eugene England’s poem “Two Trains and a Dream” is Still and moist in the windless dawn,
forthcoming in Dialogue. Closing calmly as we walked the rows.
Plucking random heads, we counted and chewed
P O E M The milky kernels. And then he knelt,
Still grasping the wheat, in fierce repose.
My Kinsman I stood and watched his face. He said:
By Eugene England “Thou art the Prince who holds my heart
And gives my body power to make.
If we live in our holy religion and let the spirit The fruit is thine: this wheat, this boy;
reign, it will not become dull and stupid, but as Protect the yield that we may live!”
the body approaches dissolution the spirit takes a And fear thrilled me on that hushed ground,
firmer hold on that enduring substance behind So that I grew beyond the wheat
the veil. And watched my father take his hold
—Brigham Young On what endures behind the veil.

E D I T O R I A L separated by 70 years representing a wide range of

experience, styles, quality, attitudes toward the cul-
Room to Be ture and the church behind the culture, represent-
ing people as varied as Linda Adams and Cathy
By Harlow S. Clark, Poetry Editor Wilson, Gideon Burton and Darlene Young, Mildred
Barthel and Paul Sexton, Dennis Clark and Michael
I opened my e-mail recently to find an elegy Collings, Bessie Clark and Carol Clark Ottesen,
from Dixie Partridge, an expression of life and Robert Christmas and Lance Larsen, Gina Clark
death fiercely overlapping. It was a poem about a and Sharlee Glenn, Susan Howe and Rodello Hunter.
friend dying while Partridge was far south at her Let me restate this. In the small world of Mor-
daughter’s wedding. The poem reminded me of mon publishing any publication is likely to receive
Eugene England and the sad but pleasurable task of submissions from across the culture. Perhaps this
putting together poetry for his memorial issue. (As literary world is so small that there are no second-
I write this I am listening to a broadcast of A rate venues, that our writers publish where they
Prairie Home Companion from St. Olaf College, can. Indeed, Mormon publishing is small enough
where Gene once served as Dean of Academic that some writers (like Eugene England and Mar-
Affairs). In considering Gene’s influence on Mor- garet Young) have published not only in all the big
mon letters, I reread an editorial I wrote last year magazines and little ones, but with three major
about this time, called “Room to Be Lousy,” sug- publishers, Deseret Book, Bookcraft, and Signature.
gesting that little magazines play the same role for That is remarkable, able to bear remark, because
writers that small clubs play for stand-up comics, there are people within Mormon culture who see
giving them a place to practice their craft, polish these publishers as incompatible.
their material. One of the poets in that issue Let me restate it a different way. Maybe people
remonstrated with me gently at the annual AML publishing everywhere represents the desire for one
gathering. Yes, she knew I was reacting against culture and many songs, not a culture fractured
clichés about excellence. Yes, she knew I was wel- into discordant voices. Maybe that 70 years repre-
coming writers who might be unpolished but have sents the 70 kine, fat and lean, or the seventy fam-
good words anyway and needed a place to speak. ilies that came off the ark, one for each of the
Yes, she knew . . . yes, yes, yes, she knew all that. seventy disciples Jesus would later send out, or the
But why didn’t I say something to dispel the sense 70 voices (times seventy times seventy) passionate
that I see IRREANTUM as a second-rate venue? in wanting to write about their Lord and King,
It didn’t occur to me. The Mormon publishing king of all that is virtuous, lovely, of good report or
world is small enough that some writers, like Dixie praiseworthy. One kingdom, one culture, many
Partridge, Bruce Jorgensen, Emma Lou Thayne, songs and voices.
Marden Clark, Lavina Fielding Anderson, Richard Eugene England had a distinct voice and a pas-
Cracroft, Linda Sillitoe, Dennis Clark, Laurel sionate song, which he often raised to praise other
Thatcher Ulrich, Doug Thayer, Carol Lynn Pear- voices, and other voices returned the praise and
son, and others including Margaret Young and prayers and love. “I enjoyed your article about
Elouise Bell and Eugene England, have published Eugene England,” a friend told me at church Sep-
everywhere (or nearly): The Ensign, The Friend, tember 30. He had read it in that morning’s paper,
Dialogue, BYU Studies, Sunstone, This People, Inscape a few weeks after I’d turned it in. “Back in the days
(interviewed or published), Exponent II, Weber when I used to attend Sunstone I always went to
Studies, Wasatch Review International (when it was hear him speak.” “I miss him terribly,” I said. Gene
active), and IRREANTUM. And I’ve received submis- was one of those who refused to see the culture
sions, solicited work, or published work from people divided, and my friend saw that, said how he
as varied as Sapphire Hodges and Marden Clark— admired Gene’s “way of upholding the patriarchy

of the church” while speaking eloquently about the guilelessly? Both wonderful words, naive suggesting
needs of women and others who were not part of the self-taught (“study it out in your mind”) art
the patriarchy. of a Grandma Moses, and guileless suggesting
Nathaniel’s purity of heart, that Israelite of old
like unto Edward Partridge in whom there was
Gene spoke peace to the no guile.
Gene commented occasionally on what happens
factions within our culture, when the naive sensibility—the simple desire to
express personal spiritual experience—meets up
denying by the breadth of his with the needs of an institution. Seems he had a
publishing the adequacy of walnut tree and when he was putting in the foun-
dation for his house he cut the root too much, or
our divisions, affirming by the too deeply, and the tree got sick. Like pioneers
breadth of his words a desire blessing sick oxen or a branch president blessing an
ailing Chevrolet he blessed the walnut, then wrote
to bring everyone within the a poem about it and sent it to the Ensign, who sent
it back, for “doctrinal reasons.”
compass of the Savior’s arms.
Black Walnut
With his voice and with his hands, Gene spoke
peace to the factions within our culture, denying by Fine wood that darkens toward the core
the breadth of his publishing the adequacy of our And complex leaves that come late
divisions, affirming by the breadth of his words a But bush dark and high to ease the Utah summer,
desire to bring everyone within the compass of the The taste of desert in our bones.
Savior’s arms. When Utah Valley State College Last spring we built a tall old house
planted a memorial London plane sycamore for On the site of an older fallen homestead
Gene on October 3, 2001, Sam Rushforth told how But crowding near the luminescent shade
he and Gene had taught together twenty-five years We cut the roots, dropped huge limbs.
earlier under an NEH grant, and Gene was both-
ered by some of Sam’s ideas about God. “I can help By fall the leaves browned branch by branch
you with that, Sam. Come to my office.” “Give it Hung without dropping in crippled grasps.
up,” Rushforth replied. Then, just before his illness I watched the dying through the lowering sun
Gene said again, “I can help you with some of your and knew
notions about God, Sam.” “Oh for hell’s sake, That fifty feet of life was mine
Gene, give it up.” “I’ll never give up on you, Sam.”
Later that evening as the first Eugene England To bless. My hands upon the trunk,
memorial lecturer Laurel Thatcher Ulrich echoed I prayed the Holy Spirit rootward,
the story, telling how Gene had encouraged her to Called the sap into Christ’s fluorescent love,
write personal essays and not only history, how she And left the tree to winter rest.
still hears his voice encouraging her. “Perhaps even Now come the leaves in early May,
yet he hasn’t given up on me.” Springing in sharp green shoots, the high sun
Gene gave his encouragement liberally, to his Proving them against retreating death, and I
culture as well as its writers, and naively (as does Will dress the garden with my life.
Tom Rogers), not seeking to offend or, necessarily,
to challenge, but to share. Or is the word I want —Eugene England

Gene wanted so much to heal, so much to proclaim noted the discord in the word atonal, the sugges-
peace that I’ve wondered how he would have tion of twelve tone music (one tone for each
responded to the aftermath of September 11, 2001. apostle?), the suggestion of discordant truth about
Surely he would have said some words about mak- the a-tone-ment, that though Christ spread His
ing peace. Perhaps he would have once more arms on the cross to draw all unto Him, we can
quoted words he loved from President Kimball: only be drawn into those arms if we take effort, if
We are a warlike people, easily distracted we walk toward them.
from our assignment of preparing for the And Eugene England wanted that, wanted us to
coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, walk toward our Savior with the best works and
we commit vast resources to the fabrication of work we could present, with the best tones we
gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, mis- could sing, discordant or harmonious. I don’t know
siles, fortifications—and depend on them for that Gene would have liked these words—I suspect
protection and deliverance. When threatened, he would have been embarrassed at a memorial
we become anti-enemy instead of pro-king- issue of a magazine—but given his generosity
dom of God; we train a man in the art of war toward younger writers, I hope he would be pleased
and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of to share some space with them in words about giv-
Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting younger writers a place to practice, develop,
ing the Savior’s teaching: and encourage yet younger writers.
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse
you, do good to them that hate you, and pray
for them which despitefully use you, and per- P O E M
secute you;
“That ye may be the children of your The Year’s Last Banquets
Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:44–45)
—Spencer W. Kimball, “The False Gods There are only two or three human stories. . . .
We Worship,” Ensign 6 (June 1976): 6 they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if
they had never happened before.
Gene took seriously that assignment of loving, —Willa Cather
blessing, praying for others. He wanted us to be at
one, reminding us that the word atonement lends The soil-hill at an empty gravesite:
itself to mispronunciation, the silent e making the pungent and dark as rye,
o long. At-one-ment it should be. His awareness of and faint green grasses stretch oddly
that word gives further resonance to a poem I’ve across December ground like pasture.
been thinking about a lot since September 11, Then the funeral procession
Marden Clark’s “November 22, 1963—and After.” longing through streets. . . . lines of bright flowers
“It’s the same country I step out into this after- and dark clothing.
noon,” begins the poem, and the second stanza At the dinner following:
begins, “I had thought to find it all changed.” warm soups and breads;
Opposites that keep our world whole, dramatic doughs risen overnight in the ovens
change and constancy. Not a new idea, simply a of friends, family zeroed-in
way of expressing that idea that kept drawing my from every grade of winter.
thoughts. But there’s an added resonance with Outside the sky streaks, taut;
Gene’s concerns in the poem’s closing comment an ice-crystal star moves in
about atonal truth. There’s a delicious pun in the with its cold.
phrase. The poem was originally published in The • • •
Utah Music Educator, whose readers would have

Three days ago, this death, P O E M

and my daughter and I far south
at her marriage: those forty looped buttons November 22, 1963—and After
down sleeves and bodice,
angled mirrors in the bride’s room It’s the same country I step out into this afternoon:
reflecting her pearl gown endlessly Thanksgiving haze still discourages the sun;
back . . . or perhaps it was forward . . . The chill that has already seized flowers and fruit
but a wrenching in the chest Still crisps my cheeks and hands.
that turned everything fragile Still I walk on ordered walks past ordered lawns
is what I’ll remember. and homes.
Our friend’s heart went tight
in its failure those moments; and what I had thought to find it all changed,
should we have known as evening moved on Even the sun suspended in some awful parenthesis
and we cut the spiral cake and received And darkness everywhere.
our guests along a calm Pacific,
long lines of well-wishers, But no. Still slants the sun through that thanks-
the night air lavender giving haze.
and shimmering, the moon Still falls the rain over Chicago streets,
a loaf of light in the trees. Still falls the roar
Above the Dallas crowds.
—Dixie Partridge Still fall three rounds still trying to make report
Of another setting star.
Dixie Partridge is currently seeking a publisher for her But no lilacs till spring, no thrush to sing,
third book, Not about Dreams. Her first, Deer in To sing me meaning in death.
the Haystacks, came out from Ahsahta Press in 1984.
Watermark was published by Saturday Press (New The right! all cried. But no, one of the left, alone.
Jersey) in 1991 and won the Eileen W. Barnes award The universe at opposite poles turns in upon itself,
for poetry. Partridge grew up on a Wyoming farm Hate arcs the chasm
homesteaded in the 1880s by her great-grandfather. Closes the circle in a new Inferno,
She received a degree in English from Brigham Young Throws sparks which trace a leaden path.
University. She and her husband have lived for more And he is gone.
than thirty years near the Columbia River in Wash-
ington state, where they have raised their family. Par- It’s the same world I walk out into this afternoon.
tridge currently edits poetry for two journals. The thanksgiving haze still defines the sun.
Those ordered walks and lawns and homes
Still define my town.
But Satan has shifted his haunches down there

(Even Satan is scorched by the heat of this hate).
The embedding ice groans, the universe moans,
Its moorings jarred by the shock.
• • •

Hate pierces, leaving torn ragged flesh. But it sears. T R I B U T E

We feel the cut and tear, the wound gapes.
But the sear has already staunched its flow. Eugene the Guileless
The horror clings, the dumb grief like December’s
last fly. By Richard H. Cracroft
Dante rode Virgil’s back down those mighty
haunches Some individuals embody entire scriptural con-
Through the ice past zero gravity of being cepts. Eugene England, for example, wonderfully
And began the purgatorial climb. illuminates that famous passage of scripture, “No
We might make the same journey power or influence can or ought to be maintained
With inverted boots and an empty saddle by virtue of the priesthood, only by . . . kindness,
On a riderless black stallion—the same journey, and pure knowledge.” Gene’s boundless, Christ-
Alongside seven whites marching with death. like charity, generosity of spirit, and kindness
demonstrated in his life and in his influence upon
Maybe he can—not atone for us (that was His)— all of us who associated with him in the field of
But help us to know the atonal truth: Mormon belles lettres that such “kindness, and pure
That no one, not even He, can finally atone for us. knowledge” indeed “shall greatly enlarge the soul
That is ours. without hypocrisy, and without guile” (D&C
121:41–42).
—Marden J. Clark Eugene England’s guileless nature shaped his lit-
erary criticism and has enlarged his soul—and the
Marden Clark, teacher and gardener, writes the souls of all of us who rubbed shoulders with him.
“Matter Unorganized” column for the Provo Daily In his loving generosity Eugene always (and
Herald. He just started his 61st year of marriage to sometimes maddeningly) assumed only the purest
Bessie Lloyd Soderborg, who says that surely more and best of intentions in others and sought evi-
people have read his columns than anything else he’s dences of such pure intent in their work. In fact,
written. This poem originally appeared in The Utah any differences of literary opinion that I ever had
Music Educator. See Harlow Clark’s reading of it in with Eugene arose from instances where my opin-
his essay herein, “Room to Be.” ion of the poem or story or novel assumed mis-
chievous or even malignant intent on the part of
the author, while Eugene invariably assumed a
lofty, noble, and uplifting intent.
In several instances my (carnal, sensuous, and
T R I B U T E devilish) reading would later be affirmed by the
author as indeed reflecting his original purpose
We love you, Gene. You are to me as unambigu- (yes, I’m being evasive); but in at least one notable
ously and unassumingly fine a person as Hardy’s instance that same author, while confessing earthy
description of a character in “The Woodlanders”: intent, would acknowledge that Gene’s dogged
“He was a good man, and he done good things.” ability to find heavenly intent had elevated the
You’re as close to a living, breathing saint as I’ve in author’s vision and art and altered his intent.
sixty years known—as many of us have ever Eugene was firmly based in his literary opinions,
known. And even better than the saintliness in you, but he was ever open to others’ opinions and kind—
I like the Gene in you. The world is just so much a even to the most wrongheaded student. And while
better place with you in it. he was free in expressing responsible disagreement,
as when he chastens Wallace Stegner for his facile
—Steven C. Walker dismissal of Mormon theology (see his essay in the

2001 issue of Literature and Belief ), Gene was T R I B U T E

scrupulously careful in articulating others’ posi-
tions—sometimes stating those positions better I met Brother England during the summer of
than the individuals themselves. For example, in 1981 while a student at BYU. I had written my first
his brilliant bibliographical essay, “Mormon Litera- play—a drama called Digger concerning young
ture: Progress and Prospects,” in David J. Whit- Joseph Smith, his involvement in money-digging,
taker’s Mormon Americana (1995), Eugene sums up his 1825 trial and his courtship of Emma Hale.
my own discomfiture with some contemporary Controversial stuff—supposedly. But other students
Mormon writing better than I have ever done. In in the theater department loved my script. My
his generous and thoughtful way, he invited many writing teacher that summer, Orson Scott Card,
writers and scholars from across the spectrum of was extremely supportive of my script and sug-
Mormon letters to speak to his Mormon literature gested that I show it to various BYU faculty mem-
classes at BYU and UVSC; and while each of us bers—chief among them was Brother England.
knew that we were being introduced by a monu- I remember walking over to Brother England’s
mental figure in Mormon letters, Eugene made us house early one Sunday evening and being astounded
and his students feel that we and our views were by the energy in his household. The place seemed
important and vital. Through his kindness, friend- filled with family, students, friends. I felt as if I had
ship, and zest for pure knowledge, Eugene England wandered into a scene from a Mormonized version
blessed and changed us all and exemplified the of You Can’t Take It with You. Brother England took
words of the Psalmist, “blessed is the man . . . in a copy of my script to read. He contacted me a
week later and was very supportive in his praise and
whose spirit there is no guile” (Ps. 32:2).
unbelievably helpful in his criticisms. A week or so
later, he asked if he could use my script as required
Richard H. Cracroft, emeritus professor of English at reading in his Mormon literature class during the
Brigham Young University and past president of the following year. I was astounded!
Association for Mormon Letters, has edited antholo- On my birthday the following December,
gies of LDS literature and has spoken and written Brother England gave me a copy of his book
broadly on Mormon literary topics, including his Brother Brigham, with a beautifully written inscrip-
popular book review column in BYU Magazine. tion inside, in which he thanked me for my “under-
standing of Brother Joseph.” That book is one of
my most prized possessions. When Digger won
BYU’s Mayhew Award for Drama the following
spring, I felt this was in no small way due to Brother
England’s influence. I never saw Brother England
after leaving BYU in 1982, but I read about him in
LDS publications. I also enjoyed his own writings
in such periodicals as Sunstone and This People.
For the past two years, I’ve been working on a
novel about the Saints in the 1880s. I looked for-
ward to the day when I could send him a copy of
the manuscript. His artistic insights helped me
with my first attempt at writing; I’m sure that now
I’d glean even more from his insights. Given
Brother England’s integrity, I’d have valued most
highly any opinion—positive or negative—that he
had regarding my literary efforts.
—Rob Lauer

E S S A Y Diversion,” where a falls as the canal divided cre-

ated a spice of danger. Submerged in the rich
Enduring muddy water with a straw for air or lying on the
farm road bridge while it seemed to move back-
By Eugene England ward over the surface flowing just a few feet below,
my mind would flow to a safe world inside me.
First read at an Association for Mormon Letters meet- There was the vacant lot across from Grandma
ing in Boston, June 1982, and subsequently published Hartvigsen’s that grew pepper weeds three feet
in Dialogue (winter 1983) and in Eugene England’s high, dense and fragrant, perfect for making trails
Dialogues with Myself, 1984. and hidden nests. The cottonwood that stood right
at the corner of Grandpa’s barn and could be
Edgar to Gloucester in King Lear: reached from the roof had a large cup where the
. . . Men must endure first branches separated. And there was a little grove
Their going hence, even as their coming hither. of fruit trees, part of the old homestead out on
what we still called the Coffin place. My father
I grew up in a safe valley. The years five through relentlessly consolidated those early 160-acre hold-
twelve, when we are most sensuously attached to ings, each with log cabin, a well, outbuildings, and
the landscape and when, I think, the foundations trees, into large, uninterrupted fields to fit the
of identity are firmly laid, I lived in gardens and economies of the shift from horses to tractors. This
wheatfields. They had been claimed a generation grove was not leveled partly because it was watered,
before from desert knolls and sagebrush flats but along with a lovely line of cottonwoods, by over-
were now constantly fruitful, watered by canals or flow from the town reservoir, built on our northern
sufficient rain for dryland grains and surrounded boundary to hold the stream from Nine Mile. Dad
by low mountains that were protective, inviting, kept Peter Coffin’s old house and barn to store
never fearful. We hiked into the mountains for deer machinery in and we always parked the truck there
and trout to supplement our meat, eaten sparingly and ate our lunch in those trees on that fresh,
from the pigs butchered each fall, or sometimes we grassy bank, adding watercress from the little over-
rode out to look for horses that had strayed and, flow stream and sometimes plums or apples from
once a year, on the Sabbath nearest the 24th of July, the neglected grove.
with all the Sunday School, we went in cars to have The subtlest bliss from such safe and cozy places
classes out of doors and eat a picnic together and came each spring. It was a bliss mostly of the mind
explore those safe canyons of Cherry Creek or Nine because I could only be in such a place occasionally
Mile that brought us our water. and briefly—but my heart yearned, on early May
Even when I found a perfect flint arrowhead and mornings, when the brisk Southern Idaho wind
a large flawed spearhead on one of those picnics, still moved the tops of sagebrush along our fence-
I did not imagine the blood. Instead I thought lines and I could look down as we passed in the
about coming there to live in a rock cave I had truck and see, among the clumps of sage, small
found high in the canyon—perhaps with Dee patches of last year’s dead grasses with just a scatter
Christiansen, my companion in Saturday-long of new blades and a few small flowers coming
Tarzan adventures, perhaps with Margene Ware, through. I knew those places were warm and fra-
my first serious love (moral and practical details grant, humming with tentative insect life.
absolutely did not intrude into such fantasies). When I would sometimes, on a Saturday, walk
I wanted safe and secret places even within that out to the “ranch” (as we called it, though any live-
safe valley. And I found or made them. The canal stock that might justify that name were gone), car-
was one. It moved slowly along the east side of the rying an extra dessert for Dad’s lunch or a hoe to
valley, no more than two feet deep except at “The work at the potato patch we planted during the war

by a spring in the lower 320, I could sometimes went off forty miles to Pocatello late one night in
stop and hide for a time under the sagebrush out of Grandpa’s new hump-backed Mercury, leaving me
the wind. I could crush the small gray-green, velvet in Grandma’s care, and came back after a week with
leaves from the strangely dead-looking branches until my baby sister. Or when I sat in Grandpa’s lap,
the air was sharp with sage or hold my fingers close playing with his gold watch chain and listening to
until the smell went back into my throat. There the strange, emphatic voices emerging from the
would be one or two mild yellow buttercups, with static of his Philco. Prophets, I was told, at general
five waxed petals, concavely shaped as if still ready conference in Salt Lake City. But even the Second
to close quickly around the orange center. And by World War seemed far away, unconnected, intrud-
late May a few wild honeysuckles, the blossoms ing only for moments when I rushed outside at a
washed pink and detachable, made to be plucked sudden roar one overcast morning to see a strange,
off delicately and delicately set between the lips so double-bodied, P-38 fighter plane just passing over
the tube under the blossom could be sucked for the our house, hedgehopping down the valley toward
smallest, most delicate taste, deep on the tongue. Pocatello under the low clouds. Or when the oldest
But most of all I was drawn to secret places I Bickmore boy was shot through the chest by a
made, like the huge lilac clump at Dee’s grand- sniper on Okinawa and came home to tell about it
mother’s, where we had cut out the inner branches in sacrament meeting.
for our hiding place and could strip to our shorts,
creep out and run wild across the lawn and garden, Hamlet to his friend:
through the barns, and even sneak into her cellar There are more things in heaven and earth,
for a can of tuna fish and retreat through branches Horatio,
to lie still as she walked by, calling Dee. Or the Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
places I fashioned at the back of our woodpile But come—
where I could be completely hidden and watch
crazy old Brother Nelson do his chores, mumbling My father knew of larger things than our valley,
passages of scripture to himself, and where I hid the and he included me easily. He had left home at sev-
revolver a friend, who had stolen it from home, enteen, learned to paint the fine interiors of Union
gave me to keep. I would nestle in among the logs Pacific passenger cars, and lived alone, rising early
and boards, hold the gun in both hands and think to read the Book of Mormon and The Discourses of
about using it to kill deer when I took my mate off Brigham Young. When he spoke of Nephi and Alma
to Cherry Creek. One day it was gone. and Moroni or of Joseph and Brigham and Heber
Our valley began just outside the rim of the I felt his love for me. When he said Christ had
Great Basin, at the point we called Red Rock, appeared to him in a dream and told him the Book
where the waters of ancient Lake Bonneville had of Mormon was true, I knew it had happened. And
once worn through the Nugget sandstone forma- as I rode with him to do his share on the Church’s
tion and drained out into what became the Port- welfare farm or to the store or the wheat elevator
neuf and Snake rivers, leaving a mile-wide scar and or the machinery shop or from neighbor to neigh-
finally a slough moving slowly through cattailed bor, to borrow and return, to ask for help and
bottom lands that gave us our name, Marsh Valley. give, to buy and sell, I saw him doing the truth
The slough provided poor fishing—mostly chubs and felt safe.
and suckers—but attracted great flights of geese in One June dawn we drove toward the reservoir
the fall that swept up to our stubble fields to feed farm for a day of weeding the fallow ground. He
at night and moved to the north in huge, con- would drive the tractor. I was old enough to ride
stantly reforming wedges. I may have sensed from the twenty-four-foot rod weeders, jumping off to
them that our valley was part of something larger, tromp away stubble as it accumulated around the
but surely I knew so when my parents suddenly goosenecks and rods. That morning, as he often

did, he stopped the truck and took me to see how patterns in the night and stretched away beyond
the wheat was heading out in that lower 320. We my comprehension.
kept our feet between the rows as we walked out on But one evening there began to come moments
a ridge, I just learning how to imitate his motion of when I could feel moving into my mind, like a
plucking a stalk to examine critically its forming physical presence, the conviction that all was quite
kernels. He asked me to kneel with him, and he absurd. It made no sense at all that anything should
spoke, I thought to Christ, about the wheat. He exist. Something like nausea, but deeper and fright-
pledged again, as I had heard him at home, to give ening, would grow in my stomach and chest but
all the crop, all beyond our bare needs, to build the also at the core of my spirit, progressing like vertigo
kingdom, and he claimed protection from drought until in desperation I must jump up or talk sud-
and hail and wind. I felt, beside and in me, some- denly of trivial things to break the spell and regain
thing, a person, it seemed, something more real balance. And since that time I am always aware that
than the wheat or the ridge or the sun, something that feeling, that extreme awareness of the better
warm like the sun but warm inside my head and claim of nothingness, lies just beyond the barriers
chest and bones, someone like us but strange, of my busy mind and will intrude when I let it.
thrilling, fearful but safe. Much later, of course, I learned about existential
anxiety and the Christian sense of total depend-
ence, of contingency, and I heard about the ques-
My own experience with tion Paul Tillich’s daughter asked him, “Why is
there something and not nothing?” But I believe
God and this universe these are quite different things from what I feel. My
has produced not only own deep fear seems unique, precisely because of
those unique Mormon beliefs that have given me
dependence but identity. my greatest joy and security. It is one thing to won-
der, as traditional Christians do, why an absolute,
perfectly self-sufficient God would bother to create
How is it then that sometime in those years I me and this strange, painful universe out of noth-
first felt my own deepest, most hopeless, fear, the ing, to feel the proximate mysteries of this “vale of
fear of being itself? It is a fear I have never been able tears” but also an utter dependence on an ultimate
to write about until now nor imagined anyone else being who can indeed reduce me and the universe
knew about or could understand, a fear so funda- to nothingness and thus painlessness again—or to
mental and overwhelming that I feel I must literally feel Albert Camus’s desperate bitterness about a
shake myself from it when it comes or go mad. And universe that has produced beings like us, with our
yet I felt it as a child in that safe valley. I’ve forgot- constant yearning for meaning and permanence,
ten, perhaps blocked away, the time it first came. but which seems to answer with absurdity and
Probably it was during one of those long summer annihilation.
evenings when Bert Wilson and I would sleep out My own experience with God and this universe
on our large open front lawn and watch the stars has produced not only dependence but identity.
come. The stars in that unpolluted sky were warm I have felt confirmed in my own separate, neces-
and close and dense and, as I began to learn from sary, and unquenchable being. I had no beginning,
my father, who taught early morning seminary, not even in God. And the restored gospel provides
about the worlds without number God had created the best answers—the most adventuresome and
and that we had always existed and always would, joyful—to the basic questions about how I came to
destined to explore and create forever in that infi- be here and about my present and future possibili-
nite universe, it was exciting, deeply moving at ties. But there finally is no answer to the question
times, to look into those friendly fires that formed of why and how I exist in my essential being. I just

always have, and that is where my mind balks in

horror, perhaps at its own limitations. I just cannot
imagine how it could come to be that there is exis-
tence or essence—how there could be something
instead of nothing. And the answer of Joseph
Smith, that it did not come to be but simply always
was, is marvelous— until I let the horror intrude.
Joseph Smith to the family of King Follett:

All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into
the world are susceptible of enlargement.
I know a young couple whose two-year old boy,
because of cerebral palsy, is a spastic quadriplegic,
apparently blind and deaf. His twin brother is per-
fectly healthy. As a new high councilman, I gave a
sacrament meeting sermon at my assigned ward on
the grace of Christ, his unconditional love for sin-
ners. Susan, the mother, came up, grateful for what
I’d said and wanting to talk more about how she
could cope with her struggles and feelings, her guilt
about her son. What neglect had caused the fever
in the hospital that produced the palsy? Or, if a
genetic “accident” was to blame, why had God
allowed—or caused—it? Why had priesthood
blessings that promised recovery not yet been ful-
filled? How could she go on holding Allyn almost
twenty-four hours a day to keep him from bracing
back and choking? How could she be forgiven for
her anger at him, striking him, sometimes wanting
him dead? I felt she needed most to rest and offered disagreed, accepted some things. I offered our fam-
to hold Allyn while she had an undisturbed Sunday ily to care for her twins occasionally so she and her
School hour with her husband. Then we talked husband could get away to rest and to renew their
later in the afternoon. own relationship, which had, she said, suffered.
I wasn’t much comfort. I could testify about Recently in her sacrament service, I heard Susan
Christ’s understanding and unconditional accept- sing “I Walked Today Where Jesus Walked” and
ance of her and about the real benefits to her son of more recently I heard her give a Spiritual Living
gaining a body, however imperfect now, and of feel- lesson in Relief Society on apostasy, talking forth-
ing her love while he lived, however dimly. But I rightly about her own struggles with personal apos-
could not tell Susan I found Allyn’s trouble a bless- tasy when priesthood blessings seemed to fail and
ing in disguise or evidence he was an especially when she felt unacceptable to God and unable to
righteous spirit who had volunteered for such trou- continue to endure. She warned her sisters to con-
ble or that he would be compensated in some extra stant vigilance. I feel warned of two things: that
way in the next life—that is, beyond the marvelous holding little Allyn while Susan has an hour with
opportunity to grow and be tested in a normal her husband is at least as important as my words
body during the millennium. She listened, wept, were and that she sings and teaches and bears her

testimony more maturely and movingly now—and trying to a believer in moral agency is the single
also continues to suffer while she endures. extra Y in men, which produces a tall, powerful
In an interdisciplinary colloquium for freshmen body and impulsive behavior that easily becomes
I teach with four colleagues, I’ve been learning about antisocial. Victims of this chance occurrence in cell
genetic problems that produce malformations in division (1 in 1000 births) have forty times the
children. As the sex cells divide, the complicated chance of others to end up in a penitentiary.
process of meiosis, by which the chromosomes are One syndrome, designated 5p monosomy (a miss-
reduced from 48 to 24, sometimes produces bro- ing part of chromosome 5), produces some facial
ken and reattached parts—translations—or dupli- and bone deformations and very severe retardation
cations in some eggs and sperm cells and, of course, but not high fatality. Its deformation of the larynx
missing or partial chromosomes in their divided produces a distinctive cry, like that of a kitten, which
opposites. Many of these accidents (statistics all gives the syndrome its more common name, “cri du
nicely predictable) are lethal, resulting after fertil- chat”—cry of the cat. What do parents endure
ization in miscarriages or stillbirths, but some pro- when they first hear that cry from their newborn—
duce living children. Down’s syndrome children are and then as the years go and the cry diminishes and
the result of such translations, but there are also a characteristically wide-eyed, almost jawless face
many others, rare but real, hidden away from our develops in a child who will live long, without lan-
usual experience. The frequencies are surprising— guage, with an IQ under twenty. If the figure 1 in
1 in every 700 births is Down’s syndrome (now 50,000 births is right there must be over 4,000 sets
being called trisomy 21 to clearly identify the prob- of such parents in this country, perhaps 80,000 in
lem and the chromosomes—a duplication or a seg- the world.
ment attachment to chromosome number 21, A few months ago we read, with surprising calm
making it “three-bodied”). Jean de Grouchy’s Clin- it seems to me, of the parents in Bloomington,
ical Atlas of Human Chromosomes, which is amply Indiana, who were able to get medical and legal
illustrated with photographs of the victims of chro- support for a decision not to perform the difficult
mosomal aberrations, is a kind of chamber of hor- but feasible surgery needed to save their Down’s
rors of deformed, doomed children: cleft palates in syndrome child—designated “Infant Doe.” Their
Patau’s syndrome (1 in 5000 births), impossible lawyer called it “treatment to do nothing.” Colum-
flexion deformities in Edwards’s syndrome (1 in nist George Will called it homicide. Since the case
8000). In some texts a refrain comes at the end of apparently would not have been filed—probably
each description: “the mean survival time is about not allowed—if the child had not had Down’s syn-
21/2 months, 90 percent of all cases dying within a drome, the logic of the decision suggests that par-
year” of birth, or “mean survival 3 months, 80 per- ents have the right to kill through neglect—and
cent dying in the first year.” Is it a relief to know why not more directly?—a child that they decide
that most such terribly deformed children do not is a huge trouble. And surely, then, it would seem
live long? But some do, with retardation, short- society must have the right to relieve itself of those
ened, skewed limbs, grotesquely positioned fingers who come to us through “wrongful birth,” the tor-
and toes, clubfeet. tured phrase that has developed in recent litigation
The sex chromosomes, X and Y, most commonly aimed at doctors whose advice or decisions leads
cause abnormalities through duplications, though a to safe delivery of severely deformed or retarded
missing X in females produces Turner’s syndrome: babies who could have been aborted. So far the
tiny body, sterility, low mathematics IQ, webbing courts have been willing only to assess the doctors
on the neck. An extra X in men produces Klinefelter’s the costs for care of such “wrongful births”—not to
syndrome: some female body characteristics, steril- establish punitive damages.
ity, low verbal IQ. Extra X’s can occur up to six, I know of a couple whose first baby was born
producing lower and lower IQ, but perhaps most with a gaping cleft lip, the eyes squeezed almost

into a cyclops, no muscle tone, and profound retar- there was so much pain and she was so tired. Char-
dation. It lived ten days, requiring very expensive lotte kept trying, fiercely believing in the promise,
care at enormous cost to the parents. A chromoso- hoping. Our daughters lay on the bed with
mal check available in recent years revealed the Josephine, held her in their arms and talked about
mother to be a carrier of trisomy 13, Patau’s syn- canning apricots with her years ago. She died on
drome, and the doctors presented the options: no October 2. The last month she slowly turned a
more children except by adoption, amniocentesis deep golden color from the jaundice.
in future pregnancies to check the chromosomes of I have long thought that Josephine Hawkins
the fetus and abortion in case of abnormality, or took too much onto herself, keeping her own hurts
having children with a high percentage of carriers inside, interceding for others in potential conflicts,
and abnormalities. On the basis of their opposition absorbing others’ weaknesses, letting any damage
to birth control and abortion (and thus to amnio- be done to her feelings, letting mercy rob justice.
centesis that would assume abortion as an option), The internal stress she invited may well have brought
and with faith in an optimistic priesthood blessing on her cancer and killed her, and I felt for a long
and strengthened by the fasting of their ward and time she was foolish. But I decided in that last month
stake, the couple went ahead with another child. It that she was right. And she was also right about
was born with trisomy 13, lived thirty-three days, jokes. She never could get the punchlines straight
and put the parents in debt over $100,000. and always marred a funny story in the telling so
that the humor came against herself, rather than
Jesus Christ to Joseph Smith: whoever was the butt of the joke. I used to be con-
Fear not even unto death; descendingly amused, merely tolerant, but I’ve
for in this world your joy is not full, decided she felt intuitively that nearly every joke is
but in me your joy is full. at someone’s expense. She took the expense. I think
she was right to do so, whatever the cost.
A year ago while we were in England, Charlotte Since last fall Charlotte hasn’t slept well. She won-
learned that her mother, Josephine Johnson ders about that promise to her mother and about
Hawkins, had cancer of the pancreas. There was an fighting to hold on so long, prolonging the pain,
exploratory operation. The decision was not for the straining her bonds with her sisters. And she takes
dangerous surgery or traumatic chemotherapy that the children’s troubles more onto herself and doesn’t
had little chance of helping but for a peaceful final tell jokes very well.
few months. When Charlotte came home in July
she found her mother wasted but still hoping: she Christ describing the last days to his Apostles
had had a blessing, she said, that she would recover. just before leaving them:
Charlotte decided to do what could be done, found Then shall many be offended, and shall
a doctor willing to do limited chemotherapy, brought betray one another, and shall hate one
her mother to her own bed (I moved to a cot in my another. And because iniquity shall
study), and together with her sisters set about mak- abound, the love of many shall wax
ing Josephine well. They cooked tempting food to cold. But he that shall endure unto the
keep up her appetite against the nausea of pain- end, the same shall be saved.
killers, bathed her, and helped her to the bathroom
(finally carrying her) to avoid the discomfort of On 13 May 1981, an attempt was made on the
bedpans. Charlotte was determined and the doctor Pope’s life at his public audience in Saint Peter’s
encouraging until one day in late August when he Square. I was in the throng, next to his car, just
saw that the chemotherapy was just not working reaching out to touch his hand. My mind formed
and stopped it. Josephine told me she thought she clearly two partly visual, mostly verbal images: first,
could have the faith to make the promise work, but John Paul II, a man of God, is shot, hurting terribly,

will die; and second, Poland’s Solidarity, which this Western Europe that the military was not interfer-
man inspirited, and Lech Walesa, to whom this man ing; our State Department gave approval and on
conveyed symbolic spiritual power, are finished. January 6 we sent our first shipment, by truck, then
When I learned that night on the train away from train and Polish ship to Gdansk. Since then we
Rome that the Pope had survived, I knew it was have sponsored a National Day of Fasting, made
a miracle—for him and for Poland. I learned of five more shipments of food, medicine, clothing,
another miracle in the summer when the Polish mil- detergents, and sent one of our trustees along with
itary leaders, by refusing to use force against fellow one planeload to Warsaw to verify firsthand the
Poles, apparently prevented the Communist Party proper distribution to those most in need. Our
from destroying Solidarity. In the fall I began to wake national director went a few weeks ago to Gdansk
in the night and think about the coming winter. to observe distribution of our largest shipment,
With Poland’s economic problems still unsolved which included 90,000 pounds of milk from the
because of the continuing power struggle, I knew LDS Church.
that hunger could defeat Solidarity. Food riots could
justify internal suppression or external interven-
tion. Another miracle was needed. Those images of Is it more difficult or
the Pope and Walesa returned. I couldn’t sleep.
Finally I began to explore. I found that most easier to take my problems to
people felt deep concern and admiration for Soli-
darity and wanted to help but didn’t know how. a God who has problems?
Agencies like Catholic Relief Services and Polish
National Alliance were sending food but not enough
and were not doing large-scale publicity that might We have been responsible for adding perhaps
attract help from non-Catholics and non-Poles. $1 million worth of supplies to the Polish relief
Through Michael Novak, a Catholic lay theologian effort. That is pitifully little—the equivalent of one
who had met in Rome with Solidarity leaders, I was extra good meal for the three million Polish chil-
able to get in contact, by phone to Warsaw, with dren, aged, and families of imprisoned Solidarity
Bronislaw Geremek, chief advisor to Solidarity. He members who are in greatest need. Our govern-
said the children were starting to die of dysentery. ment cut off $800 million in aid just for this year.
He asked that we send dried milk, detergents, and And I am convinced that perhaps twice that much,
technicians to help them build privately controlled invested one year ago in a massive Marshall Plan to
small businesses and that we do it soon, by plane. Poland, focused on improving farming efficiency
We organized Food For Poland, a nonprofit public and on building small privately controlled indus-
foundation for tax-free contributions, and had a tries and businesses, would have provided enough
planeload of food and arrangements almost ready economic resurgence and enough return to Poland’s
for donated flight when martial law was declared traditional productivity to enable Solidarity’s non-
December 13. violent success and a gradual development of basic
All flights were grounded. Geremek was one of freedoms. But now the stalemate drags on. Some-
the first arrested (I saw his name on a list in Time one tried to kill the Pope again, one year later, this
on Christmas day) and from a letter smuggled out time with a bayonet. Poland is not in the news, and
later we learned he went on a hunger strike in Jan- people don’t think much now about helping.
uary and then was punished with an unheated room. During January and February I woke very early
Our government cut off its aid and vacillated on each morning, thinking of the mistakes I was mak-
private aid like ours. We weren’t certain food would ing as an English professor trying to raise funds, the
get through. Finally it became clear through mes- missed opportunities, inept public relations—not
sages from Poland and successful shipments from enough hard-nosed pushiness, not quick enough

tough-minded assessment of how we were being And for the first time in over a year I’ve begun
used by others to their own advantage. I thought of occasionally to let the fear of being slip into my
the people I met each day or talked to on the phone mind. Sometimes I look up from a book or the
who could give $1 million easily but didn’t, or the typewriter and the world is only whirling quanta of
families who fasted and sent all they could, but energy, reflecting all its seductive impressions of
only once, or students and faculty who helped a color from a palsied and blank universe. If I let it
while and then disappeared. And I lay awake think- (sometimes I invite it), the horror deepens, because
ing of Bronislaw Geremek in his cold cell, of thou- neither that atomized, inertial, spinning chaos nor
sands of families with father or mother or both my strange ability to sense and order and anguish
interned or dismissed from jobs—knowing we were over it have any real reason to exist. I want to take
failing them. I thought of a film I saw in December refuge in the mystery that an absolute God made it
made by a French journalist of an interview with all out of nothing and will make sense of it or send
Lech Walesa held just a few days before the Decem- it back to nothing, but Joseph Smith will not let
ber 13 crackdown. Walesa sat holding his daughter, me. There must be opposition or no existence. Is it
more difficult or easier to take my problems to a
God who has problems?
God does not excuse me to
Nephi bidding farewell to his people:
forego my integrity by ignoring If ye shall press forward,
the reality which daily catches feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure
to the end, behold thus saith the Father:
me up in joy and sorrow and Ye shall have eternal life.
shows me, slowly, subtly, its
moral patterns of iron delicacy. Postscript: December 1982
In September, at the equinox, I was called to be
bishop of a newly formed student ward. I have
with a portrait of John Paul II in the background. stewardship of 120 young couples, most already
He said, “I must remember that even if my dream beginning to have children. The first thing the
of a free Poland is achieved, it could be taken away Lord told me, when I began to think and pray
in a day. Disaster can come anytime, as it has in the about staffing the ward, as clearly as I have ever
past. I must be ready for death. I could die at any been told anything, was to call Susan as my Relief
time and must be prepared while I continue to work.” Society president: to be in charge of all the women,
Recently we’ve decided we may have to discon- their religious instruction, their compassionate serv-
tinue Food For Poland before long. We’ve failed to ice, their sisterhood, their training as wives and
get major corporation or foundation support or the mothers. It made no sense: Susan was still bur-
help of a popular entertainment figure—both of dened greatly by her struggles with Allyn, with her
which seem necessary to keep up momentum. And husband, with herself. Dale had left school to cope
I am ready to admit I do not have the gifts—or the with their enormous financial burdens and was
stomach—to make a career of fundraising. I do not planning to move them to Salt Lake. But the call
lie awake much any more. When I do it’s usually was clear and they accepted.
to hold Charlotte, who sometimes has bad dreams. Susan immediately visited every family and
We get up very early and, as the days begin to established the crucial foundation for making a
shorten, play tennis for a half hour in the cool ward community. She has opened herself and
shadow of Y Mount. her life entirely to her sisters and conducts all her

interviews, her meetings, her casual conversations making moral decisions—to pay income tax on
with the same absolute honesty and down-to-earth tips from years back, not to sue someone who has
forthrightness. The women—and their husbands— wronged them. I see Susan, now three months
experience quite directly the struggles, the ups and pregnant, smiling often.
downs of anguish and hope, the need for help, Reality is too demanding for me to feel very safe
and the enduring courage through which she lives any more in the appalling luxury of my moments
day by day. of utter skepticism. God’s tears in the book of
I’ve tried to be that open and direct as a pastor. Moses, at which the prophet Enoch wondered, tell
I speak for a few minutes in nearly every sacrament me that God has not resolved the mystery of being.
meeting, very personally, about the realities of my But he endures in love. He does not ask me to
life with Charlotte, our sorrows, our decisions, our forego my integrity by ignoring the mystery or he
faith, and I teach the family relations class each would not have let Enoch see him weep. But he
Sunday for all the newlyweds in the ward. I spend does not excuse me to forego my integrity by ignor-
many hours with people in trouble: couples who ing the reality which daily catches me up in joy and
have hurt each other until they can’t speak, lonely sorrow and shows me, slowly, subtly, its moral pat-
husbands, burdened with past sins and present terns of iron delicacy.
insecurity, women who can’t have children, and Food For Poland has continued. We have been
women who are having too many. I talk about the accused of glory-seeking, of being liberals indulging
problems Charlotte and I have had, how we have in do-goodism instead of the true religion of
hurt each other and suffered and learned and got doctrinal Purity, and by some of being traitors:
help and endured. How the Lord has directed us giving aid to the enemy in time of war. But we
from place to place across the country—toward are sending, in cooperation with the LDS Welfare
unforeseeable service and learning and away from Program, another large shipment of food and
ambition for luxury and prestige. I call people to clothing to help the Poles through this winter.
the regular positions but also to special assign- Charlotte’s father, after a year of trying it alone,
ments: a couple to help take care of Allyn in sacra- will be coming to live with us soon. Our third
ment meeting, another to work with an alcoholic daughter, who was born with a diaphragmatic
living in our area separated from his family. I see hernia and who almost died from a resulting intes-
people changing, marriages beginning to work tine block last June, while she was on a mission—
again, people helping without being called, people came home; was operated on, dowry recovered,
and is going back into the field in January. Our
oldest daughter is in love. I lie awake sometimes
now, as the nights begin to shorten, my mind
besieged by woe and wonder.
Edgar to his blind father in King Lear:

Men must endure
Their going hence even as their coming hither.
Ripeness is all. Come on.

E S S A Y necessary in—and more capable of—building Zion

than I had ever imagined.
Personal Essays and Personal Progress After coming home, I saw a lot of parallels
in South Africa between South Africa and Utah Valley. The mem-
bers of the Church and community struggled with
By Kristen Allred many of the same spiritual and emotional challenges,
such as forgiveness, racism, mercy, and increasing
The hot, 45-kilometer drives to King Williams- in love and understanding towards each other. My
town during the summer of 1999 were one reason interest in Mormon studies grew, and I suddenly
we BYU interns started reading aloud. Each Sun- felt more responsible to my community than I ever
day we rode in the back of a rusted, battered, green had before. I realized that regardless of the issue,
Volvo taxi driven by a man with matted dreadlocks dialogue is crucial in strengthening the Mormon
that stretched to his waist, so we could attend community, and that we each have a personal
church in South Africa. One particular afternoon I responsibility to involve ourselves in dialogue in
remember more vividly than any other. Crammed one way or another. I wanted to continue in dia-
in the tiny back seat with our elbows digging into logue, whether by reading, conversing, or writing.
our ribs and our legs smashed together, we took Yearning to make the changes in my lifestyle and
turns reading a xeroxed copy of Eugene England’s attitude that would help me to become a better
article, “Are All Alike unto God?”—each person member of my religious community, I began to
reading a few paragraphs and then passing it on. As more actively study LDS history, religious discourse,
close as we sat to each other, we still had to strain and literature. One of my most exciting discoveries
forward to hear the reader, who was practically was the Mormon personal essay. I immersed myself
screaming out the article, since the windows were in more of Gene’s essays, humbled at his scholarly,
rolled down. Each week we read a new article or faithful study of our religion and culture.
book chapter to pass the time, the analysis of our Gene’s personal essays were among the first pieces
Mormon culture and religion the common denom- of serious Mormon nonfiction written by a regular
inator of all our selections. We didn’t read so much member of the community that I had read. Not
to pass the time, but to satisfy the urgency we felt only did I start to feel the power that discourse has
to talk about what we were observing and experi- to heal and build individuals and communities,
encing in the recuperating South Africa. I began to become familiar with the literary testi-
My close interactions with black and white South mony. This was a testimony conceived of a deep
Africans (both Mormons and non-Mormons), reflection on personal experience and a sincere
combined with my intense cultural studies of the study of challenging social, religious, and cultural
nation, compelled me to seriously consider many issues. Gene’s essays were also beautifully written—
gospel principles in a way I never had before. the literary quality could be admired by all, yet they
I thought about the nature of God, and considered could be read and appreciated by the average
whether or not it was possible for Him to be a reader. He didn’t write for an elite audience.
respecter of persons. I thought about our living What amazed me about Eugene’s essays was the
prophets and the divine revelation I so firmly absolute honesty and trust he put in readers as he
believed they received—puzzling over the apparent made himself vulnerable by sharing intimate per-
contradictions I saw between our racially selective sonal stories. He understood well that he was not
policies and our theology. I thought about apartheid alone in his many struggles—and as Hugh Nibley
and the problem of evil—why families had to be remarked when Dialogues with Myself first came out,
split, human dignity stolen, and good people denied “his intensely personal reflections would be embar-
their individual sense of worth. I grew overwhelmed rassing if they did not always turn out to be the
in realizing that mercy and forgiveness were more reader’s own. Always experience comes to the rescue.”

Even though I recognized that personal experi- I often wonder about the events of the last two
ence was one of the most valuable elements of and a half years that have so profoundly shaped me.
Gene’s essays, for a long time I believed that I was I know the complexity of spiritual and emotional
an exception to this. My fear of not being under- development—that many factors share in making a
stood kept me from refining, finishing, and sharing new creation, a new me. But I could not feel more
the half-written, rough “personal essays” recorded incredibly blessed—or privileged—to have had Gene
in my journal. I remember asking Gene one Febru- as such a rich guide and mentor. There was no way
ary night in his living room how he did it—how he for me to have planned on discovering him so many
wrote pieces that brought people together in more thousands of miles away from home in a humid old
love and understanding. I told him I wanted to try car—but I couldn’t ask for or imagine anything
it, but I was afraid that it would be self-centered, better. Although I didn’t personally meet him until
months after I started reading his essays, I felt I had
already met him through his writing. He helped me
Gene’s personal essays were to more deeply recommit to my beliefs and faith,
and to feel more confident in openly sharing my
among the first pieces of serious personal experiences through writing—which is not
only a way of bringing peace and strength to each
Mormon nonfiction written by other in love, but also a means of bearing testimony
a regular member of the com- of our Savior and the gospel.
munity that I had read. Not Kristen Allred ([email protected]) has deferred
graduating from BYU so she can serve a mission in
only did I start to feel the power Asuncion, Paraguay, beginning January 2002.
that discourse has to heal and
build individuals and communi-
ties, I began to become familiar T R I B U T E
with the literary testimony. Gene was so many different things to so many
different people—a Don Quixote espousing ideal-
istic causes, an empathetic counselor, a brilliant
impossible for others to relate to. He simply told teacher of Shakespeare, an essayist par excellence,
me, “Write about what keeps you awake at night.” a voice for the oppressed, a crusader in the original
His comment took my breath away—because what sense of the word (one who takes up the cross of
kept me awake at night were concerns I doubted Christ), and a friend in time of need.
anyone else possessed. I remember reading a collection of his personal
But the more I talked to him, and worked the essays once when I was directing a study abroad in
idea over in my mind, the more I believed it. The England. When I read of his experience in blessing
struggles and joys we members of the Church deal his broken down car, I realized why Gene was so
with are more similar than different. Writing truly vibrant: he was a man of faith, deep abiding faith.
does initiate dialogue: it is a wonderful way to con- I shall miss him.
nect us together. Not only does it allow us to dis-
cuss our similar challenges or joys, it encourages —Madison Sowell
us to become more faithful, committed students,
scholars, and Saints.

T R I B U T E don’t you chair a steering committee?” Then he

walked out. We dutifully shifted, on the spot, from
Tending the Garden with academics to activity. Maureen chaired that steer-
Eugene England ing committee, formally organized the Association
for Mormon Letters, and persuaded us that the
By Lavina Fielding Anderson name should be “for Mormon Letters,” not “of
Mormon Letters.” She also served as its first presi-
It’s a pleasure to recall the personal and profes- dent, with Gene and I among her successors.
sional collaboration with Gene England that pro- While this fledgling organization was finding its
duced Tending the Garden (Salt Lake City: Signature wings—and imposing the deadline of an annual
Books, 1996), the first and so far only collection scholarly conference that dragged many an excel-
of essays on Mormon literature outside the AML lent critical idea into actual written form—Gene
Annual and the recent issue of Dialogue (fall 1999) continued to steadily and consistently support the
devoted to that topic. critical study of Mormon literature. He taught a
This volume lay squarely in the center of Gene’s class in Mormon literature regularly at BYU,
professional and literary interest in enhancing and beginning in 1977, the year after the AML’s cre-
cultivating (1) the serious study of Mormon scrip- ation. As AML president, he delivered what was
ture as literature, (2) the serious study of Mormon unquestionably the longest presidential address in
belles lettres, and (3) the serious approach to the
body of world classics by seeing them “Mormonly.”
(A good example of the latter approach is Gene’s
own magisterial analysis of King Lear.)
Gene’s interest in this topic certainly predates his
involvement as one of Dialogue’s founding editors,
but it can be said to have taken institutional form
in the creation of the Association for Mormon Let-
ters, founded with the specific purpose of fostering
literary criticism. Its genesis lay in a meeting which
Maureen Ursenbach Beecher called among a group
of friends in the fall of 1976 to discuss the quality
and availability of Mormon personal narratives.
Maureen was then a member of Leonard J. Arring-
ton’s group of historians and holder of a Ph.D. in
comparative literature. (Leonard not only heartily
seconded Maureen’s hosting of this meeting but
delivered a paper at the first meeting.) Eugene Eng-
land and I were among the eight or ten people who
came. Gene tossed out the question, “How could
we go about organizing a group focused on the crit-
icism of Mormon literature?” Then he patiently lis-
tened as the lively conversation ranged over the
“why” and “what” aspects of the question as well
for about an hour.
Obviously it was a discussion that could have
gone on for years, but Gene glanced at his watch
and said abruptly, “I’ve got to go. Maureen, why

But the seeds had been planted. Gary had a ten-

tative table of contents, and I began adding to it.
Then Gene announced that he was tired of photo-
copying scattered essays to provide a text for his
class and independently proposed the idea of a crit-
ical anthology to Signature Books in 1990. Gene
had a list of his own, and Gary suggested that the
two of us get together. From there, it was easy. And
how could we back out when Bill Mulder, Mor-
monism’s grand old man of letters, read a paper in
the fall of 1991 to a gathering sponsored by the
Association for Mormon Letters in the home of
Ann Edwards Cannon. In that paper, “Telling It
Slant,” he called for just such an anthology. He was
delighted when I told him that such a project was
in the works.
Gene was remarkably easy to work with. We
easily agreed on the “must-do” essays in the book,
the history of the organization. He and Charlotte

opened their home to readings by creative writers.
He reviewed books and short story collections. In
short, he put his money where his mouth was when
it came to Mormon literature.
Gary Bergera, publisher at Signature Books, first
included the idea of a compilation of essays on
Mormon literary criticism on a brainstorming list
of potential topics for a newly conceived essay
series in 1988 and invited me to edit such a work.
The board, of which I was and am a member, was
polite but unenthusiastic: Were there really enough
important and meaningful critical essays available
to make such a project meaningful? We could all
remember when there was barely an audience for
Mormon creative works. Was it not slightly pre-
sumptuous to think that literary criticism could
command a significant market?

wrangled amiably over the “nice-to-do” essays, each “Mormon Literature: Progress and Prospects,”
digging in our heels on a personal favorite or two found a home in David J. Whittaker’s Mormon
but yielding graciously on others, and dividing the Americana, which actually appeared before our
work without much discussion. Gene did most of own book. But it made hard decisions easier. [Edi-
the author contacts and I did the technical editing tor’s note: This same essay is reprinted within this
to be sure the book used the same style throughout. issue of IRREANTUM.])
The Signature staff scanned the essays, giving us a Gene’s generosity showed up in another area, and
jump-start on the text. Then Gene made the col- I’m very glad to have this chance to pay tribute
laboration even easier by going to Europe with to it. I had simply assumed that Gene, as the sen-
Charlotte where he conducted another in a series of ior scholar and the only one with an academic
BYU semesters abroad. The project was virtually appointment—let alone the only one with a pro-
finished by the time he returned. fession relevant to literary criticism—would be
listed as the first editor. So I was startled when he
even brought up the question, adding that alpha-
The metaphor of creative betical order alone suggested that my name come
first. I explained my reasons clearly, firmly, and, I
works flowering in spontaneous thought, persuasively. I also added what I thought
splendor while critics sweat was the unanswerable clincher: that since I had
been excommunicated for “apostasy” in 1993, it
away with hoes, sprinklers, and certainly would not do the cause of Mormon letters
compost breaks down swiftly in any good to have my name conspicuously first.
I was taken aback, even a little embarrassed and
reality. My collaborator, Gene, upset, when I finally saw the title page of the
printed book. Gene had quietly instructed Gary on
was both a creator and a the order of the names and arranged that I would
cultivator—of others’ spirits as not see the front matter until it was too late. When
I tackled Gene with my expostulations, he listened
well as of their works. calmly and patiently, the smile lines crinkling
around his eyes, and then advised with a laugh:
“Get over it.”
That’s when the hard part happened. We happily I never have. Perhaps in closing tribute, I can
turned in the manuscript, only to have Gary tell us paraphrase my last sentence in the preface to Tend-
in the gentlest possible way that Signature was hoping the Garden: The metaphor of creative works
ing for a manuscript of under three hundred pages flowering in spontaneous splendor while critics
and we had delivered over five hundred pages’ worth. sweat away with hoes, sprinklers, and compost
Gene and I huddled in dismay over our table of breaks down swiftly in reality. My collaborator,
contents. I will never forget that Gene broke the Gene, was both a creator and a cultivator—of oth-
log-jam of the impossible by yanking out his intro- ers’ spirits as well as of their works.
duction, the most comprehensive bibliography, to
date, of contemporary Mormon literature, grouped Lavina Fielding Anderson ([email protected])
by genre for convenience, and beginning with the helped found the Association for Mormon Letters
1930s. To me it was an act of stunning and self- and has contributed significantly to LDS literature
sacrificial generosity, for that essay represented an through her editing of the AML Annual and Tending
absolutely enormous amount of work. (Fortunately, the Garden.

