Book Review: Julie Berry's The Passion of Dolssa and Jeff Zentner's The Serpent King
September 16, 2017Exploring the Unfamiliar Realm of Religion in Young Adult Literature
Jeff Zentner. The Serpent King. New York: Crown Books for Young Readers, 2016. 384 pp.
Reviewed by Jon Ostenson
Modern young adult literature traces its roots to 1967, when S. E. Hinton’s book The Outsiders was published and subsequently devoured by young readers who were desperate for literature that spoke to them and reflected the realities they saw daily. In the ensuing years, young adult literature has bravely explored controversial topics like class struggle, mental illnesses, drug abuse, and sexuality, all in the name of allowing teen readers a chance to explore the “real” world. One element of teens’ lives, however, that has often been overlooked in the literature is religion and spirituality. Despite the results of the recent National Study of Youth and Religion showing that nearly forty percent of teens report actively participating in organized religion, religious characters and explorations of spirituality are rarely treated in young adult literature.The two titles I review here, The Passion of Dolssa by Julie Berry and The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner, counter this trend, presenting characters who wrestle with issues of faith and belief as they navigate the challenges of their world.
Book Review: Jack Harrell. Writing Ourselves: Essays on Creativity, Craft, and Mormonism.
September 13, 2017Faith, Family, and Art
Jack Harrell. Writing Ourselves: Essays on Creativity, Craft, and Mormonism. Draper, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2016. 156 pp. Paperback: $18.95. ISBN: 978-1-58958-754-0.
Reviewed by Jennifer Quist
The back cover of Jack Harrell’s new collection Writing Ourselves: Essays on Creativity, Craft, and Mormonism describes the book as a continuation of “a conversation as old as Mormonism itself.” It’s a fraught phrase, bringing to mind the image of an academic, artistic, and social in-group that has been conversing among themselves for a very long time. It isn’t the in-group’s fault that the conversation happens in the absence of non-members and newcomers to the Church, neither is it their fault that it goes on without writers, readers, and scholars unconnected to the American Mormon heartland. None of this is the in-group’s fault, but perhaps all of it is their problem. Many in the in-group strive to, in Harrell’s words,“giv[e] the church and its religion a human and literary face” (99). However, we can’t understand what our own faces look like without relying on the re ections and perceptions of people and objects outside ourselves. Perhaps Jack Harrell, as a previous outsider to not just the Mormon literary world but the Mormon world altogether, is especially well-suited to put himself forward to articulate what Mormon letters are and what they ought to be and become.
Book Review: Just Saying, by Stanton Harris Hall
September 13, 2017Just Saying
Stanton Harris Hall. Just Seeing. Self-published, 2016. 109 pp.
Reviewed by Mary Lythgoe Bradford
Stan Hall was one of Dialogue’s most enthusiastic volunteers back in the ’70s when I was its editor. We published some of his poetry then and were sorry when he moved back to his home turf in the Northwest. I was therefore happy to see that he had continued to hone his poetic gift in his privately published collection Just Seeing. The quality of this work causes me to hope that it will be read beyond his family circle, extending even into a second volume, perhaps entitled Just Saying.
Commentary: Putting our shoulders to the wheel to end racism and white supremacy in Mormonism
August 17, 2017The Salt Lake Tribune printed this important “Commentary: Putting our shoulders to the wheel to end racism and white supremacy in Mormonism.” Here is an excerpt:
As Mormons, we raise our voices to decry as wholly immoral the forces of white supremacy, racism, and neo-Nazism that are becoming more visible and emboldened in the United States.
We raise our voices to denounce as an affront to our faith the abuse of LDS scriptures, doctrines, and images of apostles and prophets to advance white supremacy and racism.
White supremacists have comfortably used LDS scriptures and quotes from apostles — even the image of Joseph Smith — to support their cause on social media, seemingly without fear of being held accountable…
hose of us who grew up in the LDS Church Young Women’s program pledged every week to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things and in all places.
We stand now, in our time, on this issue, and in the places where we live, and we say that there is nothing of God in racism, white supremacy, or neo-Nazism.
