New Mormon Books

After all the time that I’ve spent covering the “Twilight” beat for MTV, I was extremely honored to be asked to attend Summer School in Forks: A “Twilight” Symposium, a real-life fan event that allowed Twilighters to attend classes, go to a prom and enjoy field trips around the real-life town that Meyer immortalized by making it home to her beloved characters.

‘Twilight’ World Comes To Life In Forks, Washington.
Summer School in the small Washington town features ‘Twilight’ classes, field trips and prom.
By Larry Carroll
MTV Movie News, Jun 29 2009.
http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1614969/story.jhtml

Williams unveils life among the Chosen (a fictitious theocracy) with spare, evocative writing and an honest sense of character that helps bridge the rift between Kyra’s world and ours. In one scene her family takes her off the compound to buy fabric for her wedding dress, and they stop for lunch at Applebee’s. Everyone gawks at them, and readers, most of us at least, are likely to be jolted by recognizing ourselves among the gawkers.

Tightening the Knot
Reviewed by JESSICA BRUDER
New York Times, June 11, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/books/review/Bruder-t.html

Renowned author and rabbi Harold Kushner acclaims Pearson and her latest work “for reminding us that the task of any religion is to teach us whom we’re required to love, not whom we’re entitled to hate.” The potent Facing East also succeeds in this regard.

Reverend’s Interview: Facing East with Playwright Carol Lynn Pearson
By Rev. Chris Carpenter
Movie Dearest, June 9, 2009
http://moviedearest.blogspot.com/2009/06/reverends-interview-facing-east-with.html

Pearson makes her case, often even eloquently – but her polemical, black-and-white, no-subtle-shadings script often rings of artifice, with lines that may be poetic on paper but which lack realism when spoken.

What happens when Mormon parents have a gay son?
Despite its overly polemical nature, ‘Facing East’ poses some valid points.
By ERIC MARCHESE, Special to the Register
Orange Co CA Register, June 17, 2009
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/alex-ruth-andrew-2465523-marcus-east

Pearson, a fourth-generation Mormon, deftly sketches a world in which ritual and propriety are all. Alex hosts a popular radio segment, “One-Minute Dad,” and has been offered a promotion. This means getting even cozier with the same Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints officials who ex-communicated his son. Meanwhile, Ruth has bought into the notion that preservation of family is everything, even if it means thwarting individual happiness. The play doesn’t condemn Mormonism, but openly questions whether the religion’s strict dogma really stays true to its message of love and community. That critique isn’t news, but it is deeply felt.

Review: ‘Facing East’ at International City Theatre
By Charlotte Stoudt
Los Angeles Times Culture Monster Blog, June 16, 2009
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/06/review-facing-east-at-international-city-theatre.html

Pearson, a Mormon, drew from the death of her gay husband who died of AIDS, and young gay Mormon men she knew who took their lives. She calls the play “an indictment and an invitation.” This, in itself, is tricky business. It would be easy for the play to become just another screed against religion. At times, it teeters. At one point, Alex preaches that Utah is “a flaming red state” then points at the grave and says “here is the collateral damage.” But the play self-corrects and is at its best when Mormonism is subtext to the human relationships.

Emotions run high in angst-ridden `Facing East’
By Greg Mellen Staff Writer
Long Beach CA Daily Breeze, June 17, 2009.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_12603590

Carol Lynn Pearson’s three-hander is an often-searing indictment of rigid values integral to monolithic systems like organized religion, as well as the impact such systems have on Ruth and Alex, a Mormon couple mourning the suicide of their gay son Andrew.

Facing East
at International City Theatre
Reviewed by Eric Marchese
Backstage, June 17, 2009
http://www.backstage.com/bso/reviews-la-theatre/facing-east-1003985114.story

In spite of unspeakable pain from three diverse points of view, Pearson leaves us with a bright shining glimmer of hope. Ruth may hold on to generations of beliefs that are un-reconcilable, but Alex and Marcus reach out to each other. They even make a date to have dinner — and maybe, just maybe, they’ll come to realize the shared loss and grief that binds them together. Slowly but surely, change is in the air over the next horizon.

Playwright’s Experiences, Insight In “Facing East”
By Shirle Gottlieb
Long Beach CA Gazettes, June 17, 2009.
http://www.gazettes.com/articles/2009/06/17/lifestyle/on_with_the_show/doc4a3978291784a079104793.txt

McIntyre’s novel is set at the same time as this tragedy, but in a part of the world very far from West Africa: the small town of Eula, Idaho. Located in the high desert on the shores of a large lake, it is a remote outpost of American life, a conservative, deeply religious place that always seems to be about five years behind the rest of the country. It is the sort of community where the cutting edge is defined by giving the prom a Miami Vice theme and where social climbing involves buying a bigger trailer home.

Intricate lattice of relationships roils placid waters
Debut novel offers touches of Russo
By Stephen Amidon, The Washington Post
Concord NH Monitor, June 07, 2009
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090607/ENTERTAINMENT01/906070371

This is a ridiculous book. The characters are stock, the premise goofy and, while a few things happen, nothing changes. Of course, this sort of thing can be enormously entertaining. All it takes is wit and inventive writing. Uh-oh.

The Actor and the Housewife By Shannon Hale.
By Tricia Springstubb
Cleveland OH Plain-Dealer, June 07, 2009
http://www.cleveland.com/bookreviews/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-1/1244277052117870.xml&coll=2

Brent Jeffs lived the insider’s life behind the closed gates of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the LDS splinter denomination once led by his polygamist uncle, Warren Jeffs, and dogged by controversy and rumors of sexual abuse. But it wasn’t pretty: From his vantage point, the younger Jeffs witnessed brainwashing, bullying and repeated molestation by his uncle that ended only after his family was excommunicated from the FLDS for the infraction of maintaining contact with relatives in the outside world.

Today’s featured event: Go inside the FLDS compound with Brent Jeffs
By Susan Froyd in Things to Do
Latest Word, Jun. 3 2009
http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2009/06/todays_featured_event_go_onsid.php

“Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer is perhaps the latest and most well known example, but more than sixty authors of books for young adults are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Award winning science fiction author Orson Scott Card is another Mormon author who has found success. Why are the young adult and fantasy literature genres so conducive to members of the Mormon faith? We speak with Chris Crowe, professor of English at Brigham Young University, and co-editor of the book “How I Came to Write: LDS Authors for Young Adults.”

Mormons and Young Adult Literature
WBUR Radio, April 29, 2009.
http://www.hereandnow.org/2009/04/rundown-429