Brady Udall has always been a highly readable writer, one who engages his audience with the immediate appeal of his narrative voice and the sometimes quirky attraction of his narrative settings and semi-misfit characters. Like…
In response to a review by Jan Shipps of Richard Lyman Bushman’s Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, Bushman remarked: “As more and more historians work to situate Mormonism in American history, Mormons like me want to join the discussion. We will write better if we are less defensive, more open to criticism, more exploratory and venturous, but even with our inhibitions and parochialisms, we should come to the table with our Mormonism intact.”
Kristine: As you well know, Mormons are always interested in famous Mormons’ relationship to the Church. From what I’ve read, it seems that you like the Church, like Mormons, but never were really a believer, never “gained a testimony,” in the vernacular.
Brady: That’s right. I grew up in the Church, went on a mission. I’m proud to be a Mormon. I did what you’re supposed to; I prayed and hoped to be a believer, but it just never took.
Although it had never been formally declared or written in cursive on a piece of parchment, Jolene understood her place in the family hierarchy. She was right there between the ancient golden retriever and the…
Mud to the horse’s knees,
miles with only the moon
and then his patient screaming,
the leg red and swollen
and only amputation to offer.
He would not do this again,
You’d like to maintain innocence—
The mushroom path of fingerprints
Impressing your distinct presence
Now entered into evidence;
Of course that’s seen
behind a screen. The lake
by day is patternless gray,
The missionaries stay in an old apartment.
The shades are yellow as runny yolk.
The afternoon sun is beating to get in.
After school the Greer boy and I
run home past the bottling plant
where I glimpse through the plate-glass
the endless capping of mouths.
As a semi chugs past, we notice
the trailer looks funny—cocked back
George Borrow, an English travel writer, descended from the hills one evening in 1854 to report on Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, at that time the busiest iron smelting and coal town in the common wealth. I imagine he used a walking stick, picking his way through the mountain brush of the South Wales hills to a valley of light and a hillside of blazes. On reaching the valley, he identified the source of brilliance to be lava-like material that zigzagged down the hill above him.