The serious [Mormon] fiction, at least the kind I'm describing here, is honest, comprehensive; it doesn't attack, demean, destroy, is not on the outside looking in, taking pot shots, ridiculing the faith and the faithful. That's not its intention. It is deep in the inside of Mormonism trying to understand and portray it, to hold up the mirror. Its interest is mostly faithful Mormon life as it is lived—to show how religious life works or doesn't work, or is mostly somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. Good fiction is based on conflict, trouble, which the writer tries somehow to resolve or at least to study, analyse, showing cause-effect. Gene [Eugene England] wanted us to look at each other realistically, to understand and appreciate each other, and be charitable, compassionate even, in spite of all our faults and failings.
However devout, however simple and uncomplicated a view one takes of Mormon religious life in the early twenty-first century, however obedient we are, we can't avoid trouble, conflict, tragedy, disappointment, despair, failure, although one certainly hopes for the good things too—health, reasonable children, useful work, solid families, the blessings of faith, friends, a comfortable home, enjoyment of art, a bearable old age, hope of salvation, even exaltation. Readers of serious Mormon fiction don't put on religious blinders because they know they don't work. They also know that a life without religious faith is not probable; because faith makes life possible when there are no answers except faith and a hope for grace.
I'm assuming that the Mormon novelists and short story writers writing for this Mormon readership are going to be writing about Mormons living more or less righteous lives, or at least working on it. The writers are going to work in the rich center of the faith. These lives, families, communities will fail in various ways, and in other ways they will not. But whatever happens the writers will bring them to life on the page. We have a legacy of fiction, both present and past, by and about those who left the congregation, found Mormonism stifling, superficial, or in some way unfulfilling, and this fiction is often skillful, honest, and realistic. But I'm hoping for a fiction that stays in the center of Mormon life because that's where the possibility of a continuous literature lies and where the truth is.
What are the possibilities of and the need for a serious, realistic Mormon fiction in this early twenty-first century? We have the maturing culture now after almost two hundred years, the rich, complex human Mormon life to interpret, dramatize, discover. ... And we have, or can have—once they know there is access to readers—honest, capable novelists and short story writers who want to write at the center of Mormon life. And, finally, there is a need for this fiction, at least for those who want to know and understand themselves and their culture deeply and well, and with some pleasure, as Mormons, as human beings. Perhaps these readers cannot be counted as yet in their hundreds of thousands, but ten thousand or maybe twenty thousand or so will do, at least for now.I love this manifesto. I only hope I can capture this kind of Mormon experience in the novel I'm currently working on. Here's to writing for a small audience! Cheers!
Read, write, execute!