L E T T E R of Church history would be; I just knew I’d found

a quiet place to read all kinds of fascinating things.
A Letter to Gene England That’s where I discovered a journal called Dialogue.
It astonished me. Every afternoon, after serving
By Dian Saderup Monson four or five wedding luncheons and the occasional
General Authority function, I’d tear off my pink
Stories, poems, personal essays, and book reviews by gingham uniform, get into my street clothes, and
Dian Saderup Monson have for many years appeared run to the historical library, straight to the section
widely in Mormon periodicals. In this excerpt from a with Dialogue. Here were Mormons who thought
personal letter (sent to Eugene England shortly after about things the way I tended to think about
his collapse in February 2001), she narrates how he things, which was a lot.
helped shape her identity as a writer. Then one day I drove past the Institute and
dropped in. I discovered you would be teaching a
Dear Gene, class about LDS literature. I was very nervous the
You and Charlotte have meant much to me over first day of class—I’d read your name and your
the course of my adult life, but I doubt that you work in that incredible journal I’d discovered at the
know just how much. Now, it seems I had better Church library—but my nervousness quickly
try to tell you as well as I can the enormous posi- changed to exhilaration. I couldn’t believe I’d met a
tive force you have been to me. I’m afraid you’ll person like you. Everything you said, and how you
have to endure a bit of my personal history to said it, was a revelation to me. How well I remem-
understand the context of your influence. ber the first time I read the journal of Mary Goble
I remember so much of our early acquaintance. Pay and felt its simple power. And there were the
You were teaching at the University of Utah Insti- other books of Mormon history you told us about:
tute and I was working as a waitress for the Lion Twelve Mormon Homes, A Mormon Mother, Dear
House. After an adolescence quite preoccupied with Ellen. I started to understand the way in which per-
gloom and doom, I had spent a year and a half sonal essays, journals, letters, and autobiography
studying the gospel and had become, after lots of were especially suited to the expression of the Lat-
study and no small struggle, what I would describe ter-day Saint experience. You seemed to me to be a
as radiantly converted. The moment of my con- person crammed with knowledge that I needed; lit-
version—I’m sure you know the sensation, of being erally, you fed my young spirit and led me in the
filled with the love of God from head to foot— directions I needed to be led, both aesthetically and
occurred in Logan where I was a freshman at Utah spiritually. I remember reading in the Church
State. After two semesters there, though, despite being library your great sermon on the atonement. I still
converted and sure I could do everything needful think it the most insightful piece of writing I have
through faith in Christ, I was completely unsure ever read on that mysterious subject. It persuaded
that I could do college. So I’d gone back to Salt me to believe, just as you suggest the atonement
Lake to live with my parents and work part time. persuades people to believe in Christ.
Although college seemed beyond my ability, I And you noticed me. You actually asked if I
loved to study; I was ravenously hungry to under- minded your sharing something I had written for
stand the gospel and became very interested in the class with your family! I’d never done well in
Church history. I discovered the historical library school, in grade school having been placed on the
in the Church Office Building and began to go slow track while all my friends were tracked as fast,
there after work each afternoon at the Lion House. smart, etc., and in high school not caring enough
This was when Leonard Arrington—and you, too, about what they taught—with the strange excep-
I think—were all there doing serious history. I didn’t tion of one grammar course and two physiology
know at the time how special this period in the study classes—to try. I think that is probably why I’d

found my first terms at Utah State so daunting: current editor of

I was simply certain I wasn’t as smart as everybody my favorite publi-
else and therefore had to work so hard just to keep cation! And you
up that it wore me out. But there you were, saying said, “This is the
I’d written something worth reading. student I was telling
I had discovered literary fiction on my own dur- you about.”
ing high school in a used paperback bookstore where In short, Gene,
you could get a Thomas Hardy novel for a dime. you made me see I
I went there weekly. I’d had the weird experience of had a talent, you
reading L.P. Hartley’s The Go Between once through nourished it, and
and then rereading it and realizing the text existed you introduced me
on different levels, although I didn’t think of it in to the people who
those terms. I had discovered on a second reading, would let my talent
very much to my amazement, that the book was grow and be seen
full of objects that stood for things—symbols, by other people. In
metaphors—and that along with a story, the book doing this you really and truly changed the entire
had themes—ideas the author had embedded in it. course of my life. I can hardly imagine the shape of
I didn’t know any of the literary terms, but I intu- my life, what it would be today, if I had not met
ited the concepts. Then in your LDS literature course you. I completed college because I could write. I went
we discussed how and why literature works. And I on to get two graduate degrees—one in creative
realized you understood this wonderful realm—how writing, the other a Ph.D. in literature, because I
words mean and make meaning—in ways far beyond could write. When I moved to the East Coast I had
my imagining. And not only did you have this an instant host of friends, because so many of the
knowledge, but you had noticed me and the way LDS intellectuals there read Dialogue and Sunstone
I thought, and had been generous and kind and and Exponent II, where, largely because of your
gently encouraging to me. influence, I had published my work.
That June I left Salt Lake to try school at BYU If I hadn’t developed my mind and abilities in
and you arrived there to teach shortly thereafter. I’d the way your encouragement and confidence had
written the story “A Blessing of Duty” during sum- driven me to do, I wouldn’t have married my hus-
mer term for another teacher and he had seemed band—it’s difficult to imagine a basis for our initial
little impressed by it, but when I enrolled in your attraction if I had not pursued my intellectual and
creative writing class the following fall, you asked creative interests, interests which gave us a form of
everyone to submit something they had recently writ- common ground. I wouldn’t have my children.
ten and, since that was all I had, I gave it to you. I wouldn’t have my family. I am not understating
I think I was as excited by your reaction to that the case when I say your generous influence sent the
story as Sally Field was in her famous Academy little stream of my talent into its proper channel,
award speech: “You like me! You really like me!” and being in that channel has given me a vast meas-
Only for me the words in my head went, “He likes ure of all my adult stability and joy. As no doubt
it! He really likes it!” You understood exactly what you know, stability is not my strongest point, but
I was trying to say and you showed it to your my testimony of the atonement, which you have
friends. I remember getting your copy back with nurtured through the wisdom of your own writing,
Bruce Jorgensen’s comment: “You’re right, Gene, she and the love of writing and literature which you
is good.” I’d never had so much praise or encour- helped so greatly to instill in me, have enabled me
agement in my life. Some time after that, at a recep- to stay (or retrieve when necessary) my course.
tion of some kind in the MARB which Mary You gave me all this, and you gave me the beau-
Bradford attended, you introduced me to her—the tiful advantage of knowing you not just as a teacher

but as a friend, and along with that the opportunity ordinary modern townspeople were conducting a
of becoming friends with Charlotte. I will never funeral for a child; the forests with trees older than
forget your strenuously urging me to come to Eng- the United States, so mossy and green and magical
land with one of your study abroad groups. That’s looking you could almost imagine Merlin appear-
when I really got to know Charlotte. She and I ing; the perfection of Bath, a city planned ahead to
would sit in that little kitchen and snack on Dan- be beautiful.
ish butter with bread and talk for hours sometimes.
I remember the first time I met Charlotte: you’d
invited me as a student to one of your Thursday You fed my young spirit and
night get-togethers (which of course felt like one of
the greatest honors of my life). I’d always thought led me in the directions
that whoever you were married to must certainly be I needed to be led, both
a lucky woman because you were so inspired and
smart, but (this is the truth) the moment I saw Char- aesthetically and spiritually.
lotte I knew: you were the lucky one. I could see in
her countenance all her gentleness and the remark-
able strength of the love that simply abides in her. It was all so much. I remember detaching myself
And then there’s England. Would I have ever got- from the group one day for a half hour and wan-
ten there without your coaxing? I doubt it. And I dering into a forest adjacent to a castle or some
certainly wouldn’t have seen it the way I got to see other sort of large building. There was a herd of
it by piggy-backing on the study abroad tours and deer in the forest and two bucks were sparring. It
hearing your commentary. Oh my gosh, when I was a grey, grey, drizzly day and the clack of the
think of the assault of wonder I experienced at bucks’ horns rang in the cold, bleak air under a
nearly every sight that met my eyes in England. I so canopy of fabulous, ancient oaks (I think they were
coveted having a window seat on the coaches when oaks), and I remember sitting on a rock, very cold,
we went out touring to various places, I’d scheme my stomach hurting horribly, and just weeping for
all through breakfast how I would get one without the beauty of it. I had never felt more drenched in
looking too greedy! All I wanted to do as the coach beauty. And that was how the whole of England
would go through the countryside is look and look. felt to me, as if I were constantly being drenched in
I rationalized stealing the window seats because a beauty. Outdoors or in the coach, in London
lot of the students really just seemed to want to or touring, in the theatres too—the National and
talk. It didn’t mean that much to them, I told the Barbican, watching Judy Dench play Mother
myself; but I always felt like the greediest of chil- Courage (up close because you said if the seats
dren and afraid to be found out: I’ve got to have the were empty it was okay to claim them) and Ian
window! I might start crying and not stop if I can’t McKellen as Coriolanus (we had seats on the
have the window! I might have a screaming fit right stage—I think we played the rabble) and seeing
here if I can’t have a window seat! The Mystery Plays with all that medieval passion
But a window seat was worth it—the hills that and energy.
actually appeared to be rolling, really moving, like And you’re the one who gave it to me. All of it.
great green swells on an ocean; the fearsome land- Made it possible. So you see I have so much to
scape of Northern Wales and all the rock walls, thank you for, so many, many things. You have
running up and down the mountains, this way, never brought anything but blessing upon blessing
that way; the villages with their ancient church- into my life—and I haven’t even named them all,
yards; the austerity of Oxford, the lushness of never could. And I know that there are many other
Cambridge; the cathedrals—when we went to Sal- people, students especially and readers of your
isbury, there in that ancient building a handful of work and friends, whom you have similarly blessed.

Gene, nobody but God, I guess, knows what the E S S A Y

future holds for you. Mary [Slover] has seen you
fairly recently and reassured me that your spirit is A Model Faithful Voice
as strong as it has ever been. She says you seem at
peace and very focused, your eyes just radiating By Gideon O. Burton
love to her as she talked with you. She said your
eyes were intensely beautiful in the quality of love Burton, who edits the Mormon Literary Library series
shining from them. She actually told me she for Tabernacle Books, added this preface to the 1999
thought she was seeing the very best you perhaps republication of England’s Why the Church Is as
she’d ever seen, entirely undistracted by anything True as the Gospel.
but love, perfectly in tune with everything that
matters most. I pray every day, alone and with my There is a characteristic tone to the essays of
family, that you will be blessed to continue in that Eugene England that is very much at the heart
peace, your heart brimming with love, and that the of his views. It is a tone of commitment and faith.
Lord will strengthen your spirit to endure all things I might have labeled England’s tone as “thought-
in the same manner as you have done so many provoking,” which it is, yet he is so personally
things: devoutly well. involved, so attached to Mormon beliefs, leaders,
and people that his essays lack the off-putting
aloofness or smugness of an intellectual. I might
have called England’s tone “personal,” which it is,
yet his passion is yoked not to an agenda but to the
community, the beliefs, and the believers that have
nurtured him, and to the truth that Jesus taught
would set us free. There is a rigor to England’s writ-
ing, a persistent sense of fairness—an openness,
one might say—that resists the tendency to slip
into bias or soapboxing. And there is unmistakable
loyalty and optimism, too, side by side with criti-
cism and analysis. Perhaps this is evidence of how
seriously England has taken Paul’s admonition
(which is the epigraph to England’s inaugural essay
in the first issue of Dialogue), “Prove all things;
hold fast that which is good” (1 Thes. 5:21). Eng-
land will not relinquish the gifts of the mind or the
heart: he both proves (tests, tries) and holds fast
that which is good.
The most appropriate term for the tone of Eng-
land’s essays is commitment and faith. England’s
“best and most valuable insights could only have
been spoken by someone who sees the world from
the perspective of a committed member of the
Church,” observed Orson Scott Card in a review of
Why the Church Is as True as the Gospel:
[England’s] life is not the servant of his mind;
his mind is the servant of his life. He is a Saint
whose abilities are consecrated to the building

up of the Kingdom of God. Among those founded Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought,
abilities are intellect and language, but there is which has provided a venue for the publication of
no hint in his writing that he esteems them Mormon stories, poetry, and criticism. He has more
any higher than other abilities that he or other recently edited three anthologies of Mormon liter-
Saints might have. ature. He has shaped both the past and future of
England conveys what Elder Neal A. Maxwell Mormon writing through the Association for Mor-
suggests when he talks about the combination of mon Letters, which he cofounded and has actively
discipline and discipleship, or what B. H. Roberts promoted, through his book reviews and through
intended when that earlier apostle articulated the his scholarly assessment of the Latter-day Saints’
ideal of “intelligent discipleship”: literary tradition. However, I credit England’s
greatest contribution to Mormon literature to be
[Mormonism] calls for thoughtful disciples the model tone that he has set in his essays. As
who will not be content with merely repeating
some of its truths, but will develop its truths;
and enlarge it by that development. . . . The
disciples of “Mormonism” . . . will yet take Implicit in [England’s] writing
profounder and broader views of the great doc- is the truth that life without
trines committed to the Church; and, depart-
ing from mere repetition, will cast them in full participation in the Church
new formulas; cooperating in the works of the is not life at all. Implicit also
Spirit, until they help to give to the truths
received a more forceful expression and carry is the truth that full partici-
it beyond the earlier and cruder stages of its
development. pation in the Church does
This is England’s gift, and the unique balance of his not require or even reward
prose. England must use his mind in the service of the abandonment of intellect.
his church, and he will not abandon his faith nor
his covenants of consecration which orient the use —Orson Scott Card
of his intellectual gifts. He is simultaneously an elo-
quent apologist for the Mormon cause, and one of
its most loyal critics. Once again, Orson Scott Card Mary Bradford has commented in her own seminal
articulates the careful balance England maintains article on the personal essay form, Eugene England
throughout this particular book of essays: has been “devoted to the essay as a logical extension
Implicit in [England’s] writing is the truth of that vital form—the testimony.” These essays,
that life without full participation in the then, are a kind of literary testimony, intended as
Church is not life at all. Implicit also is the much to “hold fast to that which is good” as they
truth that full participation in the Church are to “prove all things.”
does not require or even reward the abandon- The Mormon Literary Library, like so many
ment of intellect. The true Saint hungers for LDS literary efforts, would never have been pos-
greater light and knowledge, and greater light sible without Eugene England’s prior work in and
and knowledge cannot be had apart from par- ongoing vision of Mormon literature. It is with
ticipation in the community of Saints. some pride that we once again make available key
writings from this literary pioneer.
Eugene England has been at the vanguard of
many advances in Mormon literature. In 1966 he

Your Comfort Close By

A Poem by Gene for Charlotte
Mother’s Day, 2001
I woke to hear you breathing next to me

And knew you’d wakened often in the night
To help in what is now my being’s fight
To stay alive and get my body free
Of cancer and paralysis. I knew
You’d wake again to help: read me to sleep
Or rise to fix me healing food and keep
Me clean and warm and dressed—or teach me not to rue
My life.
We talked of all we’d forged together—home

And children, faith and vows that make us one—
And all we might still make in Kingdoms where
None can sever us from continued seed forever
Or me from your comfort close by.
—Eugene England


T R I B U T E time and again for my errors in portraying a fishing

scene. He knew fishing and said he couldn’t trust
Hearing Gene’s Voice me as a writer if I got the details of fishing wrong.
“How can I be sure you’re telling the truth about
By Margaret Young other things if I know you’re not telling the truth in
this thing?” he’d say. So he provided me the fishing
I’ve said that I don’t know if I would even be a vocabulary he had learned at the banks of the
writer were it not for Gene England. Let me Snake River. He told me where I would find trout
explain what I mean by that. and where I’d find carp, and demanded that I get it
The first novel I wrote—House without Walls— right in my fiction. He was not one to gloss over
has been accurately described as “home” literature. my errors in writing. He knew I could do better,
It was a faith-promoter clearly written for Mor- and I worked hard to prove him right. And so it
mons. I wrote it during a time I was trying desper- was essential that when I took on my greatest chal-
ately to live up to the image I had been given lenge as a writer—the project which currently fills
through Primary and MIA. so much of my time and life—Standing on the
After a devastating divorce, I returned to my Promises (a trilogy about black Mormon pioneers),
hometown—Provo—in 1984, harrowed and almost I did so with a coauthor who intimately knew the
ready to pursue a master’s degree in creative writ- world I would be writing about. Gene’s own pas-
ing. I soon married Bruce Young, who introduced sion for racial equality and his own writing on the
me to Gene England. Then my real writing life subject—from “The Mormon Cross” to “‘No
began. Gene became one of the primary forces Respecter of Persons’: An Ethics of Diversity”—
in my finally telling the hard stories my heart knew had already heightened my awareness of racial
so well. issues. In 1998, Gene effectually paired me with
I took Gene’s Mormon literature class in 1988. my black coauthor, Darius Gray, who would guide
I remember reading The Giant Joshua and some me in writing accurately about a world I barely
pioneer journals describing women giving blessings. knew, with diction I had not mastered.
I asked why women didn’t give blessings any longer.
Gene’s response was, “That’s a great question, isn’t
it?” A wonderful, provocative discussion ensued. We, his offspring in many
In that setting, I remembered another BYU
class, wherein a student had asked the religion pro- ways, will continue to write
fessor about a difficult issue in the Doctrine and
Covenants. The professor had given him a wilting about subjects he opened to us.
glare, dropped his voice to its deepest, most accusing We’ll manage to hear his voice
tones, and declared: “We do not ask such questions.”
I mentioned the incident to Gene, who answered anyway, and to send his mes-
fast: “You don’t have to put up with crap like that.
Nobody has to put up with crap like that.” (Of sages through the generations.
course, it was that attitude and that haste which
brought Gene his most relentless opposition.)
Gene was the first to read a draft of my novel Darius had been given a ticket to the Sunstone
Salvador, which I turned in as my class project for conference that year, and noticed that Gene and I
Mormon Literature. He was the best critic of Love were presenting a “twenty years later” retrospective
Chains—which he criticized with unflinching hon- on the change in the priesthood policy. Darius, the
esty. He insisted I understand something before I president of the Church’s Genesis Group (an offi-
presumed to write about it, and took me to task cial organization to support black members), had
not planned on attending the conference, but
I left a note saying, “Gene—

Sorry I missed you.” Though
my words were not accusing,
my feelings were. I was think-
ing, “How could you not be
here for me? I came all this
way to talk to you! Aren’t you
with me on this journey? You
started me on the road—don’t
abandon me now! Abide with
me.”
Months after I left that note
on Gene’s office door, I had a
brief phone conversation with
him. I could tell something
was wrong and asked directly,
“Are you all right?” He
answered, “Margaret, I’m
decided to see what two white folks would have to depressed. I just can’t seem to kick it. I think
say about issues he knew intimately. everything that happened at BYU has finally hit
After Gene and I presented our papers, Darius me. I didn’t let it hit me for a long time, but I
gave me a hug and said, “Let’s write a book.” think it finally did.” He told me about his sleeping
The rest is history. Hard history. problems and feelings of despondency. I already
I didn’t realize how deeply I would be affected by knew what had happened not only at BYU, but at
this project, how soul-wrenching it would be to UVSC. (My last official meeting with him had
read Church leaders’ past writings about Africans been to schedule a showing of my play I Am Jane
and African Americans. I felt real anguish as I at UVSC. Gene explained that he wanted it
worked to build an Elijah Abel being told he must shown, but would have to be invisible in his sup-
confine his preaching to the “colored” population, port. He had said something at Sunstone about
or a Jane James begging a Church president for racism in the Church and had been censured by
temple blessings and adding as a postscript: “I am the UVSC board.) It seemed absolutely under-
colored.” My eyes were fully opened to the racism standable that he would be depressed. Any of us
I had grown up with, and I saw it hadn’t disap- who knew how he had been treated over the past
peared. I needed to talk to someone about all I was few years understood. No one thought to suggest a
learning, all that was troubling me, and it had to be CAT scan.
someone who wouldn’t say, “We do not ask such I tried to visit Gene in the hospital. Charlotte
questions.” It had to be Gene England. It had to be intercepted me and said he was sleeping. I accepted
the hasty man who would exclaim before he could the fact that I was missing him yet again.
remember to be careful: “You don’t have to put up When Gene was two weeks from death, my hus-
with crap like that!” It had to be the man who band and I phoned him. Charlotte told Bruce to
would recognize the saint in me even as he recog- keep the conversation brief, for Gene was weak.
nized the saint in Levi Peterson, and would not Bruce told Gene he loved him, and then handed
only understand the pain of facing a hard truth, the phone to me. But Gene’s strength was used up.
but would insist I not flinch in telling it right. I missed hearing his voice that one last time.
I made the appointment and went to Gene’s I missed the memorial service, too. I had sched-
UVSC office as scheduled. But he wasn’t there. uled my grandparents’ cabin in Island Park, Idaho,

for a Genesis youth activity and was required to be opened to us. We will continue to show the peace-
present. While my husband and friends were pay- loving but forthright behavior he modeled for us,
ing tribute to Gene in the Provo Tabernacle, I was even though he will not be at our side with his reas-
standing in Gene’s home state, searching for carp in suring smile, his hasty words, or his insistent cri-
the Snake River. It was like looking through a glass tiques. We’ll manage to hear his voice anyway, and
darkly, but sometimes I could make out the shad- to send his messages through the generations.
owy forms like swishing commas. With me was a Gene, I really wanted that last talk. Maybe I didn’t
group of young people—several African-Ameri- need it as much as I thought I did, because I’m nego-
cans, two Africans, and a few Caucasians (includ- tiating the trail pretty well on my own. I’m sorry my
ing my own children). They were silently watching children won’t have you as their teacher, but you
loons perched in lodgepole trees, and scanning the should know that your legacy has lit up their lives. My
boggy grass for bears or moose. That evening, we son answered his Sunday School teacher’s explanation
would return to the banks as the sun spread its of why blacks were denied priesthood until 1978 (“less
dying light across the Snake’s ripples. As night valiant in the spirit world and cursed with the mark
came, we would sing “A Child’s Prayer” and talk of Cain”) with a hasty “That’s not Church doctrine.”
about faith. We would do a “Faith Walk” back to Maybe I should have lectured him about respecting
the cabin, the leaders with eyes open, the youth his teacher and being more polite. Maybe I should
with eyes closed, all of us holding hands—brown have warned him to be careful when questioning any
hands clasped in white hands, and white in brown. authority. But I was proud of him, and I know you
I would think about Gene and try not to cry. would’ve been proud too. I was grateful he knew the
truth and spoke it. I was proud he knew he didn’t
need to take that crap from anybody. Someday, I’ll
Fifty years from now, have him read “The Mormon Cross.”
What would you have told me in that last conver-
Mormon writers may not sation, had we had it? What would you tell me today,
even realize they are receiving now that you see so clearly? Something from Shake-
speare? “Wisely and slow; they stumble who run fast”?
instructions, prodding, and No, I don’t think so. “Ripeness is all”? Maybe. “The
critiques from a man they will quality of mercy is not strained.” Yes, that sounds more
like it. Or maybe you would just repeat the words you
never see in this life. inscribed in the copy Bruce bought me of Making
Peace: “For Margaret: May you continue to be a
peaceful person—both finding and making.”
Ultimately, despite missing the last conversation Of course, you and I both know that peace doesn’t
I had longed for, despite missing him in all those come free, though it is freely offered. And it never
final, disappointing ways, I didn’t miss Gene at all. comes on the fishtail of a lie. I commit myself to get-
I got the immense honor of knowing him. I was ting the story right and telling it well, as you taught
privileged to move from being his student to being me, and as I am now teaching my own students, my
his friend. That is a gift future Mormon writers will own children, and a multitude of others from many
not have—at least not in the way I had it. Fifty races. I am privileged to inhabit the world you
years from now, Mormon writers may not even dreamed of from the 1960s until the day you died—
realize they are receiving instructions, prodding, where people of varying pigments sing about their
and critiques from a man they will never see in this faith in a God who invites all to partake of His good-
life. His legacy will live in those of us lucky enough ness. I continue my commitment—sprung from your
to have known him. We, his offspring in many relentless but gentle critiques—to know the details
ways, will continue to write about subjects he and be truthful enough to be trusted. I continue to

remind myself that God is the author of Truth, and I to include something weird and surrealistic in my
will answer to Him, who will be my ultimate critic tender story of my mother. I couldn’t imagine such
and friend. I may never learn all you know about a thing. But actually, that’s exactly what happened.
fishing, but I will continue to learn whatever God
needs me to learn, and boldly—even hastily—cast my
humble net where He directs. I learned from Gene that
Margaret Young ([email protected]), novel- when an experienced editor
ist, short story author, and playwright, has recently
won the Association for Mormon Letters Award in or fellow writer makes a
Drama for I Am Jane, a play about early African- suggestion and your reaction
American Latter-day Saints.
is instinctively protective of
T R I B U T E
your work, take the time to
I had an interesting experience with Gene Eng- give it some consideration.
land that I often tell the writers I work with. I was
fortunate enough to take Gene’s LDS literature
class, and later he served on my thesis committee, I did imagine it later that day as I drove home
since it was a collection of personal essays. (John from campus (I was commuting from Salt Lake at
Bennion was my advisor and I can’t say enough the time). Without even consciously thinking of it,
good about him as a teacher and a writer.) But an image started to grow in my head and connect
before I knew much about Gene beyond his per- with some of the details in my story. Thirty minutes
sonal essays, I wrote my own first personal essay for later I arrived home and wrote ten pages nonstop
his LDS lit class. And I admit, I was frankly (of course, later I revised and edited quite a bit).
appalled by one of his suggestions. He was very pos- But it floored me that it worked so well and I had
itive about my essay, suggested I submit it to Dia- been so closed to the idea initially. I learned that
logue, and then recommended that I try something when an experienced editor or fellow writer makes
surreal to emphasize some of the happenings in my a suggestion and your reaction is instinctively pro-
essay. As I said, I was horrified and immediately tective of your work, take the time to give it some
rejected his suggestion—he made it verbally as he consideration. It might actually be a terrific idea
returned my essay to me—although I tried to be (granted, we aren’t all so lucky to have a Gene Eng-
polite and pretended to consider it. I didn’t want to land reading and commenting on our writing, but
change what I had done and I certainly didn’t want I think good writing means not shutting any win-
dow or door without taking a long, thoughtful look
through it). I feel very fortunate to have known
Gene and felt his influence in my education as a
writer and editor. We can still learn a lot from him.
—Valerie Holladay
Valerie Holladay ([email protected]), a freelance

editor who for many years worked at Covenant,
recently contributed an article on autobiographical
theory and the personal essay to the AML issue of
Dialogue (fall 1999).

