The Salt Lake Tribune, Joan O'Brien
The first drafts of Dancing Naked contained no mention of Mormons, even though the novel is set in Salt Lake City. Then author Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner realized his book needed a "firmer grounding in place." So he added details from the LDS culture to texture the writing.

The result is a book that one reviewer calls "the first great Mormon novel." And Dancing Naked's grounding in place is so firm now that the novel has been named the 1999 Utah Book of the Year, an award recognizing "the book judged to best represent the literary culture of the state." Van Wagoner will receive the award, the first presented by the newly established Utah Center for the Book, at a ceremony tonight.

Van Wagoner is flattered and grateful for the praise his book is attracting, but he hopes readers will see beyond the local color and recognize the universality of the issues—gay rights, prejudice, sexual repression and family dysfunction—that are addressed in Dancing Naked.

"It's not a niche-able novel," Van Wagoner said in a telephone interview from Washington State, where he, his wife and two sons moved last summer from Utah. "I worked hard to make sure that I was dealing with universal issues. . .Many of the issues are not Mormon-specific. It's just that that is the environment I was born and raised in and that is what I know about."

Dancing Naked is the story of University of Utah mathematics professor Terry Walker, a character Van Wagoner describes as often unsympathetic, but basically good. When his 15-year-old son dies, Walker is forced to confront his past, his homophobia and his unwitting role in Blake's death.

Van Wagoner, 35, spent nine years finessing Dancing Naked, revising his manuscript some 50 times. He likens the process to "spending all day threading needles. By the end of it you are about ready to scream and stick one in your temple."

Yet despite the difficulty and tedium, Van Wagoner was and is compelled to write. He is completing a collection of short stories and a novella as well as another novel, this one a dark comedy titled "The Hummerfest Fraternity."

Van Wagoner's careful, controlled writing process has yielded "a brilliant book" in Dancing Naked, says Guy Lebeda, literary coordinator for the Utah Arts Council and one of the founders of the Utah Center for the Book.

"This is a guy who treats a novel as if it were a poem. Every pause, every piece of punctuation, every word choice has been agonized over and not just once," Lebeda says. "He is really dedicated to the craft. I have never known anyone so painstaking."

Van Wagoner is not one of those authors who rhapsodizes about the joys of writing. It is hard work.

"I don't write because I love it, although some of the best moments of my life occurred while I was writing," says Van Wagoner. "I am compelled to write simply by whatever curse of God or nature. It's what I do."

Van Wagoner graduated from Weber State University with degrees in English and Psychology. After graduation, he had no idea what he would do for a living but whatever profession he chose, he was certain it would entail writing. He discussed it with his wife, Cheri, and they decided he should focus on a writing career while she focused on her teaching career. That was 12 years ago.

Not surprisingly, given his approach to the writing craft, Van Wagoner had difficulty letting go of Dancing Naked. After turning it over to the publisher, Salt Lake-based Signature Books, he even suffered something akin to post-partum depression.

Compounding his depression and anxiety was knowing he had written a character-based novel with a main character readers would not like. But he has found that "Terry is resonating with readers."

"There is an authenticity to Terry and to the circumstance that people recognize in their own lives—but don't really want to," Van Wagoner says. "It's kind of an uncovering of the deep, dark secrets. People harbor prejudices that often are not even acceptable to themselves."

Van Wagoner did not set out to write about prejudice against gays. He wanted to explore how a man like Terry Walker could survive in a world saddled with all his fears and anxieties. The homophobia was "an ingredient" in the larger drama.

"Gay rights, the attitudes and activities of groups for and against, represent the next great civil rights struggle, it seem to me," he says. "Homophobia is a powerful metaphor; it triggers issues of family dynamics that I wanted to explore."

Van Wagoner was well into Dancing Naked when Utah took center stage on the gay-rights issue in 1996. While he was at work painting a picture of a teen-ager struggling with his sexual identity, students at East High School were battling for the right to keep their club, the Gay-Straight Alliance, where young gays could find community and a haven. A more recent controversy is opposition of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to gay marriage.

Van Wagoner was raised LDS in Ogden, served a mission to Norway and married in the temple. He and his wife left the church a few years ago, and left the state a few months ago. But the religion and the culture cannot help but continue to color Van Wagoner's writing. His next novel, "The Hammerfest Fraternity," is about LDS missionaries serving in a Norwegian town in the Arctic Circle.

