Forty-one years ago today, the Supreme Court unanimously handed down the "Loving Decision." Mildred and Richard Perry Loving had been charged under Virginia's "Racial Integrity Act," banning interracial marriages. The Loving v. Virginia ruling declared such laws unconstitutional.

A decade later, the Mormon church finally got around to lifting its own ban on ordaining black men of African descent. Nevertheless, it took at least another decade (if even then) for the church to muffle its quasi-official imprecations of interracial marriages (never codified, but "frowned upon").

In The Path of Dreams, these lingering prejudices contribute to the long estrangement between Elly's mother and grandfather. As her Aunt June explains,

The proclamation about blacks and the priesthood had just come out and not everybody was comfortable with the fact of a racially-integrated church. Scratch the surface of any Utah ward and you'll find a redneck or two.

Don't ask me to explain, comprehend, or defend it. As David Knowlton writes, the whole thing "deserves to go into the dustbin of LDS teaching," much like the ugly relationship between the Southern Baptist Convention and slavery. As June says, "People change. That's what's important."

Labels: lds, path notes, path of dreams, social studies, utah

Over at the Letters from a Broad blog (read the whole thing), C.L. Hanson reviews The Path of Dreams and concludes that she has "never read a novel that more perfectly captures the Mormon view of the perfect love story." She's almost tempted, she goes on to say,

to call it canonical in the mathematical sense. If the stars were to align for a pair of Mormons to make their love and marriage ideal in every way, the result would be exactly the tale you find here in this book.

There's a touch of damning with faint praise in that remark, but as it accurately sums up what I intended, I'll take it as a compliment. Hanson goes on to identify the same plot problem that Stephen (my editor at Zarahemla Books) also spotted (my upcoming novel will be published by Zarahemla).

Namely, the story resolves the major conflict first, the secondary conflict second, and the tertiary conflict last, which results in the plot taking a somewhat meandering and episodic path through the last third of the book. Structurally speaking, it does resemble a serialized romance manga.

Hanson, though, finds the glass half-full, asserting that this lack of conflict

actually provides an original burst of realism compared a lot of romantic comedies which rely on some of the most absurd situations in order to keep the lovers apart or to keep them (for a time) from realizing they're made for each other.

Rather, she sees Elly's "bland and uninteresting" ex-missionary companions, Melanie and Susan, as more significant flaws in the narrative. I confess that they exist mostly as plot devices to push the story in certain directions. In my upcoming novel, all the cardboard characters will be male (I say half in jest).

Hanson also touches upon the autobiographical tone of the novel and links to this post about "editing one's life." I concur completely with the concept. Unlike Chris though (read the post for the context), in my case I looked back on my college years and simply reversed all my bad decisions.

If I could manage my personal and mental life like a Stalinist state, I'd spend a lot of time airbrushing the past to conform with the whims of the neurotic dictator in charge of my current state of mind. Second best option: write fiction.

Hanson's concluding comment is perhaps her most intriguing, touching upon my self-classification of the novel as "home literature." For anyone "hoping to understand Mormon culture, values, and mindset," she suggests, "if you get this story, you get a whole lot of what makes Mormons tick."

I hadn't realized that the story had such anthropological value. But from now on I'll recommend it on that basis as well.

P.S. Hanson also launched this great thread about Stephenie Meyer. Her post Porn and Me refers to the same analogy I cite (see, I didn't make it up). Her post Questioning Objectification is about the most rational thing I've read on the subject ever.

Labels: fantasy, lds, path notes, path of dreams, religion, science fiction, sex

William Morris at A Motley Vision has posted an interview we did about the revised version of The Path of Dreams.

Labels: path notes, path of dreams

The conservative sexual mores depicted in The Path of Dreams might strike people—who didn't grown up in a conservative religious community—as an odd offshoot of one of those weird chastity movements.

Two recent threads on Mormon blogs do a good job of encapusating the moral themes in the novel. This autobiographical post (and the accompanying comments) on The Exponent nicely sums up the primary point of conflict in the first half of the novel:

Had I made my marriage decision based on practicalities—financial and otherwise—the wedding would have been held years later. But . . . I wanted very much to sleep with this man I loved and I knew [sex] would happen soon rather than later.

This thread on the By Common Consent blog proves the old writer's adage that the sure way to create drama about something is to place obstacles around it (Buffy providing the all-time classic example: sleep with your boyfriend and he literally turns into the devil).

When it comes to fiction, difficult is good. Not so much in real life, as Harvey Mansfield observes in his review of Sex and the Soul by Donna Freitas, where students at conservative religious schools (such as Connor and Elly)

often suffer deep anxiety in their search for a mate. The boys find it troublingly difficult to put off sex, and the girls are fearful that they will have failed in college if they do not get a "ring by spring" (of their senior year).