T R I B U T E the semester with them, accommodated on their

living room couch in their London digs. Relatively
My husband David first met the Englands in the speaking, money and time are the easy sacrifices;
Bay Area in 1967, when all three were members of privacy is the really hard one. We will always be
the Palo Alto Ward. Gene, of course, was already grateful.
known as a thinker and a doer, and he could always Many years later our youngest son attended
be counted on to move a class from rote repetition UVSC, preparing to transfer to BYU. However,
into meaningful discussion and thinking. My asso- UVSC turned out to be a first-rate experience in
ciation with Gene was as a member of the BYU and of itself, mostly because of the two classes he
English faculty. Back when only a handful of took from Gene. He reports how much he enjoyed
people took a serious interest in Mormon litera- the freedom to express himself; no class member,
ture, Gene was one of its champions. The Eng- he said, had any need to fear being put down for
lands’ Provo home was a salon, the site of musical any comment. And we knew that if our son wanted
events as well as readings and discussions. The to learn passion, kindness, and integrity, then being
memories are vivid: Claudia Laycock and myself around Eugene England was like studying painting
performing a Brahms sonata for violin and piano under Rembrandt.
while the Englands, seemingly with an effortless —Karen Lynn Davidson
wave of the hand, provided the refreshments and
the audience. Best known for her book on LDS hymns, Karen Lynn
Davidson lives in Manhattan with her husband
David.
We knew that if our son
wanted to learn passion, kind- T R I B U T E
ness, and integrity, then being Gene, I know of very few people on this planet
around Eugene England who are held in such high esteem by those who
know them. Your combination of intellect and
was like studying painting goodness is not just rare, it comes close to being
under Rembrandt. unique, at least in my experience. You’ve done a lot
of good in this world already, but beyond that, your
goodness changes people and ripples out to others
in a way that sets off whole waves of “betterness”
So many of Gene’s friends have paid tribute to around you.
the way in which his kindness and influence I first knew of you when Dialogue came into
blessed their sons and daughters as well. Many being. From that time on, you were always some-
years ago our oldest son returned from a mission one I wanted to know. As I tried to develop my
that, through no fault of his, had been a discourag- writing career, it was always important to me to
ing and ungratifying experience. It was midsemes- think that you might approve of what I was trying
ter; he needed to do something for a few weeks that to do, especially within the realms of Mormon lit-
would restore his sense of joy in life and his confi- erature. When you read Rumors of War and liked it,
dence in his own future. We called Gene and Char- then started teaching it, I felt as honored as I have
lotte in London and asked if they had room for a by any single notice I’ve received for my books. It’s
latecomer in the semester abroad program they because I trust your judgment and critical acumen
were directing. The real answer was “No”—there were that I find your opinion so important.
no more beds—but of course they enthusiastically
invited our son to join them. He spent the rest of —Dean Hughes

E S S A Y and wiped his hand nervously on his red tie I con-

gratulated myself that I had guessed right.
Easter Weekend As I became engrossed, the dealer began to ask
me after each miss if I knew where the ten was, and
By Eugene England I said “Sure” and pointed to it—correct every time.
Slowly the bets got larger and the dealer, keeping
This personal essay first appeared in Dialogue (spring up a constant patter about how easy it was (“See
1988). how often these guys win?”), began to chide the
tourist for his misses (“See how this guy,” pointing
It might have been 1986, because Easter came in to me, “does it”). Finally, after the tourist missed on
March and I was on my way to Montreal. But I a sixty dollar bet, the dealer asked me to point out
went to see Dustin Hoffman in The Death of a the ten without turning it over. “Just look under a
Salesman (bought a ticket at the last minute from a corner and see if you’re right.” I said I was, and he
scalper), so it must have been two years earlier said, “Show this guy. Put down sixty dollars, turn
on my way to Boston. When I left the theater over the card again, and you can win.” I refused
Wednesday afternoon, I walked east along Forty- (“That wouldn’t be fair to you,” I said), so he had
Second toward the small circulating library on Black Beret do it and win sixty dollars. They all
Forty-First and Fifth Avenue, where I was to wait made fun of me, and some others now gathering
for Greg Reece, a young friend who had lived with around did, too.
us for awhile and now worked in New York. I felt my heart going, pulsing in my head as the
I grinned as I watched the confidence games being game continued, and then the same sequence devel-
played by sidewalk hustlers—giant showy posters oped again: a miss by Red Tie, constant patter, invi-
and pirated tapes for sale, and shell games of vari- tation to look (right again), then insistence by all
ous kinds, especially the one using three cards on a that I turn up the card again and take the sure win-
cardboard tray held by a strap around the neck. ner. I thought of the ticket I’d bought for Death of
I knew the games were basic small cons that worked a Salesman, four times what I had ever paid for
on tourist gullibility and greed, and I went by with- a play before, and I thought about other plays I
out even stopping. But then I decided to get a wanted to see. I took out my wallet, looked down
snack, jaywalked to the Burger King for some french to count—$149 for all the rest of the trip—and
fries, and came out right onto a game in progress. watched myself put out the sixty dollars and turn
There were three black locals and the obvious over the card. Three of diamonds.
mark—a white, thin-faced tourist. I watched, I was dazed. The game went on without a hitch—
munching and smiling to myself, as the dealer mostly wins by Black Beret and Stretch Pants, losses
placed three different cards on his tray, one the ten by Red Tie. The pace accelerated and the crowd
of clubs, then turned them over and shuffled them. was growing and talking, some commiserating with
The three others could place twenty dollars or me. I tried to pull away. The patter motored on,
more on the tray, then guess which card was the ten and I knew the panic of loss, of betrayal, of desire.
and turn it over. If they were right, the dealer I wanted everything to stop. I wanted bitterly not
matched what they had put down; if not, he took to have lost, to be back at Burger King before all
it. The other two locals—one an older man, with a this, to have watched the cards more carefully. But
startling band of pure white hair frizzed out I could still see, as a great calm in the frenzy of talk
between his black beret and his neck, and the other, and shuffling, the cards—and how right I was each
perhaps twenty, in royal blue stretch pants—won time. The patter focused more on me. “Turn it over.
occasionally, but the tourist kept missing, even See, you’re right. Put your money on it. I owe you
though it seemed to me quite easy to follow the one, I’ll make it up to you, this time three for one.”
movement of the cards. In fact, every time he missed Black Beret was helpful, like a kind uncle: “Do it,”

he whispered. “He wants you to win it back—it’ll of the Mind at the Promenade. (But that was 1986,
get the crowd with him.” The dealer’s eyes were wasn’t it?) “I’m a little short on cash. Can I send you
enlarged, protruding, the mouth constant. I looked a check?” I asked, and he said sure and didn’t object
into my wallet and—with a lurch—put sixty dol- when I suggested that, instead of going to dinner
lars down and turned the card over. Six of hearts. before the play, we walk down to Lincoln Center and
“No, look, it’s this one,” said Black Beret, sym- see the Chagall windows in Avery Fisher Hall and
pathetically, turning over the ten. The crowd grab a soft pretzel with mustard on the way (“My
jammed in and swelled its noise. “That isn’t fair, favorite tourist indulgence,” I said with just the right
you promised him.” “Mind your business,” snarled touch of self-mockery). My mind had come
the dealer—then, with a quick glance toward Fifth unfrozen enough to begin to calculate how I could
Avenue, “Oh, oh, cops coming.” The crowd left, make it home on my remaining twenty-nine dollars
and the dealer, Black Beret, Stretch Pants, and Red cash without getting any more money or admitting
Tie walked quickly together toward Broadway, my plight—and in a way that would make me suffer
leaving me frozen, spent, swirling in a tempest, (that seemed very important): One dollar for the
damned, gaping, clear only about one thing—I was subway, one for the pretzel, another dollar fare to
the mark, the only mark. Greg’s apartment in Brooklyn after the play.
As I stood there and then walked east I was
absolutely serene and absolutely violated: calm,
unsurprised to see no police descending on the ille-
gal game, intensely aware of people, food carts,
lights, dimming sky—but cordoned off, invisible.
I walked down Fifth Avenue to the library and
went up to the reading room and got out my paper
for the Shakespeare meetings to go over until Greg
came, but I could not see the words.
I watched a lady across the table in a print dress
and imitation fur-collared coat that she kept partly
buttoned. She had notebooks and folders full of
bills and receipts and lists and slips that she kept
shuffling and restacking and poring over and mak-
ing new lists from. At first I thought she was bal-
ancing her checkbook, but she kept going over the
same things, shifting in her chair, restacking the
lists, sighing, copying new figures, pursing her lips,
returning to the notebooks and then the slips of
paper, erasing, writing, always intent. I couldn’t tell
what she was doing. I had to stop watching.
Greg and I walked back along Forty-Second, past

Burger King to Broadway, where we went under-
ground and caught the B train local up to Seventy-
Ninth. Greg could see something was wrong but
didn’t pry, just stopped suddenly—twice—to look at
me as we talked, once putting his hand on my shoul-
der. We got off and walked back to Seventh-Sixth,
where he had booked tickets for Sam Shepard’s A Lie

But what about getting to the airport? As we but believable epiphanies. For instance, at the end
walked, Greg filled me in on his job with a new TV of this play, Jake, who has nearly killed and then
production company, but he could tell I was preoc- deserted his wife in one of his recurrent fits of jeal-
cupied. “How can I get to LaGuardia from your ousy, returns to tell her that her reality, the truth of
place by 7:30 in the morning?” I suddenly asked. her generous, ingenuous being that has so infuri-
(That must have been 1984.) He stopped and ated him, is also what makes all other ideas and
looked at me, then went on. “Well, you can sleep presences unreal, merely a lie of his mind. In an act
in, have one of my great breakfasts, and take a taxi of amazing mercy that her unique reality has taught
right up there, maybe twenty minutes,” he said. him and finally made possible for him to do, he
“Or you can get up at 5:00, leave me asleep, grab a gives his life to preserve her—and in doing so finally
piece of toast, and take the subway back in here changes himself.
and then out to the airport—give yourself two
hours.” After a moment, seeing I was serious, he It hurts very much to think of you. How could
added, “The taxi is twenty dollars, the subway plus you suffer not only our pains but our sicknesses and
the bus from the nearest stop is two.” infirmities? Did you actually become sick and infirm
Back at the theater, Greg told me we were in the or merely feel, with your greater imagination, some-
old Manhattan Ward meetinghouse. He pointed to thing like what we feel when we are sick and infirm?
the unusual arched doorways and alcoves and But could you actually “know according to the
blocked-in windows as we went through the foyer flesh,” as you say, if you didn’t literally experience
and up the stairs into the main theater. When my everything with your body? And if you did literally
eyes adjusted I could see the huge encompassing experience our infirmities, did you know our great-
arches on four sides that had framed the original est one, sin? Everyone says you didn’t sin, that you
chapel and supported the dome above. The space were always perfect. But how then could you learn
was now filled on three sides with banks of seats, how to help us? And yet if you did sin, if you actu-
with a wide stage on the fourth side and a catwalk ally became sick and infirm and unwilling, for a
above. In the program I read, “First constructed in moment, to do what you knew was right, how does
1928 as a Mormon Church, the building was refur- that help us? I don’t want you to hurt like this, like
bished and officially opened as the Promenade I do now, to be ashamed, to hate the detailed, quo-
Theatre in 1969. . . . New York’s only Off-Broad- tidian past. Yet I want you to know the worst of me,
way theatre on Broadway.” the worst of me possible, and still love me, still
Shepard’s play, one of his earliest, is a prepara- accept me—like a lovely, terrible drill, tearing me all
tion for the more well-known Fool for Love; both the way down inside the root, until all the decay and
plays chart the agony of Western misfits, grotesque then all the pulp and nerve and all the pain are gone.
and universal in their irrational revenges and bizarre, Can’t you tell us directly, without all the mystery
literally or spiritually incestuous, loves. Greg doesn’t and contradiction, if what I feel is right? Could it
like Shepard’s work and had gotten the tickets after be that your very willingness to know the actual
my phone call only out of kindness, but I find pain and confusion and despair of sin, to join with
Shepard the most attractive as well as troubling new us fully, is what saves us? It’s true, I feel your con-
American dramatist. He is willing to use the bleak descension in that; I feel you coming down from
lives and dry landscapes and tacky motels and vicious your formidable, separate height as my Judge and
words that are one part of a section of America usu- Conscience. I feel you next to me as my friend. Did
ally neglected in drama, the twentieth century West it happen in Gethsemane, when you turned away
I grew up in. And he does not merely imitate those from your father and your mission for just a
lives but invests them believably with the great moment? I think so. So how can I refuse to accept
human themes of love and death and with passages myself, refuse to be whole again, if you, though my
of poetry and even occasional, quite “unrealistic” Judge whom I hide from, know exactly what I feel

and still accept me? Yet it hurts so much to hear Shakespeare Association meetings lily-white). The
you tell of your pain to Joseph Smith, when you choir finished singing a Monteverdi motet, and a
remember that moment in the Garden. You say, lay reader, a tall blonde woman with a black surplice
“Which suffering caused myself, even God, the hanging loosely over her bright orange dress, gave
greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah 53, the “suf-
bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and fering servant” passage: “He is despised and rejected
spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with
cup, and shrink—Nevertheless, glory be to the grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him. . . .
Father, and I partook and finished my preparations By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify
unto the children of men.” many; for he shall bear their iniquities. . . . He hath
Was that preparation so painful, even when you poured out his soul unto death: and he was num-
recalled it as the resurrected Lord—and so many bered with the transgressors.” Then we sang Bach’s
hundred years later—that you still shrank and could Chorale from the St. Matthew Passion:
not complete your sentence? Is that pause between O sacred head, sore wounded,
“shrink” and “nevertheless” the actual moment of With grief and shame weighed down,
your Atonement? And why did you also tell Joseph Now scornfully surrounded
that you will be red in your apparel when you come, With thorns, Thine only crown. . . .
in garments like one that treadeth in the winevat? What Thou, my Lord, has suffered
Why will you have to say then, “I have trodden the Was all for sinners’ gain:
winepress alone, and have brought judgment upon Mine, mine was the transgression,
all people; and none were with me.” But shine the deadly pain.
Who is it can withstand your love?
Back at the hotel I asked about other Good Friday
It cost me five dollars from Dorval Airport to the observances. Were any scheduled at Notre-Dame,
Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Montreal, but I had paid for the large cathedral-like church I had seen while
the room in advance and could fast for a few days. walking through the Old City by the St. Lawrence
The other participants in my seminar Thursday River the night before? The concierge was uncer-
afternoon seemed to like my paper on “Shakespeare tain but thought there would be something at
as a Healer,” though they were more interested in 3:00 P.M., the traditional hour of Christ’s death. He
his possible knowledge and use of Renaissance confirmed by calling the church for me. Since I had
psychological therapy than in my evidence for his to walk, I left right after the general session that
preoccupation with Christian ideas about healing ended at 2:00 and hurried east along Rue Sher-
the soul. It was just as well. I was feeling very much brooke to Rue Université and then south to Notre-
a hypocrite, a talker, an absurd posturer who knew Dame, which in daylight seemed built somewhat
to do good and did it not. What did I really like the two-towered Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
know about healing? Only two blocks away I found police cars setting
The next day I slipped out between sessions to up barriers for a crowd of several thousand people
visit the Montreal Fine Arts Museum, just up Rue just coming along Rue Ste. Catherine from the east
Sherbrooke from the hotel, but found it closed. It and turning down Rue Université to the church.
was Good Friday in heavily Catholic French Canada. I joined them and found an English-speaking par-
Walking back I heard singing from a small stone ticipant who explained they had made a twelve-
Protestant church. A constantly smiling, bustling, mile march beginning that morning, an annual
very delicate black woman found me a seat and pilgrimage complete with “stations of the cross” as
gave me a program and hymnal (I watched her a the stopping places. A truck with large loudspeak-
moment, noticing her color and her soft, scurrying ers was leading, and a man in the front seat contin-
solicitude; New York had seemed all black, the uously sang religious songs for the marchers. They

were of all ages and dress: priests, nuns, groups of doorway, playing the melody. Then, as the singing
children, solitary housewives, blue-collar men, ended, he continued playing solo, slowly moving
young couples, many with wooden crosses hung back. His mother was standing in an alcove, watch-
around their necks, some in groups carrying full- ing, and after he finished, she moved to stand by
size crosses, a few with banners: “Vendredi Saint,” him, her hand on his arm.
“Jésus, Notre Sauveur,” etc. They were welcomed At 2:50 the priest quickly finished his talk and a
at the Cathedral by a brass band and a large crowd; complete silence fell over the congregation until
then all of us pushed in to fill the huge main floor 2:55, when a group of priests, white-robed and
and the two galleries. hooded, evidently representing all of us, filed up to
As we waited I walked the full circuit of aisles, try- the altar and gazed up at the crucified Savior until
ing to respond, as I had in the cathedrals in Europe, 3:00. The signal of the moment of death was a
to the builders’ sense of space and light. The stained sudden lighting of the brightest altar lights; all the
glass in this church is too realistic and sentimental congregation stood and remained in silence for a
for my taste, but the sanctuary, with its high altar, is few minutes. Then slowly we left.
gorgeous: rich in light, simply proportioned but
with much sculpture, which is focussed in a huge In the mid-seventies I sometimes went fishing at
figure of the risen Christ, seated in glory above a fig- North Eden. That tiny delta and valley, opening
ure of the crucified Christ. The artworks and small into the east side of Bear Lake in northern Utah,
chapels on the perimeters are ordinary, except for a was homesteaded, along with a similar, smaller
striking painting of an early French nun earnestly valley, South Eden, late in the nineteenth century.
teaching Indian children, the children’s faces angled Two small reservoirs were built in North Eden to
in what seems accusing innocence toward the hold water through the summer for irrigating hay-
viewer. I thought of Tuckerman’s chilling line, “They fields and perhaps a few gardens. Someone planted
have their tears, nor turn to us their eyes.” the reservoirs with rainbow and brook trout, which
A white-robed priest began to address the con- grew, as did the native cutthroat, into huge fish in
gregation about 2:30 and continued for twenty those isolated, food-rich lakes: the cutthroats lean,
minutes. My French was only good enough to get fierce fighters; the rainbows and brookies jeweled
the general drift: an informal homily on the sins of and heavy-sided. One of my father’s complicated
the day. I moved up the left outside aisle and business transactions had left him with a partial
slipped into a marble corner at the side of the stairs interest in the one remaining ranch and a key to the
from the nave up to the sanctuary, where I could gate at the valley’s west end that kept most people
watch both the priest and the audience. He was away from the reservoirs.
obviously very popular, occasionally joking, using On a mid-August morning before sunup, one of
the device—which seemed to work well—of repeat- Dad’s clients, who insisted on taking his Jeep Wag-
ing a rhetorical question, “And have we sinned?” oneer, drove us east from Salt Lake City to
followed by an example or two and then the ques- Evanston and then north along the Utah-Wyoming
tion again. Occasionally his exhortations led him to border through Woodruff and Randolph, down the
mention a hymn, which he would then start singing, long incline to Laketown on the south shore of
and the congregation would join in. Finally an Bear Lake, then up the east side.
usher spotted me and sent me to find a seat; but by I was alone in the back seat, only half-listening
this time there weren’t any, so I stood at the back. to my father’s usual cheery commentary and story-
The priest, now far away from me, mentioned telling. My own thoughts were dull, almost
Mary and then began singing “Ave Maria.” I heard despondent: I had been released from St. Olaf Col-
a trumpet behind me softly join in and turned to lege the year before in what looked to me (and
see a black teenager, who reminded me of Stretch some colleagues) like a decision to eliminate my
Pants, slowly move forward through the main influence on students, one of whom had joined the

Mormon Church. Then I had been turned down beige rattles and thick body clearly visible under
for a position at BYU, apparently because of con- our prow. None of us spoke.
cern about what parents might think about how a Using wet flies cast with a bubble, we each took
person of my unorthodox views and background our limit of three trout over five pounds and,
might influence students. At the same time, I was acknowledging the mutual agreement of those fish-
turned down at the University of Utah, because, as ing on this private lake, put the many others we
one of my former teachers there confided with caught back. Two that my father caught with his
regret, “This department simply won’t hire an active, own self-designed version of a double woolly worm
believing Mormon.” (Which was I, too devoted a that ended in a red tuft must have weighed over
Mormon—or not devoted enough? Where was my eight pounds.
home, my vocation? In Zion or in exile?) We tried some dry fly casting in the early after-
We had moved to Utah and were subsisting on noon, and I watched a huge brookie rise to take my
part-time institute teaching for the Church in Ogden dragonfly and then, coming in, suddenly turn
and Salt Lake and a writing fellowship in Leonard uncontrollably under the anchor rope and snap the
Arrington’s Church History Division—and a large delicate leader, close enough that I could see the rich
garden at our home in Kaysville. And I had begun scattering of blue and red-gold aureoles down its side.
to lose confidence. Perhaps I didn’t have a job I felt it go, with no regret. By 4:00 the wind up the
simply because I wasn’t good enough, didn’t have canyon off Bear Lake was too strong for good fishing,
enough scholarship published or good enough teach- and we left. Dad and I both offered to drive, but the
ing evaluations to overcome those other qualms client, who had taken a nap, insisted he wasn’t tired
administrators were having (after all, I hadn’t been and for variety headed around the lake to Garden
accepted at the other places to which I had applied City and down Logan Canyon, with me sleeping
either). I had felt the mantle leave me when I was across the back seat and Dad dozing in the front.
released as branch president in Minnesota, and no
spiritual security had replaced it. I found it hard to When I came up out of unconsciousness I had
pray, to remember what it had felt like to bless my my hands on my father’s head and could feel his
branch members and family with complete assur- hair and blood. I couldn’t hear the words I was say-
ance and to know with certainty the Spirit’s response. ing, but I felt them from the blessing part of me,
I wondered constantly, in blank repetition through the deepest part, before consciousness. Dad was
broken sleep as we drove, if I had lost my way, if the more conscious than I was but more hurt. I gradu-
Lord knew there was such a person anymore. I ally began to see the ground, the fir trees, then the
wondered where the deepest part of me had gone. cars just down from us. There was a blue Austin
We had our boat in the higher lake by 7:00 A.M. impaled at a slight angle onto the front of the Jeep.
and headed for the upper end, where the fishing All of the Jeep’s doors were sprung open, and the
just out from the stream mouth had been best in freezer of huge fish was splashed across the high-
late summer. I sat in the prow facing the early sun way. I kept my hands on Dad’s head and began to
and the sharp canyon wind, smelling the water and hear his moaning, then felt pain emerging in my
observing the long scar the mule-pulled Fresno own chest and struggled to breathe.
scrapers had made long ago as they brought down Police came over soon and told me our driver
fill for the dam. Suddenly I saw to my right a V in had fallen asleep and run head-on into the Austin,
the water, much like our boat’s wake but very small, which had been driven by a German tourist whose
moving rapidly across to the shore on our left. legs had been broken. Ambulances were on the way.
I silently pointed and Dad slowed so that we inter- Each new face asked me where we caught the fish.
cepted the double riffle, just behind a four-foot Our driver, who wasn’t hurt at all, kept apologizing,
rattlesnake, moving with the same motion it makes frantically. He knew my father was dying. When
on open sand, its yellow on black diamonds and the ambulances came, they put Dad in the first one

and tried to get me to lie down by him, but that •••

made it even harder for me to breathe. At the I made it back to Manhattan (another seven dol-
Logan hospital they made me lie down for x-rays lars, leaving me twelve dollars) in time to meet
of my broken ribs, and I nearly fainted. Then the Greg for the matinee of Hamlet at the Joseph Papp
technician told me they had seen what looked like Shakespeare Festival Theater near Astor Place. “Put
a bruise on the upper aorta in my father’s x-rays both these tickets on the tab for that check I’m
and were going to rush him to Salt Lake because sending you,” I said when he came up. “I owe you
the artery could burst at any moment. for the toast.” I was anxious to see what Liviu
I asked the technician if he would help me give Ciulei, the great Hungarian director who is now in
my father a blessing, and he nodded and went for charge of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis,
some consecrated oil. We found Dad on a gurney would do with this difficult and (in my opinion)
in the next room, barely conscious, the whole left usually butchered play and to see the popular movie
side of his face, where he had struck the dashboard, actor, Kevin Kline, do the lead. (This was certainly
going purple. I blessed him with life, specifically 1986.) I was disappointed in both of them: more of
with the five years he had told me that spring he the same traditional misreading of the play as sim-
needed in order to complete the arrangements to ply a struggle by a romantic intellectual to get
consolidate our family investments and transfer them enough courage to take bloody revenge on the
into the Church’s missionary funds. The words were uncle who killed his father.
given to my tongue, beyond my mind. I called Char-
lotte and Mom and told them we’d had a slight
accident, to call Dad’s friend, heart surgeon Russell
Nelson, and to meet us at the LDS Hospital.
But all confidence left me on the ninety-minute,
blaring-sirens ambulance ride to Salt Lake. I sat in
the front seat, Dad and a doctor and nurse just
behind me through a curtain. As the driver radioed
ahead, asking Dr. Nelson to be ready and describ-
ing the emergency, I was constantly sure someone
would soon push through the curtain to tell me the
aorta had burst and my father was dead. When we
arrived, Dad was rushed into surgery and Charlotte
stayed with me while I got us checked in and
walked to my own room. Then I couldn’t breathe Ciulei’s best decision was to let the costuming
again. Charlotte got them to look at my x-rays, and instincts of the actors follow Shakespeare’s
which I was carrying; they decided that my col- words and show Hamlet becoming more and more
lapsed lung needed immediate attention and sent like his monstrous uncle as he succumbs to the
Charlotte out while an intern gave me a local, made revenge spirit. The poison that symbolizes that
an incision, and pushed a hollow needle between spirit is initially dropped by the uncle into Ham-
my ribs and began to evacuate the chest cavity let’s father’s ear, then, in the call to revenge, is
so my lung would reinflate. dropped into Hamlet’s ear by the father’s ghost
Charlotte came back to tell me my father was and, in direct response to Hamlet’s threats, into
fine—except for some missing teeth and a broken Laertes’ ear by Claudius. By the play’s end that poi-
jaw. The new x-rays they took for Dr. Nelson showed son is spreading to corrupt and finally kill them all.
no bruise on the aorta. I thought of the fish, the Ciulei also allowed Harriet Harris to play Ophelia
brookie, and the part of me that moved to heal my in a way that let the words speak true, even against
father before I knew anything. We were alive. the rest of his direction. She was able to show a

woman and her innocent love being ground to I think he loves to do right, but he has a hard time
pieces between the sinful male “honor” of Hamlet being honest or kind when the chance to do so is
and the sinful male “protection” of her father. sudden or embarrassing or when he is in pain or
After the play we walked up past Christopher lonely. If he has time to think, he is very often good,
Park and found, at the corner of West Fourth Street, but not when he is surprised.
a quartet of young men, two on violin, one on viola, When I helped him marry Charlotte Ann, you
and one on cello, just beginning Haydn’s “Sunrise know how much better he was for awhile. He began
Sonata.” They were about the same age as Stretch to learn from her to be generous before he thought
Pants and the trumpet player in Montreal but were about it. He even began to be honest like she is,
dressed in levis and T-shirts, like the dealer. They without toting up the cost. But after all that self-
were excellent musicians, and most of the rowdy pity when he lost his job at St. Olaf ten years ago
crowd stood quietly or passed by carefully. Nearly he began to be a hustler, to cut corners, to take
everyone put a quarter or two into the open case, advantage. I was able to use that car accident to
but I waited, thought, felt within me the war of help him know he was good. And when you
blame for the con game—and guilt and racism— arranged for him to be a bishop, that was fine for
against all my opposing beliefs, and furtively put in awhile. But he seems to have lost contact with
five dollars. As we caught a bus up Seventh Avenue, Charlotte Ann. He isn’t listening to her very well,
I told Greg I thought I’d get some rest before and he isn’t telling her what he really feels. I think
Easter, left him at his station on Forty-Second, and she is getting tired.
transferred across and up Madison to the empty Perhaps he is writing too much. I am certain he
apartment on Sixty-Third that Dave and Karen is not praying enough. He is worried, though, and
Davidson had lent me for the weekend. I bought wondering, sometimes frantically, I think, why
bread at the corner deli and explored the refrigera- there is not someone to help him the way he has
tor—but still felt I shouldn’t eat and slept uneasily. helped some who have needed him. He does not
seem to be able to ask for help. Perhaps something
This is my report. I have been assigned to George will happen that we can use. I hope so. My heart
England, one of my descendants, for thirty years reaches out to complete the circle. I think some
now. He carries my own name but does not use good chances will come now that he is in a bish-
George often, though that is his first name. I have opric again and working with the primary and the
protected him well, but I do not understand him. Cub Scouts—and also when he becomes a grand-
I think I should remain on this assignment for at father in two years.
least one more ten-year term. I am sorry about the language of this report.
The main problem is that George understands I know you want me to learn from him, but it is
what is right to do but does not do it. He knows hard when he talks so very little. Please excuse all
more about the Atonement than I did when I was mistakes.
branch president in Lyme Regis—or even when I
became a patriarch in Plain City after the crossing I couldn’t sleep and then overslept, so I had to
to Utah. He writes constantly about it, even when run all the way up through the Easter-dressed
he is writing for the gentiles about literature. Many people on Fifth Avenue to make it to the Metro-
people praise him for what he says; they write let- politan Museum of Art on Eighty-First by the
ters to him telling how he helped them live the 10:30 opening. I paid one dollar of the four-dollar
gospel better and helped them understand repen- suggested contribution (leaving me one last bus
tance. But he still does terrible things. It is still hard fare plus just enough to get to the airport the next
for him to be honest. He covers up his mistakes morning). I went right to the Rembrandts and Ver-
with lies. He pretends he knows things or remem- meers, but even there I found I could only focus
bers people or has read books when he has not. well on two paintings: Rembrandt’s gentle “Christ

with a Pilgrim’s Staff ” and Vermeer’s quiet, con- Despised” from The Messiah. She had dark hair and
suming “Woman with a Blue Pitcher,” the young wore a long surplice-like overdress. It was made of
housewife working calmly in that corner of a room what looked like velvet and was dyed a striking
that Vermeer painted again and again, as if he might grape red. Her somber alto voice reminded us of
understand the whole world through one place seen the costs of salvation: “He was despised, rejected, a
completely. Then I hurried down the long hall, past man of sorrows”—her voice pronounced exactly
the antique pianofortes, to the south wing—Manet’s the grief in that three-note dying fall on “sorrow”
white apparition, “Woman with a Bonnet,” framed that must have come from Handel’s own pain. She
in the doorway as a beacon visible all the way. But looked straight into our eyes, as she slowly turned
I turned quickly to find my favorite Manet at the and looked across the congregation: “He hid not
far right: “The Dead Christ with Angels.” his face from shame, from shame and spitting.”
Critics of the nineteenth-century French Academy Then Liz Hodgin, in a lovely floral print and
did not like the extreme realism, the precisely bird- pink hat, sang the soprano solo that has been called
like blue wings on the two angels and the heavy, by Kenneth Clark and others the greatest piece of
black-shadowed cadaver. But I find the moment human music: “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth.”
captured by Manet extremely moving. It is not the But it is that, I believe, only when it is sung by
traditional moment of shining glory after life someone, like Liz, who believes, who sings her own
returns. It is the dark time of struggle as Christ’s testimony as well as Handel’s. And our hearts were
divine spirit is still creating the resurrection from lifted from the depths Andrea had properly taken
within his still-dead mortal body, with the angels us down to. I blessed Andrea for planning such a
still sorrowing, holding him up, urging life to program and for being part of it, for remembering,
return. I agree with Emile Zola, the French novel- though we Mormons don’t often notice Good Friday,
ist, who wrote of Manet’s “obstinate eye and auda- what that somber day is meant to recall: that Christ
cious hand,” his ability to imagine and realize such was suffering servant as well as glorious victor, that,
angels, “those children with great blue wings who like all of us sinners, he had to die before he could
are so strangely elegant and gentle.” These are the be resurrected.
angels Mary Magdalene saw later, when she found The bishop bore his testimony, not about the
the tomb empty, the two still “sitting, the one resurrection but about the power of repentance,
at the head, and the other at the feet, where the which he had experienced personally. An elegantly
body of Jesus had lain” (John 20:12). At the front dressed businessman picked up the theme by con-
of the painting is a snake, the one from Eden, its fessing, in a careful, broken voice, how Christ had
head about to be crushed according to the promise. changed him twenty years before, suddenly, com-
I took the bus across Central Park to the chapel pletely. A short man with a beer belly, thinning,
on the second floor of the Church-owned office long black hair, and a black leather jacket, almost a
building on Sixty-Fifth and Broadway so I could caricature of the aged hippie, spoke softly of his
make sacrament meeting at noon. After the sacra- long, slow, still-backsliding conversion. And a young
ment was administered, a short Easter musical pro- Puerto Rican on the bench in front of me, whom I
gram preceded the regular testimony bearing. But had noticed struggling for courage to get up, spoke
if this was 1986 then it was on the last Sunday of last. He told how a few weeks before he had made
March, rather than the first Sunday, when Mor- a Saturday trip to see this strange part of New York,
mons normally fast for twenty-four hours and bear had wandered into the LDS visitors’ center on the
testimony. And the printed program I saved proves main floor just below us, and had met some mis-
that it was indeed Easter. Anyway, after the choir’s sionaries and joined the Church. He tried to
“Easter Hymn” and a women’s quartet singing describe his former sins and how he had changed.
“The Lord’s Prayer,” the choir leader (Andrea “I’m sorry in all the world,” he kept saying. “I’m
Thornock, I see from the program) sang “He Was sorry in all the world.”