It hasn't even been published yet, but his comedic novel has already drawn the ire of church officials. After one of his readings from the manuscript, Van Wagoner was summoned to a meeting with a stake president. Although he had not read any of the manuscript, the stake president deemed it offensive and warned Van Wagoner to stop writing such works or face excommunication.

That stake president may be reassured that Van Wagoner is not seeking to write Mormon books. He does not want to write "the first great Mormon novel." He just wants to write serious Mormon literature.

"I wrote Dancing Naked for people who love literature," he says. "I know there's been a debate for a long time about whether there could ever be a great Mormon novel, and if so, what kind of work would it be. . .I've just tried to keep my head down and keep an eye on the artistic goal, which is to write literature, plain and simple."

Publishers Weekly, Judy Quinn
You wouldn't think a novel about gay issues, with the title Dancing Naked, would sell well in Utah, the key state for the conservative Mormon community, which lately has been in the news for opposition to same-sex marriage initiatives.

But that's been the case for the first novel by 35-year-old, Mormon-raised and now Washington State resident Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner. His book tells of a Mormon professor's confrontation of his past and his homophobia, following the "dancing naked" death of his 15-year-old son, who accidentally hangs himself during an autoerotic act.

The book is currently the #1 title in the state on Amazon.com and a strong seller at the state's chain stores as well as indies (it's the #2 seller, just behind Harry Potter books, at Salt Lake City's Sam Weller Books). Van Wagoner won a Utah Arts Council Publication Prize for his book, giving his publisher $5000 toward publication, and late last year Dancing Naked was named the 1999 Utah Book of the Year, the first award presented by the newly established Utah Center for the Book.

Thanks to this award attention and growing sales, Salt Lake-based small press Signature Books, which took the book after larger trade houses passed, just went back to press for 1,000 more copies, doubling the October 1999 release's initial 1,000-copy outlay.

Signature publicist Ron Priddis told PW that sales velocity of Dancing Naked is looking like that of 1990 Signature fiction hit and backlist performer The Backslider, Levi S. Peterson's saga about a sexually frustrated Mormon cowboy, which has sold 20,000 copies to date.

Both books reflect Signature's mission, to provide both fiction and nonfiction that address Mormon cultural issues and life more critically than might meet the approval of the official Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Priddis noted that the Church-affiliated Deseret Book store chain is not carrying Dancing Naked. Contacted by PW, Deseret vice-president of retail Roger Toone confirmed that the chain indeed did not stock the book, although he said it would be special-ordered for any interested customers. "We're not banning the book by any means, but we don't think it has great sales potential," he said.

But apparently there are more than enough liberal Mormons in Utah, as well as non-Mormons interested in their state's dominant religion, to support Signature's books. Online book selling particularly benefits from what might be surreptitious buys.

"Signature does a good job of giving a voice to writers who necessarily wouldn't get one in the peculiar environment we live in," said Barbara Hoagland, co-owner of the Salt Lake City indie bookstore King's English. She's already sold about 100 copies of the book, "quite a lot for a local author. Much of that's because of the wonderful reviews it has received. And, of course, being a bit controversial helps, too."

The Salt Lake Tribune began the buzz by praising the book as "a great Mormon novel" as well as one of the best books of the year. "It explores middle-class American culture through a prism of Mormon sexual misunderstandings," praised the newspaper.

Literary agent Jenny Bent, of Washington, D.C.-based Graybill & English, is now shopping paperback rights to the novel on behalf of Signature. The growing out-of-state reviews of the book confirm the book's potential appeal to all readers, not just those in Utah: "Dangerous and edgy, it is brutally honest in its exploration of the human spirit," praised the Bloomsbury Review.

Bent is also looking for a new home for a collection of short stories by Van Wagoner. And there's another Van Wagoner novel to come that's already making the Mormon church none too happy. The Salt Lake Tribune recently reported that a church official expressed displeasure to Van Wagoner after he heard about a reading of an early draft of "The Hammerfest Fraternity," which centers around Latter-day Saint missionaries serving, as Van Wagoner did, in a Norwegian town in the Arctic Circle. The problem? It seems Van Wagoner has his missionaries "baptize" dead people to meet an annual conversion quota.