2017 Eugene England Memorial Personal Essay Contest
July 17, 2017
In the spirit of Gene’s writings, entries should relate to Latter-day Saint experience, theology, or worldview. Essays will be judged by noted Mormon authors and professors of literature. Winners will be notified by email and announced in our Winter issue and on Dialogue’s website. After the announcement, all other entrants will be free to submit their essays elsewhere.
Prizes:
First place, $300; second place, $200; and third place $100
Book Review: Eric Freeze. Invisible Men: Stories.
June 24, 2017
Invisible Men / Invincible Women
Eric Freeze. Invisible Men: Stories. San Francisco: Outpost 19, 2016. 150 pp. Paperback: $16.00.
Reviewed by Lisa Rumsey Harris
Dialogue. Winter 2016
The gaze of the girl on the cover of Eric Freeze’s short story collection arrested me—stopped me. Her eyes, full of hostility, told me that if I opened the book, I would be intruding. Her bright knee-length plaid skirt, reminiscent of schoolgirl uniforms, belied the knowledge behind her glare. If it wasn’t for her posture, her arms embracing something, I wouldn’t have noticed the titular Invisible Man next to her on the cover.
Her warning wasn’t wrong. I felt like an intruder as I began to read. I could only take it in small doses—read, then turn the ideas over and over in my mind, like rubbing a smooth stone between my fingers.
Book Review: Ashley Mae Hoiland. One Hundred Birds Taught Me to Fly: The Art of Seeking God.
June 23, 2017
Speaking for Herself
Reviewed by Glen Nelson.
Dialogue, Winter 2016
Book Review: Patrick Madden. Sublime Physick: Essays.
June 20, 2017
A Candid and Dazzling ConversationPatrick Madden. Sublime Physick: Essays. University of Nebraska Press, 2016. 244 pp. Hardcover: $24.95.
Reviewed by Joe Plicka
Dialogue, Winter 2016
Patrick Madden’s second book of collected essays, following 2010’s Quotidiana (which won an award from the Association for Mormon Letters and was a nalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award), bears the mark of a writer hitting his stride. All the usual adjectives apply: the essays are at times witty, profound, charming, moving, playful (even cheeky), and wise. As anyone who has hung around a creative writing classroom knows by now, personal essays are grounded in a carefully curated friendship between reader and writer, a dialogue, an intimacy—a formulation probably most plainly expressed (recently) by Phillip Lopate in the introduction to his seminal anthology The Art of the Personal Essay. It is this quality of friendship, of candid and dazzling conversation, that engages and entices me as a reader throughout Sublime Physick’s dozen entries
Book Review: Three frontier-era novels republished and annotated
June 20, 2017Alfreda Eva Bell. Boadicea; The Mormon Wife: Life-Scenes in Utah. Edited and annotated by Michael Austin and Ardis E. Parshall. The Mormon Image in Literature. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2016 [1855]. 151 pp. Paperback: $15.95.
Nephi Anderson. Dorian: A Peculiar Edition with Annotated Text & Scholarship. Edited by Eric W. Jepson. Annotated by Mason Allred, Jacob Bender, Scott Hales, Blair Dee Hodges, Eric W. Jepson, Sarah C. Reed, and A. Arwen Taylor. El Cerrito, Calif.: Peculiar Pages, 2015 [1921]. 316 pp. Paperback: $21.99.
Reviewed by Jenny Webb
Dialogue, Winter 2016
The continual rising interest in all things Mormon, whether they be historical, cultural, social, doctrinal, or even theological, has led to a number of interesting publication projects. The texts gathered in this review represent a particular focus within this broader interest: the recovery and re-examination of the various historical forms of the “Mormon novel.”
UPDATED WITH VIDEOS: New Perspectives on Joseph Smith and Translation Conference
May 17, 2017
Dialogue was able to attend and tweet about a recent conference at Utah State University called “New Perspectives on Joseph Smith and Translation.” Participants in the all-day conference included many friends of Dialogue including Richard Bushman, Terryl Givens, Jana Riess, Samuel Brown, Jared Hickman and Rosalynde Welch. The conference was conceived and hosted by Philip Barlow and the USU Dept. of History and Religious Studies, and was sponsored by the Faith Matters Foundation.
Now the videos are being made available, with all the videos slated to be up by May 20. Visit faithmatters.org to see a produced, session-by-session video of the conference, with some additional graphic features and context added.