Mormon fiction
Mormon fiction is generally fiction by or about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who are also referred to as Latter-day Saints or Mormons, but the Church no longer uses those terms. Its history is commonly divided into four sections as first organized by Eugene England: foundations, home literature, the "lost" generation, and faithful realism. During the first fifty years of the church's existence, 1830–1880, fiction was not popular, though Parley P. Pratt wrote a fictional Dialogue between Joseph Smith and the Devil. With the emergence of the novel and short stories as popular reading material, Orson F. Whitney called on fellow members to write inspirational stories. During this "home literature" movement, church-published magazines published many didactic stories and Nephi Anderson wrote the novel Added Upon. The generation of writers after the home literature movement produced fiction that was recognized nationally but was seen as rebelling against home literature's outward moralization. Vardis Fisher's Children of God and Maurine Whipple's The Giant Joshua were prominent novels from this time period. In the 1970s and 1980s, authors started writing realistic fiction as faithful members of the LDS Church. Acclaimed examples include Levi S. Peterson's The Backslider and Linda Sillitoe's Sideways to the Sun. Home literature experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1980s and 1990s when church-owned Deseret Book started to publish more fiction, including Gerald Lund's historical fiction series The Work and the Glory and Jack Weyland's novels.
Latter-day Saint authors are well-represented in various literary genres. A tradition of conforming to conventions and building communities may explain why Mormon authors are successful in genre fiction. Glenn Beck, Jason F. Wright, and Richard Paul Evans have written inspirational fiction featured on New York Times bestseller lists. Orson Scott Card, Stephenie Meyer, and Brandon Sanderson are award-winning popular authors of science fiction and fantasy novels. Shannon Hale, James Dashner, and Ally Condie are popular authors of young adult science fiction and fantasy. The Association for Mormon Letters and LDStorymakers support their faith's authors with awards and conferences.
There have been some controversies over Mormon authors and their works. Brian Evenson resigned from his job at Brigham Young University after controversy over his short story collection. In the past, Deseret Book has declined to sell books from popular authors because of their content. In 2013, Cedar Fort refused to sell a contracted book after one of the authors wanted to include a reference to his male partner in his author bio.
History
Mormon fiction's history begins at the same time as the LDS Church. The history of LDS literature is generally divided into four periods, as organized by Eugene England in his article on the subject.Foundations: 1830–1880
Early written works among Mormons were generally non-fiction, including scripture, missionary tracts, and doctrinal literature. In 1844, Parley P. Pratt published what is commonly cited as the first work of LDS fiction, the didactic Dialogue between Joseph Smith and the Devil. It was first published in the New York Herald. Early Mormon leaders like Brigham Young and George Q. Cannon condemned novels for wasting time, a rhetoric that persisted until the 1880s.Home literature: 1880–1930
Fiction among LDS Church members developed once the Mormons had settled in Utah and developed a degree of economic stability. In 1888, Orson F. Whitney called for an increase in "home literature", a "literature whose top shall touch heaven". He contributed his own poetry to the efforts. In response to Whitney's call, LDS periodicals published didactic stories. There was still resistance to the idea of reading fiction. In 1879, a church magazine called Contributor was started to encourage members to write. The third issue condemned fiction as unhealthy for the mind and did not publish it in early issues. Later, in 1889, B. H. Roberts wrote an essay for Contributor on how fiction had increased in scope and popularity, and published his own historical short fiction, "A Story of Zarahemla", in the periodical that year. Woman's Exponent, founded in 1872 and Young Woman's Journal, starting in 1889, also published home literature. Relief Society Magazine started in 1915, with an entire department dedicated to "Arts and Literature".The most successful work of LDS fiction in this period was the novel Added Upon by Nephi Anderson. Following a man and woman from their pre-earth life, through life on the earth and into the afterlife, Added Upon also served as a model plot for later LDS fictional works, such as the 1970s musical Saturday's Warrior by Lex de Azevedo. Michael Austin noted in 1998 that Added Upon opened the door to fiction based on Mormon theology. Josephine Spencer was another popular writer who Gean Clark called the "most versatile and skillful" of early Mormon writers.
Brigham Young's daughter, Susa Young Gates, published a fairly successful novel, John Stevens' Courtship, and B. H. Roberts wrote the novel Corianton, which Orestes Utah Bean plagiarized into a play and adapted into a movie. The literary development in this period stimulated the development of the first professional LDS publishing company in 1866. Originally independent of the church, George Q. Cannon and Sons is now part of Deseret Book.