L E T T E R we tied this to a principle he often enunciated,

“The gospel is bigger than any one person’s under-
Letter to Gene, My Eternal Brother standing of it.” The gospel embraces all truth while
literature expresses the human yearning for that
By Mary Lythgoe Bradford truth. In the beginning was The Word, and you
were devoted to The Word in all of its manifesta-
“Your absence has gone through me tions.
Like thread through a needle. “Gene, Gene, the Writing Machine,” my chil-
Everything I do is stitched with its color.” dren called you. Would I were so accomplished in
—W.S. Merwin so many genres. As an essayist, you were there first,
urging me to write personal essays for Dialogue.
You were always just a few steps ahead of me, You published your own collections while I limped
even though you were three years younger. You along in your wake. My own collection emerged in
married the love of your life while still a mere slip 1987, and you used it in your classes, recommend-
of a lad, and you left for a mission with Charlotte ing it to students and friends just as if you hadn’t
while we were in school at the University of Utah. put me up to it!
I kept track of your career and your family until We sometimes argued in friendly fashion about
that fateful summer of 1957 when you announced those slightly inflammatory ideas you enjoyed run-
that you were planning to found an independent ning up the flagpole. I was not sure that Mormon
scholarly journal. I was finally getting around to women are “freer than Mormon men under the
marriage, so I exacted a promise that you would patriarchy.” I was sure that Virginia Sorensen was
seek me and recruit me. not the “founding foremother of the personal
When you and Wes Johnson founded Dialogue: essay.” But I always learned from you. I noticed
A Journal of Mormon Thought almost a decade later, that whenever others disagreed, sometime vehe-
I had no idea that I would one day follow you as its mently, you did your utmost to engage them in
editor. Deeply into motherhood, I hungered for dialogue. You believed that we learn more from
connections with the literary/academic life I had those with whom we disagree. You were expansive
left behind. You put me on Dialogue’s staff, and you and open. You invited everybody into your wide
published poems of mine that I had believed would and spacious tent.
never see the light of day. The thesis I had written One day we sat down to discuss the life of Low-
on Virginia Sorensen was languishing at the Uni- ell Bennion. It was clear that a biography and an
versity of Utah when you asked me to write about anthology were needed. We decided that I would
her for Dialogue. Later on, you appointed me guest work on the life while you collected his lesser-
editor for an issue on Mormons and the City. known speeches and essays. Typically, you pub-
Though I was offended at your stringent editing of lished in about a year; I birthed mine in about nine
my work, I had to admit that you had made me years. You stayed by my side, though, cheering,
look good, a habit that stayed with you. editing, advising—always downplaying your role in
(I once had the temerity to edit you, but I soon my development. You single-handedly kept my
gave up. You had created your own style—some- reputation alive through your comprehensive essays
where between Jane Austen and Faulkner—it was on Mormon literature. You usually included me in
useless to tamper with it.) your anthologies. Because of you, my reputation
You epitomized the lofty ideal I had learned to exceeded my output.
respect in graduate school: the study of literature is Your essays, though personal, ranged over theo-
a noble, humane calling, one that helps us to logical and ethical issues that hardly anybody else
endure life, to understand life, and to enjoy life. had the intellectual or spiritual equipment to han-
Since you and I also studied with Lowell Bennion, dle. As a theologian and a peacemaker, you were

unafraid of subjects like those in your 1995 collec- P O E M

tion, Making Peace: the ethics of nonviolence, why
Nephi killed Laban, scapegoating and labeling in To Gene: My Teacher, My Friend, My Brother
the church and in our communities. You attacked
the bugaboo of perfectionism and one-sided patri- In this desert hot of August
otism. You knew how to think prayerfully and We lost the voice of Gene.
powerfully about our deepest needs. I thought and spoke of (t)hem
During our whole fifty-year journey, you man- (Charlotte and Eugene)
aged to post yourself at the major crossroads in my Throughout the day he died
life, where you gently pointed the way. You were Not knowing Gene was gone.
Lowell Bennion to my three children. Mentor and
model, you were their renaissance man. As founder But we talked—Gene and I
of Dialogue, you proved that faith and scholarship About this last walk of life
are not enemies. As founder of Food for Poland, And tried to discover if this mean
you proved that one man can make a difference. Dying could have meaning—the
You and Charlotte took my children into your Two of us who, together, taught about
home whenever they needed extra attention. Our Undeserved, yet unavoidable suffering.
children and yours became true brothers and sis-
ters. My daughter registered for BYU’s semester He, like a True father, spoke of my suffering
abroad where you made room for me in the Lon- Not his . . . and said he hoped to heal
don flat during its last weeks. I went into training So he could attend to my needs;
before I left so I could keep up with you when we And I received this love, like a sister/daughter
crossed London streets and raced through Sher- Who, though adopted, was no less dear.
wood Forest to see the Major Tree before dark. Certainly, in his final days, Gene taught me still.
When you visited us in Virginia, you always found
a way to lead me into sold out plays and concerts. About that other Suffering Servant whose
We then sat up into the night discussing Swan Lake Witness Gene always was—in everything he wrote:
or Henry IV. You always had a new twist on the old He sorted out the lies about a God and His Son
classics. Whom Gene knew loved not violence, nor
Now I see that you have gone ahead once again. discrimination
Wait up, Gene! Please save a seat for me. But all colors of women and men: that all on
this earth
Your loving sister, Could receive that deep red redemption.
Mary
And my hope is this: that he has gone from
Mary Lythgoe Bradford (marylbradford@starpower. The earthly embrace of the children of Charlotte
net), former editor of Dialogue, has contributed broadly To that Sacred Embrace whose likeness is drawn
to Mormon literature and literary culture through her On stone from Egypt to Israel to Andrus Lane.
reviews, poetry, and personal essays. She has written Bury him in the white lace and emerald green
studies on Virginia Sorensen and Lowell Bennion. clothing of promise
So that when we see him again, he can/will run to
greet us.
—Suzanne Evertsen Lundquist
Suzanne Evertsen Lundquist is an associate professor

of English at BYU.

T R I B U T E help, Eugene England showed me how far good-

ness could go. His goodness made Mormonism
Repaying My Debt to Eugene England even sweeter to me and I loved him very much.
Eugene England helped hundreds like me and
By Krista Halverson he did expect something in return, I think. There is
a debt outstanding. Since hearing of his first illness
As a fairly absent-minded personality, I never- I started to worry, wondering what we (what I)
theless keep a careful account of my debts. And would do without the man who did the work of 50.
now I find myself owing something I hoped I’d be There was a question I’d never put to him directly,
able to repay someday. How I expected to repay but felt a real urgency to know: “After all that you’ve
Eugene England for his influence on my education, done for me, what can I do for you?” Probably the
literary direction, or happiness, is a little vague. reason I never asked is that I didn’t think he’d like
The few letters of thanks I tried were failures— the question. Better to find out for myself and just
I could never find adequate words. Anyway, he was do it; that is, follow his example: work for and love
a person of action and a letter did not seem like ideas and people. Find your responsibility and dedi-
enough. I want to find some way to honor a teacher cate your life toward it, enduring to the end.
and mentor I loved. “Speak the truth in love.” In his essay “On Spectral
Maybe I thought that someday, using what he’d Evidence,” from the essay collection, Making Peace,
taught me (and a lot more skill and wisdom than I Brother England says, “My calling is to be a teacher
have now), I’d be able to in some way contribute to and writer, to use my gifts to seek and promote
his efforts—to show him how much I believe in his truth and virtue, and to build up the Kingdom of
vision for our people. I wanted to describe to him God (including the one that Jesus said was within
how it felt the day I met him, to sit on the floor in each one of us) with all my means.”
an overcrowded classroom and hear, for the first The unease I still feel is because Brother England
time, the verbal articulation of ideas and feelings I has gone before I could give back any of what I
had only begun to understand on my own. Maybe took. I feel it now a personal responsibility to
I could apologize, too, for the way I followed him honor what he asked of his students. He wanted a
around after that, with the questions and ideas I thoughtful, expansive literature from us, and for
then felt only he could help me with. each member to examine her culture with kindness
Among my favorite memories of him are the and without fear. He wanted us to know how to
hours he spent with me in his office, talking me believe, how to ask, and how to love.
through academic projects and personal struggles. It’s not easy to say good-bye, even for a season.
At one point, as I was bemoaning my inability to And how to offer my thanks and sorrow to the
do all things at all times, he stopped me mid-gush England family for their generosity and their loss—
and said, “Krista! Don’t you believe you have a I don’t know how to do that either. His essays, and
Heavenly Father who loves you?” He’d really put then his office when I moved to Utah, were places
his thumb on a problem I couldn’t pick out, and I could go to hear words that reaffirmed my faith
I’ve never forgotten that question. It put me in my and committed me to learning more about my reli-
place and still does. gion and my people. This begins my tribute to
When my father was considering a second temple Brother Eugene England, who was for me a father
marriage shortly after my mother passed away, of Mormon literature and a most powerful advo-
Eugene England gave me essays to read and cate on the side of peace.
arranged for me to meet a favorite author. Without
my asking he found me a job in my field, and his Krista Halverson is currently finishing a master of fine
recommendations got me opportunities I couldn’t arts degree at the University of Washington. Some of
have had without him. Beyond his professional her poetry is to appear shortly in The Seattle Review.

E S S A Y Joseph Smith’s restoration of ancient insights into

the eternal and divine nature of the self (105). He
Mormon Literature: identifies Mormonism with “the American Reli-
Progress and Prospects gion” (111) and predicts that it will soon become
the equivalent of a state religion in some parts of
By Eugene England America (263) and will assume major worldwide
influence and power in the twenty-first century
This, the single most comprehensive essay on the his- (263–65).4
tory and theory of Mormon literature, first appeared Such a religion might well be expected to pro-
in 1982 and has been republished and expanded duce a characteristic, good, possibly even great, lit-
several times in keeping up with developments in erature—at least among its predominant cohesive
Mormon letters and Eugene England’s own thinking. group of literate members, who at this point, for
Anyone seriously interested in LDS literature could historical reasons, are English-speaking. These now
not do better than to use this visionary and biblio- total nearly five million, a larger audience, and one
graphic essay as their curriculum.1 more coherent in powerful theological beliefs, mythic
vision, and unique cultural and religious experiences
Expectations than the audiences for which Chaucer, Shakespeare,
or Milton wrote—indeed, larger and more coher-
Mormonism has been called a “new religious tra- ent than that available to any English or American
dition,” in some respects as different from tradi- writer until the middle of the nineteenth century.
tional Christianity as the religion of Jesus was from A distinguished literature has, in fact, long been
traditional Judaism.2 Its beginnings in appearances expected by Mormons themselves—even prophe-
by God, Jesus Christ, and ancient prophets to Joseph sied by their leaders. As early as 1857, with the
Smith and in the recovery of lost scriptures and the Church less than thirty years old and most Mor-
revelation of new ones; its dramatic history of per- mons living at a subsistence level just ten years after
secution, a literal exodus to a promised land, and the forced trek into the Great Basin wilderness,
the building of an impressive “empire” in the Great Apostle and future Church president John Taylor
Basin desert—all this has combined to make Mor- promised that “Zion will be far ahead of the out-
mons in some ways an ethnic people as well as a side world in everything pertaining to learning of
religious community. Mormon faith is grounded in every kind. . . . God expects Zion to become the
literal theophanies, concrete historical experience, praise and glory of the whole earth, so that kings
and tangible artifacts (including the Book of Mor- hearing of her fame will come and gaze upon her
mon, the irrigated fields of the Wasatch Front, and glory.”5 Only thirty years after that, as part of his
the great stone pioneer temples of Utah) in certain effort in the late 1880s to encourage creation of a
ways that make Mormons more like ancient Jews “home literature” that would be by, about, and for
and early Christians and Muslims than, say, Bap- the edification of Mormons, future Apostle Orson
tists or Lutherans. F. Whitney prophesied, “We will yet have Miltons
Mormonism is also growing rapidly, with the and Shakespeares of our own. . . . In God’s name
highest convert rate in the United States among and by His help we will build up a literature whose
religious groups larger than 1 million, and now has top shall touch heaven, though its foundations may
over 4 million members in the United States.3 now be low in earth.”6
Harold Bloom, the distinguished literary and cul- However, nearly ninety years later, another
tural critic, has recently noted Mormon group cohe- Apostle, Boyd K. Packer, quoted Whitney and
sion and growth in numbers and accompanying expressed regret that “those foundations have been
economic and political power (90) and praised what raised up very slowly. The greatest poems are not
he sees as its unusual theological power because of yet written. . . . The greatest hymns and anthems of

slowly have continued to be central to critical

debates among Mormons about the nature and
quality of their writers’ literary heritage and con-
temporary achievement. Just three years later, at the
Church’s sesquicentennial in 1980, I was able to
celebrate what I called “The Dawning of a Brighter
Day,”9 citing a relative outpouring in the late 1970s
of personal essays, dramas, and collections of
poetry and fiction of increasing quality. Since then
the growth in quantity of Mormon literature pub-
lished (especially fiction), in readership, in publish-
ing outlets, in critical essays and anthologies, and
in participation in Mormon literature classes has
been steady—and there has been, in my view, a
steady increase in quality of writing as well.
But not everyone agrees. Richard H. Cracroft—
who could be called the father of modern Mormon
literary studies for his pioneering work in the early
1970s in producing the first anthologies10 and
starting the first Mormon literature classes—has
strongly objected to the recent directions in most
the Restoration are yet to be composed. We move Mormon literature as being too imitative of flawed
forward much slower than need be.”7 The next year contemporary critical and moral trends and thus
LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball, in a untrue to Mormon traditions and values.11 In this
special issue of the Ensign (the official Mormon concern, he echoes the warning and counsel of
magazine) devoted to the arts, expressed similar Elder Packer to Mormon artists in 1976 that too
disappointment but also continuing expectation: many “want to please the world” or to “be in style,”
For years I have been waiting for someone to and so our artistic heritage grows “ever so gradu-
do justice in recording in song and story and ally.” Elder Packer continues: “Our worship and
painting and sculpture the story of the devotion will remain as unique from the world as
Restoration, the reestablishment of the king- the Church is different from the world. Let the use
dom of God on earth, the struggles and frus- of your gift be an expression of your devotion to
trations; the apostasies and inner revolutions Him who has given it to you.”12
and counter-revolutions of those first decades; At the same time, critics like Bruce W. Jorgensen
of the exodus; of the counter-reactions; of the have called for a Mormon literature that is distin-
transitions; of the persecution days; of the mir- guished not so much by specific doctrinal content
acle man, Joseph Smith, of whom we sing and didactic purposes as by its powerfully conveyed
“Oh, what rapture filled his bosom, For he love of the world God has given us and by its
saw the living God.”8 unusual hospitality to diversity of both content and
style.13 This stand seems to me consonant with
It is remarkable that what many see as the first President Kimball’s call in 1977, cited above, for
major blossoming of a mature Mormon literature literature that includes the full range of Mormon
commenced about the time of these two addresses experience: “struggles and frustrations; apostasies
by Elder Packer and President Kimball. It is also and inner revolutions and counter-revolutions . . .
remarkable that the issues they raised or implied counter-reactions . . . persecution days . . . miracle
about why the prophesied success had come so man . . . rapture.” Certainly one explanation for

the general failure of Mormon literature to fulfill its one wants literature that is uniquely Mormon, even
expectations was that it had remained too timid, “orthodox”—but also good, that is, skillful and art-
too narrowly conventional. It had been satisfied ful; the problem is that focusing on either quality
with the safe middle ground of experience and with seems to destroy the other. “Jack-fiction” derives
the non-risk-taking authorial voice, so it was not from “jack-Mormon,” in modern times the term
courageously dealing with the extremes of “apos- for someone attached, even very strongly, to Mor-
tasy” and “rapture” that President Kimball seems to mon culture and sometimes quite “orthodox” in
be calling for. moral behavior, but not really conversant with or
These two emphases—Elder Packer and Richard H. deeply committed to the theology or an “active”
Cracroft calling for a quality of devotion, spiritual- participant at Church. Most Mormon literature to
ity, and focus on the purposes of the restored Church 1974 had both failed to be good literature and had
and the fundamentals of the restored gospel, and been only superficially Mormon—especially, Keller
President Kimball and Bruce W. Jorgensen inviting says, that which had tried to be most orthodox. The
generous and realistic response to the full range of solution, he urged, lay in learning our own theology
worldly and other-worldly experience—seem to me and dramatizing it effectively on the model of Flan-
compatible, though not easily so. They provide the nery O’Connor, whom Keller quoted at length:
major poles of current critical discussion in Mor- I see from the standpoint of Christian ortho-
mon letters and the major rubrics for describing doxy. This means that for me the meaning of
what seems central to Mormon literature at present
life is centered in our Redemption by Christ
and throughout its history.
and what I see in the world I see in its relation
to that.16 The good novelist not only finds
Issues a symbol for feeling, he finds a symbol and a
The debate presently articulated most forcibly way of lodging it which tells the intelligent
by Cracroft and Jorgensen has continued for at reader whether this feeling is adequate or
least twenty years. In 1974, in the introduction to inadequate, whether it is moral or immoral,
their landmark anthology, Cracroft and his coedi- whether it is good or evil. And his theology,
tor, Neal Lambert, wrote, “Readers must never for- even in its most remote reaches, will have a
get that for the Latter-day Saint, his church, as the direct bearing on this. It makes a great differ-
Doctrine and Covenants declares, is ‘the only true ence to the look of a novel whether its author
and living church on the face of the whole earth,’ and believes that the world came late into being
a literature, or a criticism of a literature, which fails and continues to come by a creative act of
to examine Mormonism on these terms is not only God, or whether he believes that the world
unfair, it is futile.14 That same year, Karl Keller, in a and ourselves are the product of a cosmic acci-
roundtable in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought dent. . . . It makes a great difference whether
on Mormon literature, claimed that “more alarm- he believes that our wills are free, or bound
ing than the paucity of qualified works of fiction in like those of the other animals.17
the Church is the lack of fictional exploration of
the theology itself. Mormon fiction is by and large Keller ended his call for a genuinely faithful
jack-fiction; it does not live by the principles of the Mormon literature by predicting, “When someone
Church. . . . With few exceptions the more becomes capable of creating imaginative worlds
removed a work of Mormon fiction is from ortho- where Mormon theological principles are concretely
doxy, the better its art . . . , and the more narrowly true, then we will have a writer of the stature of
orthodox its point of view, the poorer its art.”15 Flannery O’Connor. Because she was a Catholic,
Keller’s trenchant metaphor, “jack-fiction,” cap- she said, she could not afford to be less than a
tures the paradox at the heart of this debate: every- good artist.”18

Twenty years later, Keller’s conditional prophecy, force salvation upon us, and thus our choices have
as well as those of Elder Whitney and President real consequences for good and evil. Therefore,
Kimball, are, I believe, beginning to be fulfilled— Christ’s Atonement is a paradox, involving a fortu-
in the work of Orson Scott Card, Levi S. Peterson, nate fall: each of us must lose innocence, experience
Terry Tempest Williams, Margaret Young, and many opposition and sin, struggle with justice and our
others. Before discussing them I will describe some guilt, before we will let Christ’s mercy break the
of the theological foundations for these fine Mormon bonds of justice within us and satisfy the demands
writers’ work and review their literary heritage. of God’s justice in our consciences so we can have
the strength to develop in the image of Christ.
Resources Eternally separate and impenetrable as each of us is,
we cannot realize our fullest nature and joy except
Keller suggested that Mormon writers, to achieve in the fully sexual unity of an eternal marriage—an
the theological literacy needed to create their unique idea, together with the divine equality of the sexes,
imaginative worlds, should read Sterling M. given the very highest status in the unique Mor-
McMurrin’s The Theological Foundations of the mon understanding of God being God only in the
Mormon Religion (Salt Lake City: University of male and female oneness of Heavenly Parents.
Utah Press, 1965), which Keller calls “essentially an Such ideas can be, and sometimes have been,
outline of aesthetic possibilities of Mormon articles reduced to a formal creed that tempts Mormon
of belief.”19 Though McMurrin, who builds on the writers toward didacticism, but they are also an
work of B. H. Roberts,20 whom some consider extraordinarily rich and sufficient resource—taken
Mormonism’s finest historian and theologian, does together with the dramatic and mythically power-
in fact provide a concise organization of what is ful Mormon history and the ethically challenging
most dramatic and unusual in Mormon thought, opportunities and demands of activity, covenant-
others could be added: Joseph Smith himself, espe- making, and charismatic experience in the Mor-
cially the King Follett Discourse;21 Doctrine and mon lay church—for empowering the imaginative
Covenants 88 and 93; 2 Nephi 2 and Alma 42 worlds of Mormon literature.
from the Book of Mormon; Brigham Young, in Mormon writers, then, certainly have at hand
such sermons as “The Organization and Develop- sufficient matter with which to produce a great lit-
ment of Man”;22 John A. Widtsoe; Joseph Fielding erature. But does Mormonism also provide insight
Smith; Hugh B. Brown; Spencer W. Kimball; Low- into the values—and limitations—of the means of
ell Bennion; Truman Madsen; Margaret Toscano; literature: language, form, style, genres, critical per-
Blake Ostler; Melodie Moench Charles; Janice spectives? From the beginning, Mormons have pro-
Allred; and many others. duced many of their writings, including some of
In such places are revealed and explored central their best, in forms that until fairly recently have
Mormon ideas that are able to nourish a great lit- been called subliterary and generally dismissed by
erature. All human beings are fundamentally formalist critics: diaries, letters, hymns, sermons,
uncreated, noncontingent intelligences with infi- histories, and personal essays. In the last twenty
nite potential, literally gods in embryo. Like God, years, poststructuralism and various forms of ethi-
we are indestructible but bound forever in a real cal criticism have helped us see beyond such dis-
environment of spirit, element, and other beings tinctions and provided tools for identifying and
that both limit and make demands on us and also appreciating the different but equal values of all
make genuine joy and eternal progression possible, kinds of literature. In 1974, Cracroft and Lambert
as we learn to understand that environment and unapologetically filled half of their anthology with
relate in love to those beings. Freedom is not an early Mormon work in unusual genres, much of
illusion but is of tragic proportions: God did not which they had recovered through their own
make us or the world out of nothing and cannot research, and they provided useful original attempts

at evaluation of these genres in their introductions to come” (emphasis added), which can be under-
and notes. Partly in response to that anthology stood as meaning that truth as we know it is always
came my own belated conversion from my training relative to the knowers involved, a position central
in formalism to an appreciation of the literary to the thought of postmodern philosophers and lit-
power in unusual forms, and I began to try to erary critics.
develop new tools of appreciation.23 On the other hand, in the “King Follett Dis-
Mormon academic critics have been trained course,” Joseph Smith refers to “chaotic matter—
in and make use of all the modern theoretical which is element and in which dwells all the glory.”25
approaches, from the New Criticism of the 1940s I understand this to mean that God and humans
and 1950s to the postmodernism that has devel- can bring order from a pluralistic chaos that is
oped since the late 1960s,24 and no systematic potent, genuinely responsive to our creative powers
criticism has emerged that successfully identifies embodied in mind and language. Because God cre-
Mormonism with any one theory of language ated the world that we know from such a potent
or poetics. chaos and because his mind and ours can make con-
nections to each other and to the world through
the powers of language, we can create metaphors
We can be sustained by that closely imitate experience but also increase our
ability to understand experience. Language is ulti-
the faith that what we are mately tragic, because it cannot perfectly embody
or communicate reality, but it is all we have and we
doing is rooted ontologically had better respect it for what it can do.
A Mormon theory of language, then, can accede
and shared by God. fully neither to a naive platonic realism nor to an
absolute postmodern nominalism. It is based in
faith—faith that God is like us, personal, embod-
Mormon theology, in fact, encourages a remark- ied, creative, and language-using, closely related in
able and fruitful openness in relation to current mind and feelings and sufficiently expressed in our
controversies about the nature and power of lan- organic, changing universe to be understood, at
guage—and thus of human thought and literature. least in part, and to be trusted; faith that while lan-
On the one hand, poststructuralists find much that guage is limited and relative, it is not merely an
is congenial in the Mormon sense of an ongoing, ephemeral human creation or an ultimately mean-
continually developing universe in which God is a ingless game to occupy us until final doom, but
genuine and nonabsolute participant, himself in rooted ontologically and shared by God.26
important ways a creature of language and its limi- A truly Mormon literature would stand firm
tations. Doctrine and Covenants 1:24 informs us against secular man’s increasing skepticism about
that God definitely speaks to us through his prophets the efficacy of language to get at the irreducible
but does so “in their weakness, after the manner of otherness of things outside the mind, to make
their language,” which seems to be consistent with sense, and beauty, of that “chaotic matter which is
contemporary ideas about the way language always element.” If Mormon writers take seriously the fact
functions relative to the world view and rhetorical that language is a gift from God, the creator, that
resources of the speaker and the discourse commu- gives them access to the “glory” that dwells in
nity, and there is no way to get “outside” of nature matter and in other intelligences, including God’s,
and language for an absolute and therefore univer- they can confidently use language, not like others
sally compelling “meaning.” Doctrine and Covenants merely to imitate (albeit with compassionate
93:24 further suggests that “truth is knowledge of despair) the separated, meaningless, raw elements
things as they are, and as they were, and as they are and experience of a doomed universe, but to create

genuinely new things, verbal structures of element Mormons, usually well educated for their
and intelligence and experience that include under- time, to what they saw as the loss of the
standing and judgment as well as imitation and heroic pioneer vision and a decline into
empathy. We can, like our contemporaries, create provincial materialism, which impelled an
of words what Wallace Stevens called “things that outpouring of excellent but generally critical
do not exist without the words,” but we can do so works, published and praised nationally but
without his undermining fear that what he was largely rejected by or unknown to Mormons.
doing was merely an ephemeral human activity, Most of them wrote from “exile” outside of
a game to occupy until final doom; we can be sus- Utah, hence the comparison with American
tained by the faith that what we are doing is rooted literature’s “lost” generation of Hemingway,
ontologically and shared by God. Stein, and other expatriates.
In other words, there should be in Mormon writ- 4. Faithful Realism, 1960–present (overlap-
ers a special respect for language and form, atten- ping somewhat with the previous period).
tion to its tragic limitations but also to its real A slow growth and then flowering from the
possibilities. This would mean, I would think, a 1960s to the present of good work in all genres,
rather conservative respect for proven traditional combining the best qualities and avoiding
forms, until they are genuinely understood and sur- the limitations of most past work, so that it
passed. At least it would mean unusual resistance to is both faithful and critical, appreciated by a
the flight from form, from faith in language, toward growing Mormon audience and also increas-
obscurity and proud assertion of the purely personal ingly published and honored nationally.
vision that afflicts so much writing in our time.
Historical Period One: Foundations (1830–80)
Historical Periods
It seems very important, when discussing Mor-
Mormon literature can be divided usefully into mon literature, to remember that Mormonism begins
four periods: with a book. The Book of Mormon has been vili-
1. Foundations, 1830–80. An initial outpour- fied and laughed at by other Christians and ignored
ing in the first fifty years of largely unsophis- by literary scholars and critics, but it is now pub-
ticated writing, expressive of the new converts’ lished in over eighty languages, over five million
dramatic, symbolic, as well as literal journeys copies a year, and has changed the lives of millions
to Zion and their fierce rejection of Babylon, of people. Most of these people do not think of
and often intended to meet the immediate it as literature, but it has the verbal and narrative
and practical needs of the Church for hymns, power, linguistic and historical complexity, ethical
sermons, and tracts. and philosophical weight, and mythic structure of
a great epic.
2. Home Literature, 1880–1930. The cre- It was a non-Mormon professor of literature,
ation, in the next fifty years, of a “home lit- Douglas Wilson, who twenty-five years ago pointed
erature” in Utah, highly didactic fiction and out the scandalous neglect of the Book of Mormon
poetry designed to defend and improve the by the American literary establishment,27 and that
Saints but of little lasting worth—and also neglect still continues, even in our postmodern age
the refining of Mormon theological and his- of canon expansion and theoretical attempts to
torical writing, especially in James E. Tal- value all writing. But Mormon scholars have made
mage and B. H. Roberts, into excellent and important strides both in explicating the historical
lasting forms. and cultural substance of this rich work28 and in
3. The Lost Generation, 1930–70. A period applying various forms of literary analysis to the
of reaction, by third- and fourth-generation text itself. Especially important so far have been

