RadioWest with Gregory Prince on Gerontocracy
October 5, 2016
RadioWest intervews Board Member Gregory Prince on his upcoming Dialogue Fall article on “Gerontocracy and the Future of Mormonism.” From the RadioWest page:
Of the major U.S. religions, the LDS Church is the only one whose top leader serves until he dies. That wasn’t an issue in the 19th century when medicine rarely prolonged life after a serious illness. But today, researcher Gregory Prince says that as Church presidents live longer, they’re more likely to experience age-related conditions like dementia. It’s something he explores in a forthcoming article, and Tuesday, he joins us to explain what this “gerontocracy” means for the future of Mormonism.
Book Review: Dream House on Golan Drive, by David G. Pace
October 10, 2016
A Cluttering of Symbol and Metaphor
David G. Pace. Dream House on Golan Drive. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2015. 300 pp. Paperback: $24.95.
Reviewed by Eric W. Jepson
How to represent lived religious experience without either underplaying its reality or slipping into the magical-fantastical is an ongoing difficulty in Mormon literature. David G. Pace, in his novel Dream House on Golan Drive, has decided to lean hard into that latter option. The story is narrated by Zedekiah, one of the Three Nephites assigned to watch over young Riley Hartley. What makes Riley special enough to deserve this honor is never clear. Also unclear is just how much of an “honor” it is to have Zedekiah acting as, essentially, his guardian angel.
2016 in Retrospect: An Overview of Noteworthy Books and Articles in Mormon History
December 6, 2016
Cross posted at Juvenile Instructor
Once again, this is my attempt to recap the historiography of Mormonism from the past twelve months. This is the eighth such post, and previous installments are found here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. I do not list every single book and article from 2016, but I do highlight those I found most interesting and relevent. Therefore, a strong bias is obviously involved, so I hope you’ll add more in the comments.
I think it’s safe to say it was another solid year for the field.
Book Review: Judith Freeman, The Latter Days: A Memoir
December 7, 2016
The Latter Days: A Memoir. By Judith Freeman. Pantheon, 2016. 336 pages.
Reviewed by Darin Stewart
Judith Freeman’s The Latter Days is a remarkable memoir of an unremarkable life. The American novelist ticks all of the standard boxes when recounting her childhood – abusive father, distant mother, disowned sibling, youthful indiscretion – none falling outside a common coming of age narrative. She accomplishes nothing particularly noteworthy and does nothing particularly dreadful. What makes the memoir fascinating is the context in which these non-events occur. Freeman grew up in a small, uniformly Mormon town in 1950s Utah. That backdrop elevates her beautifully written narrative from mildly diverting memoir to insightful social and religious commentary.
Book Review: My Wife Wants You to Know I’m Happily Married, by Joey Franklin
January 24, 2017
Past Second Base
Joey Franklin. My Wife Wants You to Know I’m Happily Married. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. 194 pp. Paper: $19.95. ISBN: 978-0-8032-7844-8.
Reviewed by Eric Freeze
At the last Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference, a famed historical literary figure stood for pictures and selfies next to booths piled high with books. He was bald except for a tuft of hair in the middle of his head and a dark goatee and handlebar mustache. In a more mainstream context, people would probably think he was Shakespeare with his brocade doublet and puffy sleeves. But most images of Shakespeare emphasize his shoulder-length bob. And Shakespeare wore a stiff collar, not a pleated ruff. Maybe the actor just didn’t have the hair? And why the goatee? But anyone who has studied the history of the essay knew immediately when they saw him: it was Michel de Montaigne.
Book Review: Mr. Mustard Plaster and other Mormon Essays, by Mary Bradford
January 28, 2017
Mormon Tradition and the Individual Talent
Mary Lythgoe Bradford. Mr. Mustard Plaster and Other Mormon Essays. Draper, Utah: Greg Kofford Books, 2015. 185 pp.
Reviewed by Joey Franklin
In his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” T. S. Eliot writes that tradition “cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.”1 This has always underscored for me the importance of knowing your literary tradition, of reading widely and deeply, and of exposing yourself to a variety of great voices. In many ways the work I did in graduate school was a clunky attempt to cultivate what Eliot calls “the historical sense,” an awareness of tradition that “compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones” but with “the whole of the literature of Europe” and “the whole of the literature of his own country” in his mind as well.2 Tradition, to Eliot, was the deep well of Western literature. Studying the personal essay in school, tradition for me meant the work of the genre’s luminaries—Montaigne and Bacon, Hazlitt and Lamb, Woolf and Didion, Baldwin and White.
Book Review: Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Wives, by Karen Rosenbaum
January 30, 2017
Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Wives: Ceaselessly into the Past
Karen Rosenbaum. Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Wives. Provo: Zarahemla Books, 2015. 204 pp.
Reviewed by Josh Allen
When reading Karen Rosenbaum’s short story collection Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Wives, I kept thinking about the end of The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald’s haunting conclusion: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” So it is with the women who populate Rosenbaum’s fourteen stories in this collection. The past defines them, breathes always within them. They live preoccupied with family legacies and personal histories, often ruminating, always remembering.
New Directions in Mormon Studies
March 8, 2017
Board member Patrick Mason discusses the role of Dialogue within Mormons Studies in this new podcast at LDS Perspectives. He explains “There are also really important institutions like the Mormon History Association, which is 50 years old, and Dialogue: A Dialogue of Mormon Thought also 50 years old. These institutions and periodicals where this scholarship is done. A lot of this is just people supporting with blood, sweat, and tears. These are the institutions that have built us to where we are now. And I think where we go from here is further insitutionalization.”
Find the LDS Perspectives podcast here.
Utah’s Escalating Suicide Crisis and LDS LGBTQ Despair
March 15, 2017
Daniel Parkinson continues his research featured here in Dialogue on “Utah’s Escalating Suicide Crisis and LDS LGBTQ Despair.”
He pleads “Can we please admit there is a problem? The solution is staring us in the face. We have to educate families about the harm that this rejection is having on their LGBTQ children of all ages. I am grateful that the Utah legislature lifted the gag order in our public schools (no promo homo) that was preventing teachers and counselors from offering appropriate help to our LGBTQ students in the schools. This was one important step but we still need a broad solution throughout our communities. The most helpful information on how to prevent suicide among our LGBTQ youth can be found at the Family Acceptance Project. It is time to adopt and promote their recommendations. The LDS community is failing to extend its love to its LGBT children and neighbors, and for many of them the rejection is lethal.”
Book Review: For Time and All Eternities, by Mette Ivie Harrison
March 16, 2017
For Time and All Eternities. By Mette Ivie Harrison. Soho Press, 2017
Reviewed by Heather B. Moore
For Time and All Eternities is the third installment of the Linda Wallheim mystery series. For Time works well as a standalone—in fact, I read the first book The Bishop’s Wife, but not the second book. I didn’t feel lost, which I appreciated. Linda Wallheim is the wife of an LDS Bishop, and although she and her husband have raised five children together, recent months in their marriage has been rocky. Linda is sympathetic to those who have struggled with a church policy change, and she finds that her sympathies have created a deep divide between her and her husband Kurt. Regardless, they continue to move through the motions of their marriage until the day that Linda’s son Kenneth comes to tell her he is marrying a young woman from a polygamist family. Linda and Kurt are shocked, but they agree to meet the young woman Naomi, who in turn, invites Linda and Kurt to meet her very large family–which includes Naomi’s father Stephen Carter, his five wives, and dozens of children.