The "lost" generation: 1930–1970
While this "home literature" has continued to be produced ever since, a new generation of LDS writers arose in the mid century, one that was able to be published nationally and gain national recognition, but generally at the expense of close ties to the church and in rebellion against the moralism of "home literature", leading this generation to be called the "lost" generation.Vardis Fisher was born in Idaho and his parents were Mormon; he joined the LDS Church briefly as an adult but did not identify as Mormon. Mormon characters are prominent in his early fiction. He won the Harper Prize in 1939 for Children of God. Fisher's later fiction does not feature Mormon characters. In a 1976 paper, Leonard Arrington and his student, John Haupt, renewed interest in Fisher's Mormon heritage, arguing that he did not completely reject Mormonism. Fisher's widow subsequently issued a press release stating that Fisher was not Mormon. A 2014 Dialogue essay by Michael Austin concluded that Fisher was definitely influenced by the religion he rejected.
"Historical-regional" novels were prevalent during this era, which Karl Keller called the "best fiction to come out of the Church" and criticized it as a byproduct of "a history and lifestyle that has already been created". In this genre of "provincial" novels, Samuel W. Taylor wrote the humorous Heaven Knows Why. Maurine Whipple won the Houghton Mifflin Literary Prize in 1938 and published The Giant Joshua, which presented plural marriage as a test of faith similar to colonizing Utah's desert. In "Fifty Important Mormon Books", Curt Bench reported that Mormon scholars in 1990 unanimously chose The Giant Joshua as the best Mormon novel before 1980. Virginia Sorensen is best known for A Little Lower than the Angels, which also addressed the emotional hardship of polygamy, and the acclaimed The Evening and the Morning. Her children's book, Miracles on Maple Hill, won a Newbery Award. Edward Geary wrote that Sorenson "perhaps realizes regionalist's ambivalence more completely than any other". Other notable writers from this period include Paul Bailey, Ardyth Kennelly, Lorene Pearson, and Blanche Cannon. These "provincial" novels often feature a protagonist who belongs to her community, yet desires to leave. Another character, usually a man, is committed to community values and grows fanatical, opposing the protagonist. A third character, usually the child of the first two characters, leaves the community for a more individualistic life. Often a fourth character will take on the role of "liberating Gentile", an outsider who tempts characters to leave their community or violate its norms. In an analysis of the "lost" generation, Terryl Givens argues that the novels from this era were "too compliant with the voices of criticism and cynicism to produce an art fully worthy of its subject."
Faithful realism: 1960 to present
In the 1960s, Clinton F. Larsen developed poetry in a faithful modernist style, but it was not until the mid-1980s that novels emerged in this mode. Starting in the 1970s, BYU professors Douglas Thayer and Donald R. Marshall began to write skillful stories that explored Mormon thought and culture in a critical but fundamentally affirmative way. Marshall published collections The Rummage Sale: Collections and Recollections and Frost in the Orchard. Thayer began publishing stories in BYU Studies and Dialogue in the mid-1960s, and published his collection of short stories, Under the Cottonwoods, in 1977. In 1974, Karl Keller praised Thayer for using "concrete, worldly symbols" to articulate his faith, but stated that his work did not go as far as creating a world where Mormon theology was "concretely true". Keller called on authors to follow Flannery O'Conner's example and let religion be "the light by which see" rather than a substitute for seeing.Levi S. Peterson, influenced by Thayer, wrote The Backslider, which Terryl Givens called the "standard for the contemporary Mormon novel". Common themes in Peterson's work are the conflict between justice and mercy and between religious and secular thought. Eugene England hailed Linda Sillitoe's Sideways to the Sun as "the first good Mormon novel about 1980s Mormon life in Utah." It features a typical Mormon housewife whose husband disappears, leading her to form a new, more independent identity. Also in 1987, Orson Scott Card published Seventh Son, which England wrote "raises troubling questions about the supposedly sharp borderline between magic and religion."
The "faithful realism" genre of LDS fiction refers to "challenging Mormon-themed fiction" written by Mormons for Mormons, and only represents a small part of LDS fiction. Other writers in this genre include Margaret Blair Young, Phyllis Barber, Marilyn Brown, and John Bennion. Richard Cracroft called Douglas Thayer's The Tree House the "best LDS literary novel of recent decades". The Mormon missionary novel, a common Mormon Bildungsroman, commonly falls under the faithful realism or modern home literature genre; Michael Fillerup's Beyond the River and Alan Mitchell's Angel of the Danube fall on the faithful realism side of the spectrum. Faithful realist fiction has been anthologized by Levi Peterson in Greening Wheat: Fifteen Mormon Short Stories, by Eugene England in Bright Angels and Familiars, in by Orson Scott Card and David Dollahite in Turning Hearts: Short Stories on Family Life and by Angela Hallstrom in Dispensation. Eugene England noted that In Our Lovely Deseret, while also a realist anthology, differed notably from the faithful realist anthologies by having stories with "in-your-face impiety." In 2017, the Mormon blog By Common Consent started the By Common Consent Press, a volunteer, non-profit press.
Mormon, or formerly Mormon, authors also write literary fiction for a general audience. Terry Tempest Williams's Refuge is commonly anthologized and taught in college classes. Works by Walter Kirn and Judith Freeman appeal to non-Mormon audiences and deal with Mormon issues.