the work of John W. Welch on the ancient Hebraic the horrendous crossing from Nauvoo to Council
poetic form of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, Bluffs after the martyrdom of Joseph Smith and of
Bruce Jorgensen on the powerful archetypal struc- the unique spiritual outpourings to the women
ture of the book, and R. Dilworth Rust, who has there during the winter and spring of 1847;36
completed a book entitled Feasting on the Word: George Laub’s down-to-earth record of the
The Literary Testimony of the Book of Mormon.29 momentous events of Nauvoo and the costs of
Joseph Smith was involved, as author or transla- discipleship for ordinary members;37 Mary Goble
tor, in much besides the Book of Mormon, and Pay’s reminiscence of the 1856 handcart tragedy,
much of that other work is also of high literary uniquely moving in its understated purity, which
merit. Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants demonstrates how the character of an untrained
such as 19, 76, 88, and 121, and his accounts of his narrator and powerful events honestly recorded can
first vision have been appreciated as fine literature combine to produce great writing;38 and the witty,
as well as scripture.30 His literate and very forth- detailed, and poignant diary of Joseph Millett, cov-
coming letters and diaries have been definitively ering both his 1853 mission as a teenager to Nova
edited,31 as have reports of his sermons. The ser- Scotia and his later life as a settler in Southern Utah
mons, recorded from memory or in longhand, are and Nevada.39
quite fragmentary and unrevealing of his literary
power, except for the remarkable “King Follett Dis-
course,” which is by far the most fully recorded and The Book of Mormon has
also the most doctrinally innovative.32 Because of
the advent of shorthand, we have a much fuller the verbal and narrative power,
record of the unusually practical and personal
tradition of pioneer orators influenced by Joseph linguistic and historical
Smith, especially Brigham Young.33 complexity, ethical and philo-
Early Mormons, like their mainly Puritan fore-
bears, were both anxious about their salvation and sophical weight, and mythic
moved to record evidence of their joy and success
in finding it. In addition, Mormon theology inclined structure of a great epic.
them to think of themselves as eternal, uncreated,
and godlike beings, coming here to mortality from
a premortal existence to continue working out their Similar qualities often come through in the let-
salvation in fear and trembling. They were encour- ters as well. Like diaries, letters provide the reveal-
aged by Church practice and frontier American ing ethical context of spontaneous, unrevised
culture to bear witness both publicly and privately thought and day-by-day decision making and liv-
about their hardships, feelings, and spiritual expe- ing with consequences, as well as unequaled direct-
riences and to take interest in their individual selves ness. Such directness often makes diaries and letters
and sense of creation of those selves—so they pro- “truer” than the usual histories, which can be fal-
duced, at great effort and in amazing detail, diaries sified by generalization—and are valuable, even
and personal reminiscences.34 understandable, only when we see in them what
Good examples of the journals, showing a wide Stephen Vincent Benét called people’s “daily living
range of sophistication and experiences, are Wilford and dying beneath the sun.”40
Woodruff ’s nearly daily record of over sixty years,35 There were also some significant achievements
which provides both a rich source of ecclesiastical in traditional literary forms in the first period.
and cultural history and also intimate insight into the Eliza R. Snow was an accomplished versifier before
development of an Apostle and Church president; she converted to Mormonism but she turned
Eliza R. Snow’s “Trail Diary,” our best source for her talent to long, didactic poems about Mormon

history, leaders, and beliefs. She also produced Historical Period Two:
some fine short lyrics and a number of hymns.41 Home Literature, 1880–1930
The poems were published in two volumes, 1856
and 1877,42 and the hymns are still a highly valued In 1888, Orson F. Whitney, popular poet, essay-
part of the Mormon hymnal, especially “O My ist, and bishop of a Salt Lake City ward, expressed
Father,” which states the unique Mormon doctrine hope for a fine and virtuous “home literature” and
of a Heavenly Mother.43 One other volume of then continued to try to fulfill his own hope.50 He
poetry was published during this period, John spoke to the Mormon youth, who, as the first gen-
Lyon’s The Harp of Zion: A Collection of Poems, eration raised in the Church, lacked their own
Etc. (Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 1853), and other direct conversion experience. He saw these youth as
fine hymns were written by W. W. Phelps and declining from the faith of their parents and vul-
Parley P. Pratt.44 nerable to the Protestant missionaries who were
The first Mormon fiction, as well as some of the beginning to proselyte in Utah. He was joined by
most important and literate early tracts,45 was also other leaders, such as B. H. Roberts, Emmeline B.
written by Pratt. His “Dialogue between Joseph Wells, and Susa Young Gates, and the result was a
Smith and the Devil,” first published in the New virtual flood of moralistic and faith-promoting
York Herald in 1844, is, though mainly a didactic stories that became the staple of Church periodi-
effort to improve the Mormon image and teach cals like the Juvenile Instructor, the Contributor,
some doctrine to its gentile audience, very witty the Woman’s Exponent, the Utah Magazine, and the
and imaginative in its setting, argument, and lively Young Woman’s Journal. Such stories have contin-
dialogue. His Autobiography, edited and published ued to appear in nearly every issue of twentieth-
in the 1870s, long after his death, and still popular century official magazines like the Improvement
in reprints today, has sections that are carefully Era, the Relief Society Magazine, the Children’s
shaped, self-conscious personal narratives much Friend, and their successors down to the present.
like good short stories; and some passages, such as Poets like Josephine Spencer51 and Augusta Joyce
his description of Joseph Smith rebuking the Crocheron published didactic and narrative poems,
guards in Liberty Jail, rise to great eloquence.46 Charles Walker recited his Southern Utah folk
However, though there is evidence that Mormon poetry, and Elder Whitney published hymns,
pioneers read fiction, even during their treks, lyric poetry, and a book-length poem, Elias, an
Church leaders in this first period regularly Epic of the Ages (New York: Knickerbocker Press,
denounced the reading of novels as a waste of time 1904). Susa Young Gates published a fairly success-
and worse, the encouragement of “lies,” recom- ful novel (John Stevens’ Courtship [Salt Lake City:
mending instead sermons and histories, which Deseret News, 1909]), and B. H. Roberts wrote a
dealt in truth.47 George Q. Cannon blamed novel novel that was turned into a play performed on
reading for many of the evils which prevail in the Broadway in New York.52 But the most able, pro-
world,48 and the best Brigham Young could say is lific, and lasting in influence of the early “home lit-
that he “would rather persons read novels than read erature” writers was Nephi Anderson.
nothing.”49 Such reservations were understandable Anderson’s novel Added Upon (1898),53 though
in the day of cheap novels flooding Utah after the the author himself recognized its limitations and
coming of the railroad and few great classics yet revised it twice, well fulfills his own stated criterion
available. But in the 1880s some Mormon leaders in an essay on “Purpose in Fiction”: “A good story
began, with both exhortation and example, an impor- is artistic preaching.”54 The novel follows a woman
tant movement to solve the problem by encourag- and a man and their friends from the premortal
ing and creating fiction—and drama, poetry, and existence through mortal life and into the post-
essays—that explicitly set out to teach Mormon mortal spirit world, showing how their love is
faith and doctrine. promised before birth and subjected to earthly

the Church’s first century.

James E. Talmage, an
Apostle, wrote two books,
The Articles of Faith (Salt
Lake City: Deseret News,
1899) and Jesus the Christ
(Salt Lake City: Deseret
News, 1915), that com-
bine intellectual power
with stately, moving per-
sonal testimony, and have
justly achieved almost
scriptural status among
Latter-day Saints.
The forms and formu-
las of home literature that
were developed in this sec-
ond period continue into
vicissitudes but resolved by marriage within the the present as the kind published and encouraged
restored Church, then depicting their reunion and by the official Mormon outlets (the Friend, New
resurrection after death. Versions of this formula Era, and Ensign, and Deseret Book) and also those,
were immensely popular and have endured to the like the Latter-day Digest and Bookcraft, which
present in musicals like Doug Stewart and Lex De aspire to wide and near-official acceptance
Azevedo’s Saturday’s Warrior (1974) and Carol Lynn by Church leaders and general Mormon reader-
Pearson’s My Turn on Earth (1977). Anderson’s ship. Richard H. Cracroft has led the way in argu-
novel, though not his best, was the only fiction ing that the future of Mormon literature depends
of the original home literature movement that on writers learning from Nephi Anderson’s “steady
continued to be read by a sizable Mormon audi- progress from artless dogma to gently dogmatic
ence, with some readers down to the present. art”55 to produce a steadily more sophisticated and
A number of works of nonfiction written during artful work that is still, in its direct focus on Mor-
the period, because of their intellectual and liter- mon moral and spiritual values, essentially didac-
ary excellence as well as their orthodox and faith- tic.56 But others feel that primary emphasis on the
promoting power, have continued to be valued and didactic, on teaching through literature, is para-
carefully read, such as the didactic biographies of doxically what keeps Mormon literature from
Joseph Smith by George Q. Cannon and John being either excellent artistically or powerful
Henry Evans. B. H. Roberts published stimulating, morally and spiritually.
powerfully imaginative and persuasive theology
(for example, Joseph Smith the Prophet-Teacher [Salt Didacticism vs. Description
Lake City: Deseret News Publishing, 1908; reprint,
Princeton, N.J.: Deseret Club of Princeton Univer- From the Roman writer Horace through English
sity, 1967]) and history (for example, A Compre- critics Sir Philip Sidney and Samuel Johnson to
hensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of noted twentieth-century Americans like Yvor Winters
Latter-day Saints [Salt Lake City: Deseret News and Wayne Booth, most students of literature have
Press, 1930]) that dramatically but with amazing recognized that literature inevitably has a problem-
scholarly objectivity organized the thought of atic, integrated dual purpose and effect—to teach
Joseph Smith and retold the history of the Saints in as well as delight—and even that all discourse is

fundamentally an attempt to persuade.57 Most have Even though since then Card has increasingly
also understood that the more direct and conscious made Mormonism his subject, he has continued to
the effort to teach, the less delightful the literature reaffirm that position against didacticism. Tory C.
and less likely it is to succeed in persuading. On the Anderson, in an editorial in the second issue of the
other hand, great writers who seem to begin with first journal devoted entirely to Mormon literature,
no other purpose than telling a good and honest Wasatch Review International, argues that, because
story, or interesting and complex characters—or good literature more fully and accurately imitates
merely powerful images and affecting rhythms and life in the work and thus can give us moral experi-
sounds—end up moving us into whole new dimen- ence as well as knowledge, it can be much more
sions of moral understanding and religious experi- effective than the more abstract forms of sermon
ence. In 1969, Karl Keller argued: and moralistic story at the very purposes those forms
A great work of Mormon literature will be like espouse—showing us how and how not to live.61
all great works of literature; it will be one that
makes me wrestle with my beliefs and which Historical Period Three:
stimulates me by the example of the author’s The “Lost” Generation, 1930–70
own effort to re-create my own life on surer The first flowering of an artistically excellent
grounds of belief. . . . Mormon literature that was able to be published
Perhaps when we realize that literature can- nationally and gain national recognition came in
not be written or read in the service of religion the 1930s and 1940s. But its authors’ very reaction
but that like religion it is an exercise in other- against the provinciality and moralism of Mormon
ness, an exercise in faith, an exercise in renew- “home literature” tended to give it the expatriate,
ing our grounds of belief, then we will have an even patronizing, qualities and consequent rejec-
important body of Mormon literature.58 tion by many Mormons that led Edward A. Geary
to dub those authors “lost.”62 The main figures
Similarly, in 1980, Bruce Jorgensen, drawing on
were Vardis Fisher, who won the Harper Prize in
the criticism of Wayne Booth and Sheldon Sacks,
1939 for Children of God: An American Epic (New
made a persuasive case that morality is most
York: Harper and Brothers, 1939), which covers
authentic and thus convincing, not in the direct
most of nineteenth-century Mormon history;
preaching of an “apologue” but in the inevitable
Maurine Whipple, who won the Houghton Mifflin
hundreds of small decisions a moral author makes
Literary Prize in 1938 and published The Giant
in the process of writing a realistic “action.”59
Joshua (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1941), based
Orson Scott Card, one of the most able as well as
on the settling of Utah’s Dixie; and Virginia
successful contemporary Mormon writers, pro-
Sorensen, who also began with a novel about early
vided personal confirmation of Jorgensen’s thesis
Mormon history, A Little Lower Than the Angels
when he announced in 1985 that he had long
(New York: Knopf, 1942), but then did her best
before resolved never to
work set in the time (early twentieth century) and
attempt to use my writing to overtly preach place (Sanpete Valley) of her own youth. Among
the gospel in my “literary” works. . . . these works is what many consider the best Mor-
The most powerful effects of a work emerge mon novel, The Evening and the Morning (New
from those decisions that the writer did not York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949) and her collection of
know he or she was making, for the decision “stories,” Where Nothing Is Long Ago: Memories of a
simply felt inevitable, because it was right and Mormon Childhood (New York: Harcourt, Brace
true. . . . [E]very human being’s true faith and World, 1963).63
is contained in what it does not occur to us Geary’s pioneering work on this period identi-
to question.”60 fied about twenty nationally published works by a

dozen authors who were alike in their essentially be instructive to modern Mormon writers” in their
“regional” qualities of responding to a time of what attempts to be “at once artistic and orthodox.”69
they saw as cultural breakdown. Cracroft has praised Edward A. Geary, while criticizing the “lost gener-
Samuel W. Taylor’s Heaven Knows Why (New York: ation” for its own kind of provincialism in seeing
A. A. Wyn, 1948) as the best Mormon humorous mainly the worst of Mormonism and assuming its
novel and has also identified other more recent imminent demise, recognized the “fine artistry” of
novelists who for him fit the “lost generation” their novels, comparable with “better known works
rubric.64 Jorgensen has traced the “lost generation” in the mainstream tradition,” and claimed (in
characteristics in a number of expatriate Mormon 1978) “they are the best Mormon novels we have,
short story writers of the period.65 and we are not likely to get better ones until we
It seems to me useful to identify two writers of learn what they have to teach.”70 Since about 1960,
nonfiction as part of this literary “period”; they
were quite different from each other but shared the
“lost” generation’s impulse toward more realistic Contemporary Mormon
and less apologetic dealing with the Mormon
past and were also, to some degree, rejected by writers have found how to
Mormons. Fawn Brodie’s thoroughly researched
No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph reveal and explore the conflicts
Smith, the Mormon Prophet (New York: Knopf, inherent in Mormonism’s
1945) introduced the psychological approach she
became famous for. Having more the strengths of complex theology and its rich
a novel than biography, it was written from the
point of view that Smith was a powerful charismatic history and cultural experience.
genius but also a charlatan and made him into
an interesting “character” as no other book had
done—but it also led to her excommunication.66 an increasing number of Mormon writers have
Juanita Brooks’s Mountain Meadows Massacre indeed been able to learn from the previous periods
(Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, and, I believe, have produced a literature that is
1950), the first work to deal thoroughly and openly both artistic and ethical, that can both teach and
with the most tragic event of Utah Mormon his- delight as the best literature always has, that is real-
tory, became the model (and Brooks the hero) for istic, even critical, about Mormon experience but
the “New Mormon History,” a whole movement profoundly faithful to the vision and concerns of
of less didactic biography and historiography by the restored gospel of Christ.71
faithful Mormons.67 Brooks was ostracized by many The spiritual father of the latest period of Mor-
Mormons but, unlike Brodie, remained a faith- mon literature is Clinton F. Larson. Larson came
ful Mormon and, as her biographer Levi S. Peter- under the influence of the craftsmanship and the
son has argued, was able to provide an important religious passion of T. S. Eliot and other modern
moral and spiritual service for the Mormon com- poets in the 1930s and 1940s, mainly through his
munity through her work and example.68 teacher at the University of Utah, Brewster Ghis-
elin, himself a fine young American poet. In the
Historical Period Four: midst of this apprenticeship, Larson served as a
Faithful Realism, 1960–Present missionary under the eloquent, urbane, and spiri-
tually direct Hugh B. Brown, later an Apostle.
Richard H. Cracroft, while recognizing some of These influences helped him depart both from the
the weaknesses of the home literature of Nephi didactic and inward-looking provinciality of the first
Anderson, claimed (in 1985) that his work “should two periods and the elitist, patronizing provinciality

of his contemporaries in the “lost generation.” He possibility he created of poetry deeply grounded in
began in the 1950s to write a unique Mormon poetry Mormon theology and experience yet also respon-
of modernist sensibility and skill but also informed sive to personal vision and feelings rather than
and passionate faith. Grounded in knowledge of merely to didactic or institutional purposes.73
Mormon theology and history and contemporary Younger poets in the 1980s and 1990s have
life and thought and also devoutly part of, rather come even more thoroughly under the influence of
than standing apart from, the Mormon people, contemporary American and other poets; they have
Larson was able, with intelligent discrimination, to produced poetry that, in its challenges to tradi-
both attack and affirm the world and also Mormon tional forms and methods as well as its interest in
culture. Karl Keller, reviewing Larson’s first collec- current issues like feminism, multiculturalism, and
tion, The Lord of Experience (Provo, Utah: Brigham postmodernist anxiety about language itself, seems
Young University Press, 1967), in 1968, wrote that to some not Mormon at all. But skilled and faith-
it provided the first Mormon poetry that was real ful Mormon poets who appear regularly in national
poetry: “It does not show art filling a religious pur- periodicals, such as Linda Sillitoe, Susan Howe,
pose but shows . . . religion succeeding in an aes- Lance Larsen, and Kathy Evans, seem to others of
thetic way.”72 us to be taking the faithful realism Larson first
created in interesting and valuable contemporary
directions.74
The personal essay seems to me Douglas Thayer and Donald R. Marshall, who
were students and later teachers at Brigham Young
to have the greatest potential University, became the first to explore Clinton F.
Larson’s new possibility in fiction. Departing from
for making a uniquely valuable the mode of expatriate Mormon writers still pub-
lishing nationally in the 1960s and even the 1970s,75
Mormon contribution both they began to write skillful stories that explored
to Mormon cultural and Mormon thought and culture in a critical but
fundamentally affirmative way. Marshall was the
religious life and to that of first to publish collections, The Rummage Sale: Col-
lections and Recollections (Provo, Utah: Heirloom
others. Publications, 1972; most recent republication Salt
Lake City: Tabernacle Books, 1999) and Frost in
the Orchard (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young Univer-
Larson also helped the new tradition of “faith- sity Press, 1977), and his range is wider, from
ful” but “realistic” Mormon literature along by experimental stories based entirely on such things
founding the first Mormon scholarly and literary as lists or letters to sophisticated work in point of
periodical, BYU Studies, in 1959 and contributing view (“The Weekend”) and symbolism (“The
his poetry regularly there and to Dialogue: A Jour- Wheelbarrow”). Thayer began publishing stories
nal of Mormon Thought, which was founded in in Brigham Young University Studies and Dialogue in
1966. Other poets, such as his colleagues at Brigham the mid-1960s, and his influence has perhaps been
Young University (Edward L. Hart, Marden J. Clark, wider and more lasting. As one younger Mormon
and John S. Harris) and Mormon poets outside the writer, John Bennion, who has himself already pub-
university (Carol Lynn Pearson, Lewis Horne, and lished a fine collection that includes experimental
Emma Lou Thayne) developed their own styles of contemporary styles and subjects,76 wrote, “Thayer
Mormon poetry in the 1960s and 1970s; but all taught us how to explore the interior life, with its
were influenced by Larson, if not in style or subject conflicts of doubt and faith, goodness and evil, of a
matter, then in being encouraged toward the new believing Mormon.”77

Conflict is, of course, the very essence of fiction, But there is a large group of faithful Mormon
and contemporary Mormon writers have found how writers of what I call the “new Mormon fiction”81
to reveal and explore the conflicts inherent in Mor- who are both publishing nationally and gaining a
monism’s complex theology and its rich history and growing audience of appreciative Mormon readers.
cultural experience. Thayer has written a fine novel, Good examples are Linda Sillitoe and Michael
Summer Fire (Midvale, Utah: Orion Books, 1983), Fillerup, both of whom explore feminism and mul-
which examines the challenge and possibility of ticultural issues from a Mormon perspective;82
redemption in the conflict posed by an innocent Lewis Horne and Neal Chandler, who live and
and self-righteous Mormon youth’s exposure to evil write about Mormon life outside the Wasatch
on a Nevada hay ranch. His second collection, Front;83 and Phyllis Barber and Margaret Young,
Mr. Wahlquist in Yellowstone and Other Stories who have growing reputations for both their story
(Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith, 1989), both collections and their novels.84
exploits and exposes the romantic fallacies in male Perhaps the most prolific and innovative among
response to the seductions of wilderness which these (certainly the most widely read and honored)
have produced a conflict, even in Mormons, is Orson Scott Card, who began as a Mormon play-
between heroic manhood and the values of family wright in the 1970s but then wrote traditional sci-
and community.78 ence fiction without Mormon reference and reached
Levi S. Peterson, who acknowledges his debt to the very top of his field with Hugo and Nebula
Thayer for teaching him to write in a simple and Awards two years running in 1986 and 1987. How-
direct style about Mormon experience, has pro- ever, he turned back to openly Mormon works,
duced two fine collections, The Canyons of Grace: beginning with A Woman of Destiny (New York:
Stories (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982) Berkley Books, 1984; rpt. as Saints, New York: Tom
and Night Soil: New Stories (Salt Lake City: Signa- Doherty Associates, 1988) and continuing with a
ture Books, 1990), as well as a novel which some fantasy series, The Tales of Alvin Maker based on the
consider the best yet by a Mormon, The Backslider life of Joseph Smith; straightforward Mormon sci-
(Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986).79 All of ence fiction stories in The Folk of the Fringe (West
Peterson’s work explores in some form the conflicts Bloomfield, Mich.: Phantasia Press, 1989); a sci-
in Mormon experience and popular thought ence fiction series, Homecoming, based on the Book
between the Old Testament Jehovah of rewards and of Mormon; and a novel of contemporary Mormon
punishments and the New Testament Christ of domestic (and spiritual) realism, Lost Boys (New
unconditional acceptance and redemptive love. York: HarperCollins, 1992).
Mormon fiction of the past twenty years has Card is the first of the latest generation of Mor-
most fully realized the hopes of many for an excel- mon writers to have a book written about his work:
lent but genuinely and uniquely Mormon litera- Michael R. Collings’s In the Image of God: Theme,
ture, with a steady increase in both quantity and Characterization, and Landscape in the Fiction of
quality. There are now dozens of skilled writers of Orson Scott Card (New York: Greenwood Press,
a great variety of methods and perspectives: Some 1990).85 Collings compares Card to C. S. Lewis in
are continuing or improving on the “home litera- his skillful invention of alternate worlds in which
ture” tradition, such as Shirley Sealy, Susan Evans to explore more effectively important religious
McCloud, Jack Weyland, Brenton G. Yorgason and questions and affirmations—what might be called,
Blaine M. Yorgason, Carol Hoefling Morris, on the model of Latin American novelists, “magic
and Gerald Lund; some who are publishing excel- realism.” Card has also entered the controversy over
lent work nationally are to some degree expatriates what makes good Mormon literature, both as critic
and show that in their work, such as Laura and publisher: He has started his own publishing
Kalpakian, Judith Freeman, and Walter Kirn.80 company, Hatrack River Publications, and in the

foreword to its first offering, Kathryn H. Kidd’s

Paradise Vue, he offers as rationale that most Mor-
mon novels have either “tended to be very simple-
minded and presented a sugar-coated view of
Mormon life” or “tended to be slow-moving, dull,
and pretentious.” He proposes to provide stories
that “are at once fascinating and illuminating,” that
“give their readers . . . both entertainment and
understanding.”86
If fiction is the area where Mormons are just
now beginning to fulfill the prophetic hopes for
Mormon literature and to have some impact on
national and world literature, it is the personal
essay that seems to me to have the greatest potential
for making a uniquely valuable Mormon contribu-
tion both to Mormon cultural and religious life
and to that of others. Our theological emphasis on By the mid-1980s some Mormon writers were
life as a stage where the individual self is both tested extending the range of the personal essay form to
and created and our history of close self-examina- include diverse voices in the same essay and other
tion in journals and testimony-bearing provide elements usually confined to fiction and to con-
resources that have mainly been realized in great sider issues like feminism and ecology—and some
sermons87 and various forms of autobiography but were occasionally published nationally.93 One
increasingly find expression in powerful informal measure of the growing range and influence of the
essays and personal and family storytelling.88 Mormon personal essay in the 1990s is the warm
The revered Brigham Young University English reception both nationally and by her own commu-
professor P. A. Christensen produced two volumes
nity of Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge: An Unnat-
of informal essays (All in a Teacher’s Day [Salt Lake
ural History of Family and Place (New York:
City: Stevens and Wallis, 1948] and Of a Number
Pantheon Books, 1991), which received excellent
of Things [Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press,
reviews and was awarded the Association for Mor-
1962]) and various other Mormons have written
effective literary, religious, and historical essays mon Letters Prize in 1992 for the personal essay.
with personal dimensions.89 However, it was Another good omen is Phyllis Barber, who won
Edward Geary, with “Goodbye to Poplarhaven,” both the 1991 Associated Writing Programs Award
published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon in “Creative Non-Fiction” and a 1993 Association
Thought 8 (summer 1973): 56–62, who first for Mormon Letters award for How I Got Cultured:
revealed to his own community the great potential A Nevada Memoir (Athens: University of Georgia
of the Mormon personal essay as an art form.90 Press, 1992), which is essentially a collection of
Stimulated in part by Dialogue’s establishment in avant garde personal essays.94
1971 of a regular section, “Personal Voices,” and Drama might also be expected to be a prominent
the example of Geary and others, writers developed Mormon literary form, for some of the same rea-
this form rapidly. Personal essays also began to sons of theology and cultural history that explain
appear occasionally in BYU Studies, and often in the importance of the personal essay. However,
new periodicals like the Ensign (1970), Exponent II despite strong support for popular dramatic pro-
(1973), and Sunstone (1975), and by the late 1970s ductions beginning in Nauvoo and the Salt Lake
and early 1980s had begun to be published in Theatre and the “roadshow” tradition in twentieth-
edited or individual collections91 and to receive century Mormon wards,95 as well as Crawford
some critical attention.92 Gates’s very popular pioneer centennial musical,