It's all part of Van Wagoner's intended comic tone, but may end up creating more of the controversy that is fueling sales of his current book.

The Salt Lake Tribune, Martin Naparsteck
Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner has written the first great Mormon novel, Dancing Naked. The novel, Van Wagoner's first, achieves greatness by exploring universal themes through the specifics of the Mormon experience.

One day Terry Walker, a mathematics professor at the University of Utah, returns home to find his 15-year-old son, Blake, dead, hanging by a belt from the curtain rod of an upstairs bathroom. The death is ruled accidental, because near Blake were pictures of men engaged in homosexual acts, and investigators believe the boy was engaged in a homoerotic act. Blake's death forces Terry to explore his own past, a past of hatred of homosexuals fostered by his father's macho insistence that Terry be manly, with manliness defined by Mormon traditions.

Within this framework, Van Wagoner takes Walker deeper and deeper into his own psyche, using sometimes-lyric language as the vehicle, exposing Walker's fears, hatreds, doubts, and emotional incompetencies so thoroughly that the protagonist, and the reader, is left drained but refreshed. Like all great literature, Dancing Naked reaches heights by dwelling in depths.

Several recurring metaphors enhance the feel. Terry suffers from an inability to move his bowels easily, causing him physical and emotional pain; he is, thus, anal retentive both psychologically and physically, and the physical part is long misdiagnosed by doctors, just as the psychological part is misdiagnosed by the society that nurtured Terry. Terry's father almost lets his son drown during a Boy Scout exercise, and Terry decades later has his son swim in the same lake, emphasizing both the genetic nature of experience and the sense that we cannot keep afloat in life within parental guidance. A young Terry punches his father in the chest, that is, in the heart. And, in the most effective metaphor, the one that explains the title, Terry's wife Rayne dances naked for him, exposing her sexuality in a way Terry himself is incapable of doing, denying his natural yearnings, just as his homophobia forced his son to deny his.

Terry comes to the slow and painful realization that just as his own father did so much psychic harm to him, so too must he be responsible for his son's death. Maybe Blake's death was not accidental, maybe he did intend to kill himself, and maybe his suicide would never have happened had Terry been more accepting.

The novel is filled with lies. Terry's father lies about his experiences in World War II; Terry's best friend, Avory, lies about his sexual nature; Terry's mother lies about Terry's father; and, overarching the whole novel, the culture of Utah lies to everyone who is part of it about our basic natures, our need to accept our sexualities as they are.

No other Mormon writer, with the exception of Levi Peterson, has explored the nature of sexuality within the Mormon culture so effectively, with such a sense of honesty, a sense that the author is willing to confront the most uncomfortable truths. Peterson's best works, including the novel Aspen Marooney, are gentle and accepting critiques of the same culture Van Wagoner pillories. Peterson's novels and stories are the whisperings of a loving father, while Van Wagoner's are the shouts of the angry son. It is the shouting that gives Dancing Naked its power, its drive, that instills in the reader a compulsion to go on. There is not one single character in Dancing Naked to like, none are amiable, but all are human and deserving of our love. It's a literary achievement reminiscent of D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers and Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. Like Lawrence and Turgenev, Van Wagoner has written a novel of rejection, one that forces the reader, if the reader opens a heart to often unlikable characters, to face some uncomfortable truths: The culture that shaped us is flawed, the values we build upon are made of sliprock, the children we love are not us, the truths we believe in are lies.

If Dancing Naked were merely about a Mormon culture that is sexually repressive, it would be limited. But it is about more than that. It is about how middle class American culture stifles our natural drives. And more than that, it is about how culture, any culture, forces the individual into self-denial. We need to be individuals and we need to be part of something larger than ourselves. Some cultures, including the one in Utah, in Van Wagoner's portrayal, falsely enlarge the second need by stifling the first.

No other Utah writer has painted such an honest, if painful, picture of the state's culture. Honesty and pain, the pillars of great literature. Van Wagoner gives us both.

