News: A tale of two reviews

Although it was published in Oct. 2004 (by St. Martin's Press), "Wives and Sisters," a novel by former Salt Lake Tribune reporter Natalie R. Collins, was reviewed recently by the Indianapolis Star and the Salt Lake Tribune. The result is an interesting exercise in how people outside the Mormon corridor don't understand Mormonism and how people inside the corridor are too enmeshed in it (speaking culturally and politically i.e. setting aside the actual practive of it)

The novel tells the story of a young girl who from the time she is six and on into adolescence and adulthood is terrorized and bullied (physically and sexually) by Mormon men.

Here's an excerpt from the Feb. 13 Indianapolis Star review by Lynn Hopper:

"When she [Allison -- the main character] finally seems to be getting her life on track, she is stalked and raped by the husband of her younger sister. He's a creepy character who then becomes the threat that hangs over the rest of the book as Allison tries to unravel her past.

"But the rapist isn't the real menace. Collins makes it clear that nearly everything that happens is the result of the patriarchal and insular workings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A former Mormon herself, she seems to have intense knowledge of the church, and it is obvious she doesn't like its policies.

"There is an attitude -- perhaps understandable in a religion that has seen a lot of persecution -- of protecting the church at any cost, or at least at any human, female cost.

"Whenever Allison or one of her female relatives needed help, they were shunted aside by the men of the church.

"While one may assume that the Mormon Church would heartily disown the book, and perhaps deny many of the allegations in it, Collins does play fair. She brings in characters, sympathetic ones, who do like the church, and are happy in its teachings."

In his Feb. 12 Salt Lake Tribune review, Martin Naperstack has a much different take on the book.

He writes:

"[The] lack of subtlety is most evident in the attitude the author brings toward the central character in the novel. That character is not Allison Jensen, although most of the action happens to or around her, but rather the LDS Church. Collins, who according to the dust jacket was raised a Mormon and has always lived in Utah (she is a former Salt Lake Tribune employee [AMV comment: heh!]), presents the church as evil.

"Every bad thing that happens in the book is in some way connected to the LDS Church. She presents the church as being filled and run by the type of crazies who believe God has told them to kill people in his name. Even if a reader is willing to believe that the crazies were in some way influenced by the church's teaching, it's a big logical jump to conclude that means all members of the church are either evil or dupes."

He includes various examples from the novel to illustrate the point and then concludes his review with:

"Characters who lack subtlety in their actions or language are fine. There are people like that. But as readers, we have a right to expect their motivations are complex and even beyond their ability to comprehend. That's not what we get in Wives and Sisters.

"We get characters driven either by unbending devotion to church teachings or anger at those who will not bend, evil action sanctioned or excused by church leaders, and conflict as superficial and unrelenting as a soap opera.

"Anger does not promote subtlety, and subtlety promotes art. This is an angry novel."

I was a bit suprised to find that the novel was published by St. Martin's Press. More proof that...

1) the Eastern publishing establishment is trying to capitalize on Mormonism's higher profile
2) the Eastern publishing establisment is mainly interested in narratives that portray Mormons as stand-ins for 'repressive, white, fundie, males + dumb, misguided women'

Not that this is anything new. The evil, rapacious Mormon male trope goes way back.

It would seem that Collins herself is yet another of those "I survived Mormonism" ex-Mo's. Indeed, she has a blog titled Trapped by the Mormons--Living Life Behind the Zion Curtain. The blog isn't all that interesting. She does her triumphalist ex-Mo thing. Members attack her; non-Members give her the big thumbs up for ticking off the Mormons.

Not much new there.

But here's where I'm going with this:

Look. I don't care if you are ex-Mo, Orthodox Mormon or whatever. Somebody write a nuanced, interesting, sophisticated novel with a certain measure of literary value to it and find some eastern publisher publish it. At this point, all we have in recent years is -- what? The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint? Very good novel. But that was almost four years ago. It's time for the national publishers to step up to the plate again.