Characters to Care About | Jonathan Langford, No Going Back

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Google “gay” and “Mormon” these days, and you’ll be flung— headfirst—into a veritable deluge of vitriol and sanctimony. Of course, it didn’t start with California’s Proposition 8. No, that river’s path pushes back, through the ’90s and the Church’s involvement with the matter of gay marriage in Hawaii, to the experiences of gay men at BYU in the ’70s and ’80s, and then deeper, into the mists of Castro District folklore and out into the broad plains of popular culture—the play Angels in America, the film Latter Days, and the recent calendars featuring smarmy, shirtless, re turned missionaries. It’s a cultural crossroads that feeds the American media juggernaut and promises years of eye-catching, gut-wrenching headlines to come. 

As an out, gay man who is also a faithful and active Latter-day Saint, I have a front-row seat to a show I never asked to see. I’m fortunate, though. The Sturm und Drang on stage only occasionally breaks through its own din to touch me personally, as I do what I can to lead a life filled with self-respect and charity. 

In that respect, I’m a lot like Paul Ficklin—the protagonist in Jonathan Langford’s No Going Back—a young Latter-day Saint, furtively feeling out what it means to be both Mormon and gay. Yet the book sat on my bedside table for a couple of weeks before I picked it up. The awkward cover art, melodramatic title, and sensitive subject matter—it was all just a little daunting. Was I in for a tongue lashing? Perhaps a passive aggressive religious tract? Or maybe something else entirely . . . Would it inspire hope? Despair? Or would it just make me vaguely uneasy—like watching a comedian or musician bomb on stage? 

There was only one way to know. 

So early one morning, I reached for the book before slipping out of bed. Five hours later, I was still there, wrapped up in a story both familiar and foreign—each character flawed yet sympathetic, and the whole story infused with a gentle warmth. I could tell Langford loves his characters. 

The story opens in a suburb of Portland, Oregon. It’s 2003, and Paul’s a sophomore in high school. He and his best friend, Chad, are working their way through the briar patch of Mormon male adolescence—homework, school politics, merit badges, first crushes, and priesthood advancement. Paul’s a handsome kid, wholesome—but a bit nerdy. Chad’s that kid we remember from seminary. You know, the one with the rough edges—who wanted to be good, but for whom “good” didn’t come easy. Langford doesn’t just put his cast in a real place and time but surrounds them with actual events and everyday brands—gracing the story with a certain authenticity. And it doesn’t end with references to video games and rainy weather. It’s in the sometimes-awkward teenage dialogue—and the different, yet somehow still imperfect dialogue of the grown-ups. It’s this candor, I suspect, that will give the story a solid shelf life. 

No Going Back could easily be a story about teen pregnancy, a crisis of faith, or any number of other, equally delicate, subjects. But Langford wastes no time in outing Paul—placing him squarely on the inexorable path out of the closet. 

Along that path, Paul encounters the usual cast of characters in a teen’s life, each on his or her own path. Langford drapes them in flesh and sympathy, giving us peeks into their individual lives and motivations. It’s not a common approach. Most authors take exactly what’s needed from the cast of second-string characters, pouring their lives through a fine-meshed sieve. When it’s over, all we really remember is the main character sitting on the plate framed by a colorful coulee of tasty background. But Langford uses a chef’s knife, instead—giving us more of a composed salad. Each of the characters, distinct and sacred, plays his or her part in the story without compromising their true selves or the lives they live beyond the pages of the book. 

While describing these characters in a brief review would do them and the book violence, I think one passage illustrates the delicate interplay Langford has achieved. It happens early in the book, soon after Paul tells Chad, his best friend, he’s gay: 

Down in the family room, the smile melted off of Richard’s face as he settled onto the couch and closed his eyes. 

I remember back when Chad was this easy kid to listen to and understand. Now he’s like a stone. An angry, sullen stone. Half the time we talk, it seems like it turns into another argument. And then he comes out with this gay question— 

. . . Someday maybe he’d find out what had been behind Chad’s question tonight. He just hoped it wouldn’t be one of those conversations parent have nightmares about. “Dad, I’m gay.” “Dad, I got a girl pregnant.” “Dad, I blew up the school.” He shook his head. . . . At least his son had good friends. (13) 

Richard—Paul’s bishop and Chad’s father—could have been a convenient literary device. Instead, he’s a father worrying about his son. Soon, though, Richard isn’t just worrying about work and home, but the very weighty issues Paul sets at his feet: 

Richard remembered that the last couple of Sundays, Paul had assigned other boys to prepare the sacrament but hadn’t helped himself. Now he knew why. . . . Richard contemplated the young man who sat before him. Paul’s hands were shaking slightly, he realized. He hadn’t noticed it before. 

And suddenly, in his mind’s eye, he saw a different scene. Paul, head still down, shaking the bishop’s hand and walking out of his office. Paul going into the house where he and his mother lived. Paul opening the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, pouring pills from a bottle into his open hand, swallowing again and again— 

. . . “Paul.” [Richard] stood and held out his arms. “Come here.” Paul stood, but hesitated. Richard took a step toward him. With a gasp, Paul flung himself forward and clung to Richard as if he were a much younger boy. “Paul,” Richard said again, his arms wrapped around the boy’s shoulders, which were shaking now with sobs. “Heavenly Father loves you. And so do I.” (127–28) 

In the Author’s Note (unpaginated), Langford says he didn’t try to “depict any (mythical) typical experience” but instead attempted to create characters who were “mostly well-meaning.” He hoped, in the end, that we’d “come to like and feel for those characters.” And on both fronts, Langford was successful. I certainly didn’t agree with the choices of all the characters or even some of the doctrine discussed; but I cared about each of them and cared deeply for a few. 

All of this isn’t to say the book is perfect. The dialogue could use a final, gentle polishing, and the cover is a mess. But like some literary wabi sabi, the book’s imperfection only reinforces its authenticity. The book is neither a missionary tract nor a political broadside. It’s a window—and a smudged one at that. Every reader will likely take something different away from the book. But each, I suspect, will leave feeling a little more hopeful. And if they’re anything like me, they’ll also have wept a little more than they’re willing to admit. 

So. Back to that deluge . . . 

In the tumult of he-said-she-said and they-did-we-did, it’s easy to forget that behind, beneath, and beyond it all are real people with real needs—living lives that are rich and meaningful, and sometimes fraught with pain and anguish. If we can remember that, then we can move past the shouting and into real dialogue. This book, I think, is part of that dialogue. As are efforts like Equality Utah’s Common Ground Initiative and the LDS Church’s recent—and ringing—endorsement of Salt Lake City’s ordinance protecting gays from discrimination in housing and employment. Each, in its own way, reminds us of our own humanity and the imperative of treading carefully. Each, I pray, is a sign of calmer seas ahead. 

I guess you could say Jonathan Langford’s book isn’t so much about going back as it is about going forward. And that’s a good thing. 

Jonathan Langford. No Going Back. Provo, Utah: Zarahemla Books, 2009. 302 pp. Author’s note, epilogue. Paper: $16.95. ISBN: 978–0–9787971–9–5