Still, the license of Sex and the City is dullsville in comparison. Though as illustrated here, these two extremes might share something in common. Quips Jeremy Lott, "Not having sex means talking about it constantly."

Labels: buffy, lds, path notes, path of dreams, religion, sex

When I say that The Path of Dreams belongs in part to the "home literature" genre, I'm referring to Orson F. Whitney's original defense (made back in 1888) of fiction written specifically for the spiritual and moral edification of the religious community.

I see "home literature" as a direct extension of the stories I once wrote for The New Era. Or to be more precise, the kind of stories I would write if I didn't have to deal with Correlation, but without altering the overall approach or underlying intent.

In other words, taking Chris Bigelow's definition of "provocative, unconventional, yet ultimately faith-affirming stories that yield new insights into Mormon culture and humanity" (which I am totally on board with), here I would exclude from those first two adjective anything violating theological or moral standards.

Now, Whitney more specifically challenged writers to

Make books yourselves that shall not only be a credit to you and to the land and people that produced you, but likewise a boon and benefaction to mankind.

The second clause in that sentence sets the bar far higher than the humble target I'm shooting at here. Namely, to remain faithful to the objectives of "home literature"--fiction that remains entirely within the community of believers--yet at the same time wedges into the niche occupied by the modern, secular, genre romance.

The two would obviously seem incompatible from the start. As explained by the Harlequin writer's guidelines:

We want to see an emphasis on the physical relationship developing between the couple: fully described love scenes along with a high level of fantasy, playfulness and eroticism are needed.

Hard to accomplish--and keep the protagonists temple recommend worthy--when marriage is the goal the plot leads up to. In The Path of Dreams, I came up with a clever (I think) end-run around this problem, though not one that could be deployed formulaically.

Moreover, by inserting a pivot point into the story--the marriage halfway through--those moral constraints (against romanticizing premarital sex) could be set aside for the remainder of the story.

A second reason is that, taking Austen as the classic romance template, by the time the engagement arrived with the certainty of marriage in the historical romance, the social structure of the lovers' lives thenceforth was determined. This is definitely not the case in a BYU romance (to take one sub-sub-genre).

Erica Friedman points out the problem of "stories end[ing] where they should begin." That is, they end with declarations of love and the decision to marry (or the marriage itself), when "what comes next" is really more interesting.

With the plot centered around the marital pivot point, the narrative will veer from strict romance to what I might call "family formation melodrama." The challenge, then, is to keep a firm grasp of the erotic thread and not turn into a dreary soap or one of those painfully unfunny sit-coms about what is in actuality an intolerably dysfunctional marriage.

Of course, we citizens of Utah County know that Mormons happily read (gentile) romance novels and attend R-rated movies at pretty much the same rates as the rest of suburban America. Whether such a genre with a "Mormon" label on the cover could survive that cognitive disconnect is another question.

Labels: books, BYU, lds, path notes, path of dreams, utah

In a recent New York Times article tapping into the blown New Year's Resolution frame of mind, Benedict Carey describes the psychology of regret in terms of contemplation of our "lost possible selves," the people you might have been had you made different decisions at a certain points in time.

This is similar to a concept I've played around with for some time. It gets a mention in chapter 19 of The Path of Dreams, where I call it a "dead hypothetical" (here Connor is talking):

"It's this theory—well, rationalization—I concocted, based on the many-universes hypothesis: that for every decision presented to you there exists a universe where the choice you didn't make is played out. But some decisions, I've concluded, have no hypothetical, no alternate universe of possibilities. There may be a fork in the road, but the road not taken was a dead end all along. Some facet of who you are, or who they are, or the basic nature of space and time, simply ruled out that choice having any life of its own. The 'what if' is dead."

In the article, Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, is quoted as saying: "The idea is move people away from this element of resentment, the sense that if only my parents this or I had done that, I would have what I want. That’s a dead end."

The younger you says: "I coulda been a contender." The older you says: "Not a chance, you idiot (and be thankful you didn't turn your brains into mush along the way)."

Glenn Reynolds picks up the many-universes analogy: "This may also explain why people tend to get happier past their mid-forties. By that point, most of the possible selves have been extinguished [turned into dead hypotheticals] and the opportunity costs of living go down."

This should be distinguished from becoming more cynical or resigned. It's better described as the process by which you find out all the things you don't like doing and/or stink at, and choose to no longer waste time and energy on. This allows you to spend more time doing the things you like (or at least don't loathe) and are good (or better) at instead.

Labels: deep thoughts, path notes, path of dreams

Searching for cover art for my forthcoming novel, I've been going through old photographs from 25 years ago. I took this picture at Hakuraku station, a small city outside Yokohama (click on the photo for a larger version).

Labels: path notes, path of dreams