The Backslider
The Backslider
Levi S. Peterson
The Backslider features longstanding Christian conflicts played out in a scenic, sparsely populated area of southern Utah. A young ranch hand, Frank Windham, conceives of God as an implacable enemy of human appetite. He is a dedicated sinner until family tragedy catapults him into an arcane form of penitence preached among frontier Mormons. He is saved by an epiphany that has proved both popular and controversial among some readers, either interpreting it as an extreme impiety or celebrating it as a moving and plausible rendering of a biblical theme in a Western setting.
Frank comes into contact with a host of rural and urban characters. Of central importance is his Lutheran girlfriend, Marianne, whom Frank seduces, begrudgingly marries, and eventually loves. Frank’s extended family is just a generation removed from polygamy and still energized by old-time grudges and deprivations. Along the way Frank encounters a closeted secular humanist, a polygamist prophet, a psychiatrist, a Mason, government employees, college professors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs—all drawn with heightened realism reminiscent of Charles Dickens or the grotesque forms of William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor.
The story engages readers as it alternates almost imperceptibly between Frank’s naïve consciousness and the more informed awareness of its narrator. It can be read as a love story, a satiric comedy, or a dark and sobering study of self-mutilation. It builds suspense and elicits complex emotions, among them a profound sense of compassion. More joyous than cynical, it sympathizes deeply with the plight of all of God’s backsliders.
ebook: $9.99 | audiobook $24.95
Levi S. Peterson, Professor of English Emeritus, Weber State University, lives in Issaquah, Washington. His works include the novel, Aspen Marooney; two anthologies of short stories, The Canyons of Grace and Night Soil; an award winning biography, Juanita Brooks: Mormon Woman Historian; and his own autobiography, A Rascal by Nature, A Christian by Yearning. He is past editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.
Fiction
ISBN: 978-1-56085-318-3