Promised Valley (1947), it was not until the 1960s (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990); Ann
that there was much realistic drama written by Edwards Cannon, Amazing Gracie (New York:
Mormons about Mormon experience. The first Delacorte Press, 1991); Louise Plummer, My Name
were mainly “closet dramas,” such as Clinton F. Is Sus5an Smith. The 5 Is Silent (New York: Dela-
Larson’s The Mantle of the Prophet, and musicals, corte Press, 1991); and Dean Hughes, Jenny Haller
like Doug Stewart’s Saturday’s Warrior and Carol (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983) and Go to the
Lynn Pearson’s The Order Is Love. By the late Hoop! (New York: Knopf, 1993).
1970s, however, fine Mormon dramas were being
quite regularly written and produced at Brigham Prospects
Young University. Of these probably the best single The future of Mormon literature is potentially
achievement is Robert Elliott’s Fires of the Mind, both bright and vexed. On the one hand, a number
and the finest single playwright is Thomas Rogers, of new periodicals and presses,103 together with
who has produced plays regularly for twenty years increasingly popular classes in Mormon literature
at a consistent high quality and reached the highest at Brigham Young University and Utah Valley State
level of excellence with Huebener.96 College, are rapidly expanding the audience for
A fine tradition of one-person plays was inaugu- good Mormon literature. Good criticism, both the-
rated by James Arrington in the late 1970s with oretical and practical, is regularly fostered, espe-
his Here’s Brother Brigham and Farley Family cially by the Association for Mormon Letters, 104
Reunion (still regularly performed, available on and regular book review columns105 and even jour-
video, and considered by some as perhaps the best nals entirely devoted to Mormon literature are
of authentic Mormon drama).97 The most promis- appearing. With the recent success of Orson Scott
ing younger playwrights seem to be Susan E. Howe Card and Terry Tempest Williams, the national
(The Burdens of Earth and A Dream for Katy98), Tim publishing market’s unaccountable resistance to
Slover (Dreambuilder and Scales99), Neil Labute (In Mormon writing may be lessening. Anne Perry, a
the Company of Men and Sanguinarians100), Eric British convert who regularly publishes Victorian
Samuelsen (Accommodations101), and Margaret mystery novels to high critical acclaim, has recently
Young.102 (See also Michael Hicks, “The Perform- moved from expressing her Mormon convictions
ing Arts and Mormonism: An Introduction,” in only in the powerful underlying moral climate of
David J. Whittaker, ed., Mormon Americana: her work to somewhat more open reference to
A Guide to Sources and Collections in the United Mormonism and is under contract for a fantasy
States [Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 1995]: 538–58). trilogy which will deal quite directly with two
Some Mormon writers of the fourth period are women’s spiritual quest.106
achieving success, both locally and nationally, in On the other hand, the potentially creative ten-
high quality children’s and young adult literature. sion between the two poles of Mormons’ expecta-
Fine examples of the former are Steve Wunderli’s tions about their literature—the conflict between
Marty’s World, illustrated by Brent Watts (Salt Lake orthodox didacticism and faithful realism explored
City: Bookcraft, 1986), Phyllis Barber’s Legs: The in the recent essays by Cracroft and Jorgensen—
Story of a Giraffe (New York: M. K. McElderry seems at times to be breaking down into invidious
Books, 1991), Catherine Hepworth’s Antics! An judgments, name-calling, and divisions. These divi-
Alphabetical Anthology (New York: G. P. Putnam’s sions and exclusions have increased since the late
Sons, 1992) and Michael O. Tunnell’s three books, 1970s, when Elder Packer and President Kimball
Chinook!, The Joke’s on George, and Beauty and the encouraged Mormon writers to fulfill the prophe-
Beastly Children (all New York: William Morrow, cies of literary excellence. Even the eclectic harmony
1993), which won the AML prize. Examples of of the forums in which those leaders then spoke
the best books by Mormons for young adults are now seems a distant dream: Elder Packer was pub-
Donald R. Marshall, Enchantress of Crumbledown lished in a book of essays that included Mormon

critics and writers as diverse as Reid Nibley, high as the utmost heavens, and search into and
Edward L. Hart, and Wayne C. Booth; President contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad
Kimball appeared in an issue of the Ensign which expanse of eternity.”109 A literature to match the
included (with implied approval) artists across the high religious achievement of the Restoration
full range of Mormon approaches, from didactic Joseph Smith began requires both the breadth and
home literature by Orson F. Whitney, Charles Pen- the depth he achieved—literary skill, moral
rose, and Lael J. Littke to recent realistic and exper- courage, and generosity—and also the spiritual
imental work by Clinton Larson, Emma Lou passion that brought about his visions and contin-
Thayne, Donald Marshall, and Orson Scott Card. ues to give a unique quality to the life of faithful
Now Mormon letters seems increasingly bifurcated Mormons. Mormon writers, if they are true to their
into mutually exclusive forums, periodicals, and sacred and powerful art of language as well as their
presses, which I fear will impede our progress sacred and powerful religious heritage, can aspire,
toward the rich, diverse, mutually tolerant literary Elder Packer promised in 1976,110 to enjoy the
community and achievements we are capable of.107 promise by Christ to Joseph Smith: “Draw near
Mormon literature will always have a difficult unto me and I will draw near unto you . . . ask, and
burden—to describe a unique set of revealed truths ye shall receive” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:63).
and historical and continually vital religious experi-
ences and to do so both truly and artistically. We Notes
seem to understand this better about other art 1
This version has been adapted slightly from that
forms than about literature, where the temptation found in David J. Whittaker, ed., Mormon Ameri-
is greatest to assume that a good “message” is cana: A Guide to Sources and Collections in the United
enough. (Most Mormons can see right away that a States (Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 1995), 455–505
painting of Joseph Smith’s first vision done badly (some updated bibliographic material and the addi-
would demean the experience or that a clumsy or tion of weblinks). An abbreviated version of this same
sentimental musical score on the suffering of Christ essay may be found in Lavina Fielding Anderson and
in Gethsemane would be a kind of blasphemy, but Eugene England, eds., Tending the Garden: Essays on
a “faith-building” story or one based on “real expe- Mormon Literature (Salt Lake City: Signature, 1996).
rience,” however badly written or sentimental in its An earlier, seminal version with some philosophical
appeal, is often received uncritically.) discussion not in this current version is “The Dawn-
An increasing number of faithful Latter-day ing of a Brighter Day: Mormon Literature After 150
Saints are developing the skill and courage to write Years,” BYU Studies 22 (spring 1982): 131–60,
well in all the genres. The challenge they face— reprinted in After 150 Years: The Latter-day Saints in
which must be faced as well by their readers, both Sesquicentennial Perspective, ed. Thomas G. Alexander
Mormons and others—is to find ways to reach out and Jessie L. Embry, Charles Redd Monographs in
to and unite the extremes of experience President Western History, no. 3 (Provo, Utah: Charles Redd
Kimball recommended and to accept the role of art Center for Western Studies, 1983), 97–146. An
online version, linked to the Mormon Literature web
in assisting in the central human purpose Brigham
site, can be found at humanities.byu.edu/
Young described: “We cannot obtain eternal life mldb/progress.htm. IRREANTUM is grateful to Charlotte
unless we actually know and comprehend by our England for granting permission to reprint this ver-
experience the principle of good and the principle sion.
of evil, the light and the darkness, truth, virtue, and 2
Jan Shipps, Mormonism: The Story of a New Reli-
holiness, also vice, wickedness, and corruption.”108 gious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
To gain such comprehension, we must be will- 1985), ix.
ing, both as writers and readers, to do as Joseph 3
Studies reported in Time, April 5, 1993, 46–47.
Smith did—and called us to do: “Thy mind, . . . if 4
Harold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emer-
thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as gence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1992). See also Eric Eliason, ed., Mor- web site at humanities.byu.edu/mldb/attune.htm; see
mons and Mormonism: An Introduction to an American also his review of Harvest: Contemporary Mormon
World Religion (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, Poems in BYU Studies 30 (spring 1990): 119, 121–23;
2001). online at humanities.byu.edu/mldb/cracrevh.htm.
5 12
Cited in Spencer W. Kimball, “The Gospel Vision Packer, “Art and the Spirit,” 10, 16.
13
of the Arts,” Ensign 7 (July 1977): 3. Bruce W. Jorgensen, “To Tell and Hear Stories:
6
Orson F. Whitney, “Home Literature,” in Let the Stranger Say.” Sunstone 16 (July 1993):
A Believing People: Literature of the Latter-day Saints, 41–50, reprinted in Anderson and England, Tending
ed. Richard H. Cracroft and Neal E. Lambert (Provo, the Garden, 49–68; complete text accessible on the
Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1975), 300. Mormon Literature web site at humanities.byu.edu/
The complete text may be found online at the Mor- mldb/totell.htm. Jorgensen’s essay is an expanded ver-
mon Literature web site at humanities.byu. sion of his 1991 presidential address for the Associa-
edu/mldb/homelit.htm. tion for Mormon Letters, which responded in part to
7
Boyd K. Packer, “The Arts and the Spirit of the Cracroft’s review of Harvest cited above; Cracroft’s
Lord,” in 1976 Devotional Speeches of the Year (Provo, essay, published together with Jorgensen’s in Sunstone,
Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1977), 268, is his 1992 AML presidential address, which in good
reprinted in Steven P. Sondrup, ed., Arts and Inspira- part responds to Jorgensen. See also Gideon Burton’s
tion: Mormon Perspectives (Provo, Utah: BYU Press, response to both essays, “Should We Ask, ‘Is This
1980), 5–6. Mormon Literature?’: Towards a Mormon Criticism,”
The Association for Mormon Letters Annual, 1994 (Salt
Lake City: AML, 1994), 227–33; Dialogue: A Journal
Mormon literature will always of Mormon Thought 32 (fall 1999): 33–43; complete
text accessible on the Mormon Literature web site at
have a difficult burden to humanities.byu.edu/mldb/gbask.htm.
14 Cracroft and Lambert, Believing People, 5.
describe a unique set of 15 Karl Keller, “The Example of Flannery O’Con-
nor,” Dialogue 9 (winter 1974): 62.

revealed truths and historical 16 Quoted in Keller, “Example of Flannery O’Con-
and continually vital religious nor,” 68.

17 Quoted in Keller, “Example of Flannery
experiences and to do so O’Connor,” 68. O’Connor has also seemed to oth-

ers a good model for Mormon writers: In “Digging
both truly and artistically. the Foundation: Making and Reading Mormon
Literature” (Dialogue 9 [winter 1974]: 50–61),
Bruce Jorgensen quotes her citing Aquinas that
8 Kimball, “Gospel Vision of the Arts,” 5. “art . . . is wholly concerned with the good of
9 England, “Dawning of a Brighter Day,” 131–60, that which is made” and proposing that an art work
including “Selected Bibliography.” Reprinted in that is “good in itself glorifies God because it
expanded form in Thomas G. Alexander and Jessie L. reflects God” (56). In a review of Levi Peterson’s
Embry, eds., After 150 Years: The Latter-day Saints in Night Soil (Weber Studies 8 [fall 1991]: 99–100), I
Sesquicentennial Perspective, 97–146. propose that “in Levi Peterson, Western literature
10 Cracroft and Lambert, Believing People, and Twenty-
and Mormon literature finally have their Flannery
two Young Mormon Writers (Provo, Utah: Communi- O’Connor” (99).
18 Keller, “Example of Flannery O’Connor,” 71.
cations Workshop, 1974).
11 Richard H. Cracroft, “Attuning the Authentic 19 Keller, “Example of Flannery O’Connor,” 69–70.
20 B. H. Roberts’s comprehensive theology, The
Mormon Voice: Stemming the Sophic Tide in LDS
Literature,” Sunstone 16 (July 1993): 51–57; complete Truth, the Way, the Life: An Elementary Treatise on The-
text may be found online at the Mormon Literature ology, ed. John W. Welch (Provo, Utah: BYU Studies,

1994). Also, The Truth, the Way, the Life: An Elemen- comments here, see “Dawning of a Brighter Day,”
tary Treatise on Theology: The Masterwork of B. H. 135–36 [editor’s note: the relevant passages from
Roberts, ed. Stan Larson, with an introduction by Ster- “Dawning” have in part been added into this version
ling M. McMurrin (San Francisco: Smith Research and follow this paragraph], and Beyond Romanticism:
Associates, 1994). Tuckerman’s Life and Poetry (Provo, Utah: Brigham
21
Stan Larson, “The King Follett Discourse: A Newly Young University, 1991), 17–21, 207–9. Hugh Nib-
Amalgamated Text,” BYU Studies 18 (winter 1978): ley, in “Genesis of the Written Word,” in Temple and
193–208. Cosmos: Beyond This Ignorant Present, vol. 12 of The
22
Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, 27 vols. Collected Works of Hugh Nibley (Salt Lake City:
(Liverpool, England: R James, 1855), 2:90–96. Deseret Book; FARMS: Provo, Utah, 1992), 450–90,
23
See Eugene England, “Great Books or True Reli- presents evidence for a single, divinely instituted
gion?: Defining the Mormon Scholar,” Dialogue 9 beginning of human language.
27
(winter 1974): 36–49; reprinted in Dialogues with Douglas Wilson, “Prospects for the Study of the
Myself (Midvale, Utah: Orion Books, 1984), 57–76. Book of Mormon as a Work of American Literature,”
24 Cracroft and Lambert, basically formalists, have
Dialogue 3 (spring 1968): 29–41.
28 The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mor-
also been sensitive to historical and ethical approaches,
as have Jorgensen and Edward Geary, who were, like mon Studies (FARMS) sponsors symposia and pub-
them, trained in New Criticism. I have used formalist lishes a newsletter, essays, books, and a journal, many
close analysis and ethical criticism based on the work of which greatly help readers see through to the
of Yvor Winters, Robert Scholes, René Girard, and human realities of text, writers, and editor as a better
Emmanuel Levinas. Jorgensen and I have both used basis for imaginative response to the Book of Mor-
myth criticism, based on the work of Northrop Frye. mon. See, for example, John L. Sorenson, An Ancient
Recently, Cecilia Konchar Farr has effectively used American Setting for the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake
feminist criticism on Maurine Whipple’s work, and City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1985);
she and Philip Snyder presented an illuminating post- and Sorenson, “When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the
structuralist reading of Terry Tempest Williams’s Land, Did They Find Others There?” in the first issue
Refuge and Thoreau’s Walden as ecobiography at the of the new journal sponsored by FARMS, Journal of
Association for Mormon Letters symposium in Janu- Book of Mormon Studies 1 (fall 1992): 1–34.
29 John W. Welch, “Chiasmus in the Book of Mor-
ary 1993 (“From Walden Pond to the Great Salt Lake:
Ecobiography and Engendered Species Acts in mon,” BYU Studies 10 (fall 1969): 69–84; reprinted
Walden and Refuge,” in Anderson and England, Tend- in Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Book of Mormon Authorship:
ing the Garden, 197–211). Tom Plummer applied New Light on Ancient Origins, vol. 7 of Religious Stud-
reader response criticism to Refuge in “Is There Refuge ies Monograph Series (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies
in the Text?: Narrator and Reader in Terry Tempest Center, Brigham Young University, 1982), 33–52;
Williams’s Memoir,” presented at the AML sympo- Bruce W. Jorgensen, “The Dark Way to the Tree:
sium in January 1994 (Annual of the Association for Typological Unity in the Book of Mormon,” in Liter-
Mormon Letters, 1995 [Salt Lake City: AML, 1995]: ature of Belief: Sacred Scripture and Religious Experi-
237–47). ence, ed. Neal E. Lambert, vol. 5, Religious Studies
25 Larson, “King Follett Discourse,” 203.
Monograph Series (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Cen-
26 For a discussion of the relations between religious
ter, Brigham Young University, 1981), 217–31;
thought and postmodern philosophy, see James E. Richard Dilworth Rust, Feasting on the Word: The Lit-
Faulconer, “An Alternative to Traditional Criticism,” erary Testimony of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City:
Proceedings of the Symposia of the Association for Mor- Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient
mon Letters, 1979–82 (Salt Lake City: AML, 1983), Research and Mormon Studies, 1997). For an exam-
111–24; and James E. Faulconer, “Protestant and Jew- ple of ethical literary criticism, based on the work of
ish Styles of Criticism: Derrida and His Critics,” Lit- René Girard and Northorp Frye, see Eugene England,
erature and Belief 5 (1985): 45–66; for my own “A Second Witness for the Logos: The Book of Mor-
reflections on these matters, more complete than my mon and Contemporary Literary Criticism,” in By

Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Discourses provides a remarkably complete record of
Nibley on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, 27 sermons by Church leaders from 1854 to 1886. For
March 1990, ed. John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. some analysis, see Eugene England, “Brigham Young
Ricks, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990), as Orator and Intellectual,” in Why the Church Is as
2:91–125. Some other important and representative True as the Gospel (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1986;
literary criticism of the Book of Mormon includes: Salt Lake City: Tabernacle, 1999), 93–108.
34
George S. Tate, “The Typology of the Exodus Pattern For a general bibliography see Davis Bitton, ed.,
in the Book of Mormon,” 245–62, and Richard Dil- Guide to Mormon Diaries and Autobiographies (Provo,
worth Rust, “‘All Things Which Have Been Given of Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1977).
35
God . . . Are the Typifying of Him’: Typology in the Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woodruff ’s Journal,
Book of Mormon,” 233–43, both in The Literature of 1833–1898, Typescript, ed. Scott G. Kenny, 9 vols.
Belief; Steven P. Sondrup, “The Psalm of Nephi: (Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1983–85). See also
A Lyric Reading,” BYU Studies 21 (summer 1981): the condensed version, Waiting for World’s End: The
357–72; and Richard Dilworth Rust, “Liminality in Diaries of Wilford Woodruff, ed. Susan Staker (Salt
the Book of Mormon,” in The Association for Mormon Lake City: Signature Books, 1993).
36 Published in Eliza R. Snow, Eliza R. Snow: An
Letters Annual, 1994 (Salt Lake City: AML, 1994),
2:207–11. Immortal, Selected Writings of Eliza R. Snow (Salt Lake
30 James B. Allen, “The Significance of Joseph
City: Nicholas G. Morgan Sr., Foundation, 1957),
Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” Dialogue 292–370. For discussion of this diary’s literary merit,
1 (fall 1966): 29–45; Allen, “Eight Contemporary see Eugene England, “We Need to Liberate Mormon
Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision: What Do We Men!” in Dialogues with Myself, 157–59.
37 Eugene England, ed., “George Laub’s Nauvoo
Learn from Them?” Improvement Era 73 (April 1970):
4–13; Richard H. Cracroft and Neal E. Lambert, Journal,” BYU Studies 18 (winter 1978): 151–78.
38 Manuscript in Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham
“Literary Form and Historical Understanding: Joseph
Smith’s First Vision,” Journal of Mormon History 7 Young University, Provo, Utah; published in full as
(1980): 31–42; Arthur Henry King, “Joseph Smith as “Death Strikes the Handcart Company,” in Cracroft
a Writer,” in The Abundance of the Heart (Salt Lake and Lambert, Believing People, 143–50.
39 Manuscript in LDS Church Archives; published
City: Bookcraft, 1986), 197–205; and Steven C.
Walker, “Doctrine and Covenants as Literature,” in in part, with literary analysis, by Eugene England,
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols. (New York: “Without Purse or Scrip: An 18-Year-Old Missionary
Macmillan, 1992), 1:427. in 1853,” New Era 5 (July 1975): 20–28, which was
31 Dean C. Jessee, The Personal Writings of Joseph
reprinted as “‘The Lord Knew That There Was Such
Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1984); and a Person’: Joseph Millett’s Journal, 1853,” in Why the
Dean C. Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2 vols. Church Is as True as the Gospel, 17–30.
40 Quoted in William Mulder, in his ground-breaking
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989, 1992). See also
Joseph Smith Jr., History of The Church of Jesus Christ critical essay, “Mormonism and Literature,” Western
of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 2d ed. rev., Humanities Review 9 (winter 1954–55): 87; reprinted
7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1971). in Cracroft and Lambert, Believing People, 208–11. At
32 Larson, “King Follett Discourses,” see n. 19;
that early date Mulder praised such “unpretentious
Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, comps. and subliterature” and claimed that “it is as a collective
eds., The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary expression that Mormon literature makes its greatest
Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph impact rather than in any single work so far by any
(Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham single artist.”
Young University, 1980). The best collections of letters are Jessee, Personal
33 See The Discourses of Brigham Young, ed. John A.
Writings of Joseph Smith; Dean C. Jessee, ed., Letters of
Widtsoe (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, Brigham Young to His Sons (Salt Lake City: Deseret
1971 printing); and The Essential Brigham Young (Salt Book in collaboration with the Historical Depart-
Lake City: Signature Books, 1992). The Journal of ment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

Saints, 1974); Elizabeth Wood Kane (not a Mormon), 46 “A Dialogue between Joseph Smith and the
Twelve Mormon Homes Visited in Succession on a Jour- Devil,” New York Herald, January 1, 1844, was repub-
ney through Utah to Arizona, Utah, Mormons, and the lished in Cracroft and Lambert, Believing People,
West no. 4 (1874; Salt Lake City: Tanner Trust Fund, 259–65, and in The Essential Parley P. Pratt (Salt Lake
University of Utah Library, 1974); George S. Ells- City: Signature Books, 1990), 31–40. The Autobiog-
worth, Dear Ellen: Two Mormon Women and Their raphy was first published in 1874 and reprinted many
Letters (Salt Lake City: Tanner Trust Fund, University times since, the latest Salt Lake City: Deseret Book,
of Utah Library, 1974); Frederick Stewart Buchanan, 1985. For a literary analysis of this work, see Robert A.
ed., A Good Time Coming: Mormon Letters to Scotland Christmas, “The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt:
(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1988); and Some Literary, Historical, and Critical Reflections.”
Constance L. Lieber and John Sillito, eds., Letters Dialogue 1 (spring 1966): 33–43.
from Exile: The Correspondence of Martha Hughes Can- 47 See Gean Clark, “A Survey of Early Mormon Fic-
non and Angus M. Cannon, 1886–1889 (Salt Lake tion” (M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1935).
City: Signature Books in association with Smith 48 “What Shall Our Children Read?” Deseret
Research Associates, 1989). Evening News, April 21, 1869, 2; Elder George Q.
41 Maureen Ursenbach Beecher has published the
Cannon started to publish a “Faith Promoting Series”
best work on Snow’s life and poetry and is at work on of books in 1879, the first of which was his own
a biography and a complete edition of the poems. See account of My First Mission; the third, in 1881, Wil-
Maureen Ursenbach Beecher, Eliza and Her Sisters ford Woodruff ’s Leaves from My Journal; and the fifth,
(Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1991). that same year, James A. Little’s biography, Jacob
42 Eliza R. Snow, Poems, Religious, Historical, and
Hamblin. These three were republished together by
Political (Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1856); and Snow, Preston Nibley as Three Mormon Classics (Salt Lake
Poems, Religious, Historical, and Political. Also Two City: Stevens and Wallis, 1944).
Articles in Prose (Salt Lake City: Latter-day Saints’ 49 Journal of Discourses, 9:173. See also Stephen Ken
Printing and Publishing Establishment, 1877). Ehat, “How to Condemn Noxious Novels, by Brigham
43 Eliza R. Snow, “O My Father,” in Hymns (Salt
Young,” Century 2, vol. 1 (December 1976): 36–48;
Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day and Matthew Durrant and Neal E. Lambert, “From
Saints, 1985), no. 242. Foe to Friend: the Mormon Embrace of Fiction,”
44 Phelps’s enduring achievement is suggested by
Utah Historical Quarterly 50 (fall 1982): 326–39.
“Gently Raise the Sacred Strain,” which begins each 50 Orson F. Whitney, “Home Literature,” Contributor
Mormon Tabernacle Choir broadcast, and “Hosanna 9 (June 1888): 297–302; reprinted in Cracroft and
Anthem” (“The Spirit of God like a Fire Is Burning”), Lambert, Believing People, 203–7. For a more thor-
composed for the dedication of the Kirtland temple in ough review of the “home literature” period, see
1835 and still sung at all temple dedications. One of Cracroft, “Seeking ‘the Good, the Pure, the Elevating’:
Pratt’s most powerfully poetic hymns is “Father in A Short History of Mormon Fiction” (Parts I and II),
Heaven, We Do Believe,” with its remarkable metaphor Ensign 11 (June 1981): 57–62; (July 1981): 56–61.
for baptism, “We shall be buried in the stream / In 51 Spencer also wrote fiction; see The Senator from
Jesus’ blessed name.” See Hymns, nos. 46, 2, 180. Utah and Other Tales of the Wasatch (Salt Lake City:
45 For studies of Mormon tracts and other pam-
George Q. Cannon and Sons, 1895).
phlets, see David J. Whittaker, “Early Mormon 52 Roberts’s play was based on Corianton: A Nephite
Pamphleteering” (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young Uni- Story (1902). See Cracroft, “Seeking ‘the Good, the
versity, 1982); David J. Whittaker, “Orson Pratt: Pro- Pure, the Elevating,’” 61.
lific Pamphleteer,” Dialogue 15 (autumn 1982): 53 First published in 1898, Anderson’s novel was
27–41; Peter Crawley, “Parley P. Pratt: Father of Mor- reprinted over forty times, most recently is Salt Lake
mon Pamphleteering,” Dialogue 15 (autumn 1982): City: Bookcraft, 1992.
13–26; and Scrap Book of Mormon Literature, 2 vols. 54 Nephi Anderson, “Purpose in Fiction,” Improve-
(Salt Lake City: Ben E. Rich, n.d.), which reprints ment Era 1 (February 1898): 271. Cited in Richard H.
many of the nineteenth-century pamphlets. Cracroft, “Nephi, Seer of Modern Times: The Home

Literature Novels of Nephi Anderson,” BYU Studies 25 heart and soul, myself, and my fellow human beings.
(spring 1985): 3–15. Anderson’s essays seem intended I have my own living experience, but good fiction
to prepare a Church audience to value Added Upon. expands that experience tenfold—one hundredfold—
55
Cracroft, “Nephi, Seer of Modern Times,” 15. and makes it possible to apply any knowledge I have.”
56 62
In addition to Cracroft’s “Attuning the Authentic Edward A. Geary, “Mormondom’s Lost Genera-
Mormon Voice,” see the conclusion to his “Seeking tion: The Novelists of the 1940s,” BYU Studies 18 (fall
‘the Good, the Pure, the Elevating,’” 61: “The future 1977): 89–98; see also his “The Poetics of Provincial-
of LDS fiction will probably be closely linked with ism: Mormon Regional Fiction,” Dialogue 11 (sum-
Home Literature, for the LDS writer and the LDS mer 1978): 15–24. Bruce Jorgensen first used (but did
reader share an abiding faith and hope in eternal prin- not expand upon) the phrase in “Digging the Foun-
ciple, in the possibility of billions of happy end- dation,” 58: “Mormon literature may be said to have
ings. . . . But the message of Mormon fiction, while its lost or half-lost generation, and some who have not
inevitably moral, as is most fiction, need not be expatriated themselves have suffered mistrust and
painfully blatant.” Cracroft’s one example, Nephi even brutal ostracism.”
63 Fisher gained much of his national prominence
Anderson, seems to counter Cracroft’s own argument,
since it was his admittedly inferior novel of “artless with work not connected with Mormonism, the
dogma” that remained popular and influenced later Vridar Hunter tetralogy and his twelve Testament of
“home literature”—not his more skillful “dogmatic Man novels, but remained to his death in 1968 best
art” in the later works. known for Children of God; see Joseph M. Flora,
57 Winters, though known as a formalist “New
“Vardis Fisher and the Mormons,” Dialogue 4
Critic,” was adamant that a poem “is a statement in (autumn 1969): 48–55. Whipple published various
words about a human experience” (11) and must be articles and stories and a guidebook, This Is the
responsible to rational ethical standards; see Yvor Place: Utah (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1945), but
Winters, “The Morality of Poetry” and other essays in never completed her projected trilogy that would
In Defense of Reason, 3d ed. (Denver: Alan Swallow, continue Joshua up to the present; see Maryruth
1947). Booth, a Mormon, has been an articulate Bracy and Linda Lambert, eds., “Maurine Whipple’s
opponent of some recent trends in criticism, espe- Story of The Giant Joshua,” Dialogue 6
cially its move toward opposing—or simplistically (autumn/winter 1971): 55–62; Bruce Jorgensen,
applying—ethical considerations; see Wayne C. “Retrospection: Great Joshua,” Sunstone 3 (Septem-
Booth, The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction ber–October 1978): 6–8; and the special section of
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). essays on Whipple in The Association for Mormon
Booth has also addressed, satirically, the question of Letters Annual, 1994. Sorensen received two
too easily applied religious didacticism, in a forum Guggenheims, but she gained greatest recognition,
address at Brigham Young University, “Art and the including the Newbery Medal, for her children’s
Church: Or ‘The Truths of Smoother,’” published in books; see Mary L. Bradford, “Virginia Sorensen: An
Dialogue 13 (winter 1980): 9–25. Introduction,” Dialogue 13 (fall 1980): 13–16; and
58 Karl Keller, “On Words and the Word of God:
Eugene England, “Virginia Sorensen as the Found-
The Delusions of a Mormon Literature.” Dialogue 4 ing Foremother of the Mormon Personal Essay: My
(autumn 1969): 19–20. Personal Tribute,” Exponent II 17, no. 1 (1992):
59 Bruce W. Jorgensen, “‘Herself Moving beside
12–14.
64 Richard H. Cracroft, “‘Freshet in the Dearth:
Herself, Out There Alone’: The Shape of Mormon
Belief in Virginia Sorensen’s The Evening and the Samuel W. Taylor’s Heaven Knows Why and Mormon
Morning,” Dialogue 13 (autumn 1980): 43–61. Humor,” Sunstone 5 (May–June 1980): 31–37; and
60 Orson Scott Card, “SF and Religion,” Dialogue
Cracroft, “Literature, Mormon Writers of: Novels,”
18 (summer 1985): 12. Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:839. Two other impor-
61 Tory C. Anderson, “Just the Fiction, Ma’am,”
tant novels by Taylor are Family Kingdom (New York:
Wasatch Review International 1, no. 2 (1992): 6: “The McGraw, 1951) and Nightfall at Nauvoo (New
more experience I have, the more I understand this York: Macmillan, 1971).

65 Bruce W. Jorgensen, “A ‘Smaller Canvas’ of the 72 Karl Keller, “A Pilgrimage of Awe,” review of
Mormon Short Story since 1950,” Association for Clinton F. Larson’s The Lord of Experience. Dialogue 3
Mormon Letters Annual, 1983 (Salt Lake City: AML, (spring 1968): 112; Thomas Schwartz, in “Sacrament
1984), 10–31; see also Jorgensen, “Literature, Mor- of Terror: Violence in the Poetry of Clinton F. Lar-
mon Writers of: Short Stories,” Encyclopedia of Mor- son,” Dialogue 9 (autumn 1974): 39–48, claims that
monism, 2:842–44. Larson’s focus on unredemptive violence in both his
66 For a discussion of the book’s many problems
plays and poetry makes his work not Mormon at all;
because of Brodie’s bias, see Marvin S. Hill, “Secular in my judgment Larson profoundly expresses a tragic
or Sectarian History? A Critique of No Man Knows sense of pain and loss in the face of the violence
My History,” Church History 43 (March 1974): 78–96; inevitable in a universe of law and agency, a vision fully
and his review of the second edition in Dialogue 7 consonant with Mormon theology. Other important
(winter 1972): 72–85. Newell G. Bringhurst’s Larson collections of poetry are Counterpoint: A Book
“Juanita Brooks and Fawn Brodie—Sisters in Mor- of Poems (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University
mon Dissent,” Dialogue 27 (summer 1994): 105–27, Press, 1973) and The Western World (Provo, Utah:
explores the similarities, differences, and relationship Research Division, Brigham Young University, 1978).
73 Carol Lynn Pearson, Beginnings (Provo, Utah:
between these two writers.
67 For the best early essay on the problems and pos-
Trilogy Arts, 1967), The Search (Provo, Utah: Trilogy
sibilities of Mormon historiography, see Richard L. Arts, 1970), etc., and most recently, Women I Have
Bushman, “Faithful History,” Dialogue 4 (winter 1969): Known and Been (Murray, Utah: Aspen Books, 1992);
11–25, which, in an inversion of a Mormon epigram, Emma Lou Thayne, Spaces in the Sage (Salt Lake City:
suggests the possibility, relevant to authors of litera- Parliament Publishers, 1971), and many other vol-
ture as well as history, that the writer’s success may be umes, the latest being Things Happen: Poems of Sur-
related to character: “[We gain] knowledge no faster vival (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1991); John S.
than [we are] saved” (25). Recent collections of Mor- Harris, Barbed Wire (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young
mon historiography (and some criticisms of it) of the University Press, 1974) and Second Crop (Provo,
past twenty-five years are George D. Smith, ed., Faith- Utah: BYU Studies and Charles Redd Center for
ful History: Essays on Writing Mormon History (Salt Western Studies, 1996); Edward L. Hart, To Utah
Lake City: Signature Books, 1992); and D. Michael (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press,
Quinn, ed., The New Mormon History: Revisionist Essays 1979); and Marden J. Clark, Moods: Of Late (Provo,
on the Past (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992). Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1979). See
68 Levi S. Peterson, “Juanita Brooks: The Mormon
Eugene England and Dennis Clark, eds. Harvest:
Historian as Tragedian,” Journal of Mormon History 3 Contemporary Mormon Poems (Salt Lake City: Signa-
(1976): 47–54; Levi S. Peterson, Juanita Brooks: Mor- ture Books, 1989), “Notes on Poets,” for more com-
mon Woman Historian (Salt Lake City: University of plete bibliographies of these poets, all of whom have
Utah Press, 1988). Brooks has also written an excel- continued publishing. A remarkable and singular
lent autobiography, Quicksand and Cactus: A Memoir achievement was R. Paul Cracroft’s long Mormon
of the Southern Mormon Frontier (Salt Lake City: epic poem, A Certain Testimony (Salt Lake City: Epic
Howe Brothers, 1982), and edited her husband’s West, 1979).
74 See the editors’ commentaries in Harvest, and, for
autobiography, Uncle Will Tells His Story (Salt Lake
City: Taggart, 1970). a contrary view, the review by Richard Cracroft
69 Cracroft, “Nephi, Seer of Modern Times,” 14.
(note 11, above ). Linda Sillitoe has published in Dia-
70 Geary, “Poetics of Provincialism,” 24.
logue and Exponent II and has a recent first collection,
71 Cracroft uses the term “faithful realism” to
Crazy for Living (Salt Lake City: Signature Books,
describe the recent group of Mormon novelists he 1993); Susan Howe has published in The New Yorker
most admires in his Encyclopedia of Mormonism essay and Sewanee Review; Lance Larsen has published in
(2:839). With his permission, I adopt it here for the the New Republic and Hudson Review and has recently
entire fourth period of Mormon literature I am published a collection, Erasable Walls (Michigan:
attempting to define. Western Michigan University, New Issues Press,

1998); Kathy Evans has published in the Southern in Mr. Wahlquist, is the finest Mormon story yet. Its
Review and California Quarterly and has a first collec- sophisticated use of point of view and its profound
tion, Imagination Comes to Breakfast (Salt Lake City: theme enable it to stand with the best American sto-
Signature Books, 1992); Lisa Orme Bickmore has a ries of the twentieth century.
79
new collection Haste (Salt Lake City: Signature See Eugene England, “Wilderness as Salvation in
Books, 1994). Peterson’s The Canyons of Grace,” Western American
75
For the best review of these writers, such as Ray B. Literature 19 (spring 1984): 17–28; Eugene England,
West Jr., Wayne Carver, and David Wright (who review of Night Soil, in Weber Studies 8 (fall 1991):
doesn’t quite fit the expatriate label but was “lost” to 99–100; and Eugene England, “Beyond ‘Jack Fiction’:
the Mormon literary community by his isolation and Recent Achievement in the Mormon Novel,” BYU
early death), see Jorgensen, “‘Smaller Canvas,’” 10–31 Studies 28 (spring 1988): 97–109.
80
and its excellent bibliography; also see Jorgensen’s See Eugene England’s column in This People 11
“The Vocation of David Wright: An Essay in Analytic (fall 1990): 65–68 for a review of many current
Biography,” Dialogue 11 (summer 1978): 38–52. “home literature” writers and Richard Cracroft’s
76 John Bennion, Breeding Leah and Other Stories
review of Gerald Lund’s The Work and the Glory,
(Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990). A story like vol. 1, in BYU Studies 31 (summer 1991): 77–81. For
“Dust,” in this collection, is both characteristically authors publishing nationally, see Laura Kalpakian,
Mormon in its protagonist’s guilt-ridden response to Those Latter Days (New York: Times Books, 1985);
the apocalyptic implications of his work on nerve Judith Freeman, The Chinchilla Farm (New York:
gases and avant garde in its use of stylistic disjunctions Norton, 1989); and Walter Kirn, My Hard Bargain
Bennion learned from his teacher Donald Barthelme. (New York: Knopf, 1990).
81 See Eugene England, “The New Mormon Fic-
Other avant garde Mormon writers include the post-
modernist, occasionally minimalist, Darrell Spencer, tion”—and also the notes on contributors and the list
who is publishing widely in prestigious magazines like of “Other Notable Mormon Stories and Collec-
Epoch and has two collections, Woman Packing a tions”—in Eugene England, ed., Bright Angels and
Pistol (Port Townsend, Wash.: Dragon Gate, 1987) Familiars: Contemporary Mormon Stories (Salt Lake
and Our Secret’s Out (Columbia: University of Mis- City: Signature Books, 1992), xi–xx, 333–48. My
souri Press, 1993), and Brian Evenson, who has column for the summer 1990 issue of This People 11,
appeared in The Quarterly and Nomad and has also no. 2, pp. 63–65, describes the annus mirabilis of
published a collection of short stories, Altman’s Tongue 1989–90, when nearly as much first-rate Mormon fic-
(New York: Knopf, 1994). tion was published as in the previous ten years, or the
77 Author’s notes from a lecture by Bennion at
150 years before that.
82 Sillitoe has a novel, Sideways to the Sun (Salt Lake
Brigham Young University, September 1991. Thayer’s
very influential first collection was Under the Cotton- City: Signature Books, 1987) and a collection of sto-
woods and Other Mormon Stories (Provo, Utah: Frank- ries, Windows on the Sea and Other Stories (Salt Lake
son Books, 1977; most recently republished Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989); Fillerup has a collec-
City, Utah: Tabernacle Books, 1999). tion, Visions and Other Stories (Salt Lake City: Signa-
78 See Bruce W. Jorgensen, “Romantic Lyric Form
ture Books, 1990), and a novel, Beyond the River (Salt
and Western Mormon Experience in the Stories of Lake City: Signature Books, 1995).
83 Horne, who lives in Canada, publishes both
Douglas Thayer,” Western American Literature 22
(spring 1987): 43–47, and Eugene England, “Thayer’s poetry and prize-winning stories in a great variety of
Ode to a Redtail Hawk,” Mormon Letters Annual, non-Mormon publications and now has a collection,
1983 (Salt Lake City: Association for Mormon Let- What Do Ducks Do in Winter? (Salt Lake City: Signa-
ters, 1984), 42–53; revised as “Douglas Thayer’s ture Books, 1993); Chandler, who lives in Ohio, has
Mr. Wahlquist in Yellowstone: A Mormon’s Christian a collection of short stories, Benediction (Salt Lake
Response to Wilderness,” BYU Studies 34 (fall 1994): City: University of Utah Press, 1989) and has also
52–72. In my judgment, Thayer’s “The Redtail published a play, Appeal to a Lower Court, in Sunstone
Hawk,” Dialogue 4 (autumn 1969): 83–94, reprinted 14 (December 1990): 27–50.

84 Barber has a collection, The School of Love (Salt Gordon B. Hinckley, Neal A. Maxwell (AML prize,
Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1990), and a novel, 1984), Marion D. Hanks, Jeffrey R. Holland, and
And the Desert Shall Blossom: A Novel (Salt Lake City: Chieko N. Okazaki (AML prize, 1993) are available
University of Utah Press, 1991); Young has two nov- in the semi-annual Conference Reports and, since
els, House without Walls (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1972, in the May and November issues of the Ensign.
1990) and Salvador (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1992), For an analysis of Mormon sermon style and its liter-
and a collection, Elegies and Love Songs (Moscow: Uni- ary power, see Eugene England, “A Small and Piercing
versity of Idaho Press, 1992). Her pioneering work Voice: The Sermons of Spencer W. Kimball,” BYU
treating African-American Latter-day Saints includes Studies 25 (fall 1985): 77–90, reprinted in Why the
I Am Jane, a play about Jane Manning James, which Church Is as True as the Gospel, 125–43; and Gideon
won the Association for Mormon Letters Award in Burton, “Twentieth-Century Mormon Eloquence:
Drama for 2000, and Standing on the Promises, a tril- A Stylistic Analysis of Two Sermons by Neal A.
ogy of historical fiction written with Darius Gray, of Maxwell,” Deseret Linguistics and Language Associa-
which the first, One More River to Cross, has so far tion Proceedings for 1997 (forthcoming). Also online
appeared (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000). at humanities.byu.edu/mldb/burtmax.htm. Though
85 For the critical writing about Card through 1990, there are as yet no collections of sermons by lay Mor-
both by Mormons and others, see Collings’s bibliog- mons, many such sermons have been published
raphy. See also Eugene England “Speaker for the Dead in official and independent periodicals, particularly in
and the Different,” This People 14 (summer 1993): the “From the Pulpit” section of Dialogue, and many
41–50; England, “Pastwatch: The Redemption of of the best modern personal essays are reworked ser-
Orson Scott Card”; and Mick McAllister, “Embracing mons, showing the close connection between these
the Other: The Beloved Alien and Other Ethical Fic- two forms.
88 William A. Wilson, a distinguished American
tions of Orson Scott Card,” Association for Mormon
Letters Annual, 1994, 2:158–65. Card forthrightly folklorist, has written persuasively about the power
expresses some of his views on the values and moral and value of Mormon folk literature in On Being
quality of literature in A Storyteller in Zion: Essays and Human: The Folklore of Mormon Missionaries (Logan:
Speeches (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1993), 65–105, Utah State University Press, 1981); “The Study of
which also includes his important letter to Dialogue Mormon Folklore: An Uncertain Mirror for Truth,”
(summer 1985) on “Science Fiction and the Mormon Dialogue 22 (winter 1989): 95–110; “In Praise of
Religion,” 156–61. Ourselves: Stories to Tell,” BYU Studies 30 (winter
86 Orson Scott Card, “Foreword,” in Kathryn H. 1990): 5–24. See his “Mormon Folklore” in David J.
Kidd, Paradise Vue (Greensboro, N.C.: Hatrack River Whittaker, ed., Mormon Americana: A Guide to Sources
Publications, 1989), x–xi, xiii. Card seems to me and Collections in the United States (Provo, Utah: BYU
too harsh in his judgments of previous novels and too Studies, 1995), 437–54, for examples and resources
impressed with the writers he is sponsoring, (“I am for Mormon folklore, such as the work of Austin E.
tempted to say that now . . . the Mormon people have and Alta S. Fife and Thomas E. Cheney and the Mor-
their Jane Austen, their Mark Twain” [xiv]). He cer- mon Folklore Archives at Brigham Young University
tainly seems right about his goals, but so far he is ful- and Utah State University. The special issue of the
filling them best through his own writing. Utah Historical Quarterly on Mormon folklore (fall
87 The sermon tradition has been powerful and 1976) contains another foundational essay by Wilson:
influential from the first, beginning with Joseph “A Bibliography of Studies in Mormon Folklore,”
Smith (see Ehat and Cook, Word of Joseph Smith) and Utah Historical Quarterly 44 (fall 1976): 389–94.
89 See, for instance, Hugh Nibley, Approaching Zion
continuing through Brigham Young (Widtsoe, Dis-
courses of Brigham Young) and the other pioneer ora- (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: FARMS,
tors collected in the Journal of Discourses. The sermons 1989); Dennis Rasmussen, The Lord’s Question: A Call
of modern Church leaders whose sermon style has to Come unto Him (Provo, Utah: Keter Foundation,
been influential, notably J. Reuben Clark, David O. 1985); Neal A. Maxwell, That Ye May Believe (Salt
McKay, Hugh B. Brown, Spencer W. Kimball, Lake City: Bookcraft, 1992); Jeffrey R. and Patricia

Holland, On Earth As It Is in Heaven (Salt Lake City: Travel (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1984); Edward
Deseret Book, 1989); Chieko N. Okazaki, Lighten Up! Geary’s Goodbye to Poplarhaven; and Mary Lythgoe
(Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992); and Chieko N. Bradford’s Leaving Home: Personal Essays (Salt Lake
Okazaki, Cat’s Cradle (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, City: Signature Books, 1987). Bradford also edited
1993). two notable collections: Mormon Women Speak: A
90
In their section on “The Essay” in A Believing Collection of Essays (Salt Lake City: Olympus Pub-
People, Cracroft and Lambert included six essays that lishing, 1982) and Personal Voices: A Celebration of
might be called informal, but only one, Geary’s Dialogue (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987).
92
“Goodbye to Poplarhaven,” that has the literary and See especially Mary Lythgoe Bradford, “I, Eye,
personally revealing qualities that mark the excellent Aye: A Personal Essay on Personal Essays,” Dialogue
work being done since in this important form of the 11 (summer 1978): 81–89; Clifton Holt Jolley,
fourth period. In their introduction to that section, “Mormons and the Beast: In Defense of the Personal
the editors express surprise that “the essay has not Essay,” Dialogue 11 (autumn 1978): 137–39; Donlu
been as vital a literary force in Mormondom as might Dewitt Thayer, “Literature, Mormon Writers of:
be expected” (201) and predict that “the personal Personal Essays,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism,
essay will undoubtedly assume a larger role as a vehi- 2:840–41; England, “Dawning of a Brighter Day,”
cle for the expression of the values of a people as man- 152–54; and England, “Sorensen as the Founding
ifest in the individual life of a sensitive writer” (202); Foremother,” 12–14. For a general introduction to
and indeed Geary’s essay began the outpouring of the contemporary personal essay, see The Art of the
work that has fulfilled that prediction. (There were a Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to
few excellent single essays before Geary’s, such as Karl the Present, selected and with a fine historical and
Keller’s “Every Soul Has Its South,” Dialogue 1 [sum- theoretical introduction by Phillip Lopate (New York:
mer 1966]: 72–79, and Carole C. Hansen’s “The Avelar Books, Doubleday, 1994).
93 Kevin G. Barnhurst published directly Mormon
Death of a Son,” Dialogue 2 [autumn 1967]: 91–96,
but they did not become part of a continuing body of personal essays, “Living without Health,” Commen-
influential work.) Geary in turn was influenced by tary 75 (April 1983): 33–40, and “The Lumpen
Virginia Sorensen’s collection, Where Nothing Is Long Middle Class,” American Scholar 51 (summer 1982):
Ago: Memories of a Mormon Childhood (New York: 369–79; Terry Tempest Williams published “The
Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1963), and named his Clan of One-Breasted Women,” which became the
own collection Goodbye to Poplarhaven: Recollections last chapter of Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family
of a Utah Boyhood (Salt Lake City: University of Utah and Place (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), in
Press, 1985). He uses a phrase for the Mormon coun- Northern Lights 6 (January 1990): 9–11, and in MS 2
try skyline from Sorensen’s collection (in “The (September/October 1991): 31–34. See also Eugene
Ghost”) for the title of his most recent work, an exper- England, “Easter Weekend,” Dialogue 21 (spring
imental combination of personal reflection with natu- 1988): 19–30 and England, “My Grandfather’s
ral and cultural history, The Proper Edge of the Sky: Nickel,” forthcoming in Sewanee Review. Illustrating
The High Plateau Country of Utah (Salt Lake City: the shifting border between fiction and personal essay
University of Utah Press, 1992). is the work of Pauline Mortensen, written as personal
91 The earliest collections still tended to emphasize
essays for her master’s thesis at Brigham Young Uni-
the somewhat scholarly and formal, such as Claudia L. versity but published as stories in various periodicals,
Bushman, ed., Mormon Sisters: Women in Early Utah and her collection, Back before the World Turned Nasty
(Cambridge: Emmeline Press, 1976), and Vicky (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1989).
94 Elouise Bell has published humorous personal
Burgess-Olson, ed., Sister Saints (Provo, Utah: Brigham
Young University Press, 1978), but gradually the truly essays regularly in Network, a magazine for profes-
personal essay emerged in collections like Lowell L. sional women, collected in Only When I Laugh (Salt
Bennion’s The Things That Matter Most (Salt Lake Lake City: Signature Books, 1990). Laurel Ulrich,
City: Bookcraft, 1978); Eugene England’s Dialogues who has published her personal essays regularly in
with Myself; Sharon Hawkinson’s Only Strangers Exponent II, which she helped found in 1974, as well

as in the Ensign and Dialogue, has produced a collec- and published in Sunstone 16 (February 1992):
tion of personal essays with Emma Lou Thayne, All 28–48. This tradition has been further developed by
God’s Critters Got a Place in the Choir (Salt Lake City, Carol Lynn Pearson in Mother Wove the Morning, her
Utah: Aspen, 1995). Ulrich brings to the personal recreation of sixteen women from history exploring
essay an historical and gender sensitivity manifest in the concept of a Mother God, which since 1990 has
her better known national publications: Good Wives: played regularly to audiences in Utah and throughout
Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern the country and is on video.
98
New England, 1650–1750 (edited with J. Laslocky; Burdens of Earth was produced at Brigham Young
New York: Knopf, 1982); The Age of Homespun: University in 1987, directed by Robert A. Nelson,
Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American and published in Sunstone 11 (November 1987): 12–
Myth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001); and most 33; Katy was commissioned for the 1992 Brigham
significantly, her 1990 Pulitzer Prize winning A Mid- Young University Women’s Conference and directed
wife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her by Claudia Harris.
99
Diary 1785–1812 (New York: Knopf, 1990). Thomas Dreambuilder was produced at Brigham Young
Edward Cheney has published a fine collection of University in 1989, directed by John Elzen, and Scales
folkloristic and boyhood memories shaped into was produced at Weber State University in 1981,
essays, Voices from the Bottom of the Bowl: A Folk His- directed by Tim Sutton.
100 In the Company of Men was produced at Brigham
tory of Teton Valley, Idaho, 1823–1952 (Salt Lake City:
University of Utah Press, 1991). Young University in 1992, directed by the author, and
95 See the list of these and a fine short history of
won the Association for Mormon Letters prize for
Mormon drama in Robert A. Nelson’s entry on “Lit- 1993. Sanguinarians was produced at Brigham Young
erature, Mormon Writers of: Drama,” Encyclopedia University and in Chicago in 1990.
101 Accommodations was produced at Brigham
of Mormonism, 2:837–38. See also Eric Samuelsen,
“Whither Mormon Drama: Look First to a Theatre.” Young University in May 1993, directed by Thomas
BYU Studies 35, no. 1 (1995): 80–106. Rogers, and published in Sunstone 17 (June 1994):
96 Fires of the Mind was published in Sunstone 1
30–53.
102 See note 84, above.
(winter 1975): 23–93, and produced at BYU in 1974
103 In addition to the official Church periodicals, all
and again in 1982, Robert A. Nelson directing.
Huebener was produced at Brigham Young University of which continue to publish short stories (except for
in 1976, Ivan Crosland directing, and is published in the Ensign [and now The New Era, which will discon-
Rogers’s collections, God’s Fools: Plays of Mitigated tinue fiction in 2002]), personal essays, and poetry,
Conscience (N.p.: Eden Books, 1983; distributed by and the well-established unofficial journals such as
Signature Books) and Huebener and Other Plays BYU Studies, Dialogue, Exponent II, and Sunstone,
(Provo, Utah: Poor Robert’s Publishers, 1992). Fred- which publish more contemporary and even experi-
erick Bliss and P. Q. Gump (aliases for Orson Scott mental examples of these same forms (and, in the case
Card) published an early piece of useful dramatic crit- of Sunstone, occasional dramas), new periodicals are
icism, “Mormon Shakespears [sic]: A Study of Con- constantly appearing, such as This People and Zara-
temporary Mormon Theatre,” Sunstone 1 (spring hemla: A Forum for Mormon Poetry. The most recent is
1976): 55–63. Recent work suggests a growing inter- Wasatch Review International, founded 1992, which is
est in Mormon dramatic criticism: see Nola D. Smith, devoted entirely to publishing the best current litera-
“Madwomen in the Mormon Attic: A Feminist Read- ture and criticism [editor’s note: WRI was no longer
ing of Saturday’s Warrior and Reunion,” in The Associ- publishing as of 1998, and the publication that is now
ation for Mormon Letters Annual, 1994 1:139–44; and doing what WRI set out to do is IRREANTUM, the lit-
Michael Evendon, “Angels in a Mormon Gaze,” Sun- erary quarterly of the Association for Mormon Let-
stone 17 (September 1994): 55–64. ters, which has been publishing since March 1999].
97 More recently Arrington has written J. Golden
Deseret Book and Bookcraft continue to publish
and, with Tim Slover, Wilford Woodruff: God’s mainly didactic “home literature,” though they have
Fisherman, produced at Oxford, England, in 1987 reached for new levels of faithful realism in writers

like Carroll Hoefling Morris, whose The Broken Cove- “Worth Reading,” which appears regularly (since
nant (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1985) takes on 1988) in This People.
106
the difficult topic of adultery, and Gerald Lund, who See her very popular Victorian mystery series,
won the Association for Mormon Letters Awards in which features the morally reflective Inspector
1991 and 1993 for volumes one and four of his epic Thomas Pitt and his remarkably liberated wife and
The Work and the Glory (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, co-crimesolver, Charlotte. Bethlehem Road (New York:
1990–2000). Signature Books is the main publisher St. Martin’s Press, 1990) deals in part with the starv-
of the writers of the fourth period, though some have ing to death of a Mormon convert by her abusive,
been published recently by the University of Utah chauvinist husband, who thinks he has the right to
Press and an increasing number by national publish- refuse a mere woman’s decision about religion. The
ers. Although internal reorganization has somewhat fantasy series begins with Tathea (Salt Lake City:
altered its output since 1995, Aspen Books has never- Shadow Mountain, 1999).
107
theless published an increasing number of books by The pain this dilemma creates for many Mor-
Mormon writers of all kinds, including an anthology, mon writers was expressed recently by one, who said
Christmas for the World (1991), Margaret Blair Young’s to me, “I believe God has given me an artistic gift
fine novel Salvador (1992), Laurel Thatcher Ulrich with which to bless the Church and the world, and I
and Emma Lou Thayne’s All God’s Critters Got a Place have devoted my life to developing and sharing that
in the Choir (1995), Mormon humor (Robert F. gift. But the official Church magazines have made it
Smith, Robert Kirby), young adult fiction (Carol clear they do not need or want my gift to fulfill their
Lynch Williams), historical fiction (Marilyn Brown), didactic purposes, the non-Mormon journals and
missionary fiction (Benson Parkinson), and biography presses reject my efforts to express my faith through
(Helvecio Martins). Tabernacle Books has published my writing as too ‘religious’ for their audience, and
one LDS children’s book (Rulon T. Burton and Char- when I write for the independent Mormon periodicals
lotte Mortimer, The Island That Was Not There [Salt and presses I am considered, by many Mormons, per-
Lake City: Tabernacle Books, 1998]) and has begun a sona non grata.” [Editor’s note: Eugene England has
series of reprint and original works of Mormon litera- more fully discussed his concerns over current Mor-
ture edited by Gideon O. Burton, Mormon Literary mon publishing in “Danger on the Right! Danger on
Library, in 1999, whose first three volumes include the Left!: The Ethics of Recent Mormon Fiction,”
Douglas H. Thayer’s Under the Cottonwoods, Eugene Dialogue 32 (fall 1999): 13–32.]
108 Journal of Discourses, 7:237. Elsewhere Brigham
England’s Why the Church Is as True as the Gospel, and
Donald R. Marshall’s The Rummage Sale. Young insisted humans must “learn the nature of
104 The proceedings of this professional association,
mankind, and to discern that divinity inherent in
containing many of the best essays in Mormon liter- them. . . . We should not only study good, and its
ary criticism, have appeared in seven volumes, and its effects upon our race, but also evil, and its conse-
regular quarterly Newsletter includes short reviews of quences” (cited in Cracroft, “Seeking ‘the Good,’”
most new books of Mormon literature. [Editor’s note: pt. 1, 58).
109 Smith, History of the Church, 3:295.
The AML Newsletter has been superceded, since 1999,
110 Packer, “The Arts and the Spirit of the Lord,”
by IRREANTUM.] It also encourages Mormon writers
by sponsoring regular readings of new work in mem- 281. I feel particularly good about the prospects of
bers’ homes and through its annual awards in the Mormon literature because I have recently read, in
novel, short fiction, poetry, personal essay, and criti- manuscript, Douglas Thayer’s new novel, “A Member
cism. The Association also awards honorary life mem- of the Church.” It is a splendidly skilled and moving
berships, with a handsome plaque, to distinguished exploration of two different kinds of moral and spiri-
contributors to Mormon letters. tual life in young Mormon men—one that, I believe,
105 See Richard H. Cracroft’s regular (beginning
fulfills Elder Packer’s promise. [Editor’s note: This
March 1991) column, “Alumni Book Nook,” in manuscript has just been accepted for publication by
Brigham Young Magazine for all Brigham Young Signature Books.]
University alumni (formerly BYU Today), and my

T R I B U T E Not too long ago I interviewed with Gene and

some others for the Sunstone editor position, and I
It seems like virtually everything worthwhile in was impressed with his hopes for the magazine to
the Mormon intellectual and literary communities move past some of the bad blood of recent years.
has Eugene England’s fingerprints all over it. By far When he left BYU, I passed along a rumor on an
the most important and influential class of my e-mail list that BYU had forced him into early
English master’s degree at BYU was Gene’s Mor- retirement, and he firmly and publicly corrected
mon literature class, which opened new horizons me. I imagine there was some truth to the rumor,
for me. Nearly a decade later I continue to be but I admire him for perhaps overcompensating so
deeply involved in interests and associations first he didn’t take on the stink of disaffection. He really
discovered under Gene’s tutelage, such as Wasatch was an example of how to be a force for cultural
Review International (now defunct, but which I’ve change without losing the faith.
helped replace with IRREANTUM) and the Associa- I saw him just a few days before his initial col-
tion for Mormon Letters, which he helped start. lapse. It was at the Jan Shipps lecture at UVSC,
When I wrote a term paper on the author Walter which he organized as part of the great work in
Kirn, Gene allowed me to quote from a letter Kirn Mormon studies he was getting underway there.
had written to him, and my paper was later pub- When he smiled and waved in my direction, I looked
lished. He founded Dialogue and was heavily over my shoulder because I wasn’t sure he meant
involved with Sunstone, which have both been life- me, and then I realized he did. As I relive that
lines for me. moment, I savor that my last encounter with such
a public person included a personal connection,
even though the large auditorium was almost full of
people he’d invited.
Facing my own midlife vocational crisis, I’m
astonished at how Eugene England pursued what I
see as two simultaneous careers at such high levels
of achievement. At the micro teaching level, he
built one-on-one relationships with hundreds
of individual students and others. At the macro
publishing level, he influenced thousands with
his personal essays, criticism, and editorial work.
While his continuing micro efforts are now lost to
us, I look forward to many more years of absorbing
the macro side of Eugene England. Counting the
periodicals he founded, edited, wrote for, and
helped oversee, his publishing legacy measures sev-
eral yards on my bookshelf.
—Christopher K. Bigelow

Terror is not new...

The Mountain Meadows Massacre
took place on another September 11, in 1857:
• They had tied John Lee’s daughter to a fence
and “stood in line.” They pillaged, burned, massacred.
• Was the retribution as bad as the crime?
• “A well-crafted novel...classic.” Richard Cracroft
The Terror of
Pearl Harbor...
In another time and place, a surprise attack
against America becomes the subject of a new
novel by
Marilyn Brown
“Mesmerizing! Brown’s richly textured prose style is rem-
iniscent of Eudora Welty’s—lyrical, sensuous, evocative.
House on the Sound is a literary triumph!”
Sharlee Mullins Glenn
Author, Lecturer, MA, Brigham Young U.
“Marilyn Brown has given us her best work in this mem-

oir-novel of childhood on Puget Sound from 1940–1944.
House on the Sound is a good read—funny, scary, some-
times lyrical. With two families of memorable characters
(of whom my favorite is Grandfather McKinsey), it
explores questions of what families are and what may save
or destroy them.”
Bruce W. Jorgensen
Author, Critic, BYU Professor
CEDAR
www.cedarfort.com
FORT ™ ™
irreantum cover 0112.qxd 2/11/03 3:20 PM Page 2
Eugene England
1933–2001

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qxd 2/11/03 3:20 PM Page 1

MAGAZINE OF THE ASSOCIATION FOR MORMON LETTERS

Eugene England’s Literary Legacy

Christopher K. Bigelow . . . . . . Managing editor Marny K. Parkin . . . . . Speculative fiction coeditor

Cherry Silver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .President Tyler Moulton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Board member

Autumn 2001 2 IRREANTUM

Editorials Essays, Letters, and Tributes

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E D I T O R I A L manifestations.” It is not exaggeration to compare

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E S S A Y in the midst of desperate struggles of the fledgling

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women’s movement, or her

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L E T T E R shorten, my mind besieged by woe and wonder.”

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E D I T O R I A L separated by 70 years representing a wide range of

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Three days ago, this death, P O E M

But Satan has shifted his haunches down there

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Hate pierces, leaving torn ragged flesh. But it sears. T R I B U T E

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2001 issue of Literature and Belief ), Gene was T R I B U T E

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E S S A Y Diversion,” where a falls as the canal divided cre-

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always have, and that is where my mind balks in

Joseph Smith to the family of King Follett:

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Edgar to his blind father in King Lear:

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E S S A Y necessary in—and more capable of—building Zion

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