Irreantum, Christopher K. Bigelow
Outside orthodox Mormon circles, where historical and romantic fiction titles sometimes sell enough copies to make national bestseller lists if such titles were monitored, Robert Van Wagoner's novel titled Dancing Naked is the biggest literary sensation to hit Utah in some time. People are calling Dancing Naked the new Backslider in terms of literary impact, and publisher Signature Books has confirmed that—so far—the novel's sales are on track to match Levi Peterson's 20,000-copy pinnacle of contemporary, serious Mormon literature. For Dancing Naked, Van Wagoner received a $5,000 publication award from the Utah Arts Council and the Utah Book Award from the Utah Center for the Book.

Is the novel worth the attention and praise it has received? After I read the earlier versions of the manuscript's first couple of chapters excerpted in Signature's In Our Lovely Deseret, a recent anthology of Mormon fiction, I predicted the forthcoming novel would be sensationalistic and overwritten. However, after digesting the whole novel I count myself among Van Wagoner's fans. If, as some have argued, a novel's deepest purpose is to seek and portray psychological truth—a relative, humanistic form of truth if there ever was one—then Dancing Naked is a deep novel indeed. Although it contains some Mormon elements, Dancing Naked is not really a Mormon novel—rather, it is a human novel about death, marriage, parenthood, family dynamics, sexuality, and other universal themes. For a young, first-time novelist who worked on his manuscript from approximately ages 25 to 34 (revising it more than 50 times), Van Wagoner is surprisingly convincing in the novel's emotional depth and clarity. I found myself wondering if he had personally experienced death, because the scenes of grief seemed so expertly done. He handles middle-aged marriage, intergenerational conflict, and lifelong friendship equally well.

Written from the point of view of Terry Walker, a mathematics professor in Salt Lake City, the novel traces Terry's struggle to come to terms with his father and son, both deceased and with both of whom he has love-hate relationships and seems tragically mismatched. His father, who we encounter in numerous flashbacks, is a macho Mormon patriarch who emotionally manhandles the confidence-lacking Terry, and Terry goes on to echo that manhandling—with much more tragic results—in raising his own oversensitive son, Blake. After warming up for a few pages, the novel starts with a bang as Terry discovers his son dead of autoerotic asphyxiation in the family bathroom, with homosexual pornography close at hand. Much of the novel's narrative drive comes from Terry's attempts to understand what went wrong with Blake, who, like Terry's father, we come to know through flashbacks of Terry's pained, confused, excruciating interactions with him. Not only does homophobic Terry struggle to come to grips with his son's apparent homosexuality but also with whether Blake's death—which Terry initially assumes is a homicide—was an accident or a suicide.

In the aftermath of Blake's death, as readers agonize with Terry through his vividly detailed remembrances of his father and son, two female characters offer us—and sometimes Terry—psychic relief. Although Terry's widowed mother spent her life enabling his abusive father, Terry is close to her—uncomfortably so as a child—and she becomes a somewhat reliable source of stability. But not as much so as Rayne, Terry's wife, who is the novel's most sympathetic character. In the flashback scenes of their courtship and early marriage, she seems to know how to handle not only Terry's insecurities and neuroses but also his abusive father. However, after Blake's death and especially after Terry realizes that Rayne knew of Blake's homosexuality but didn't tell him, their marriage begins to fall apart.

In a rather obvious but nevertheless effective metaphor, Terry has severe constipation, which doctors are unable to diagnose. In some ways, this novel could be viewed as a colonoscopy of Terry's soul as well as of the family culture that formed him, and it will be about as comfortable for some to read as viewing a video of an internal medical exam. For a novel in which not much—outside of flashbacks—seems to happen between Blake's death and an unexpected climax, the narrative snakes right along, much of it written in present tense, turning potentially discombobulating corners of time and setting quite fluidly, only occasionally pausing to focus on some abstract polyp of Terry's inner state. Much of the novel—both flashback and present action—is grounded in vived scene, description, and dialogue, but occasionally the prose takes on, if not outright purpleness, at least a lavender tone. Although overall it reads fast and clean, the style and occasional rarefied paragraph about Terry's inner state sometimes remind us this is a literary novel.

The novel's powerful climax surprised me and yet seemed inevitable, but the denouncement is perhaps the novel's weakest part, with what felt to me like too much tacked-on healing and resolution. Perhaps Van Wagoner agrees with Barbara Kingsolver, who recently told the New York Times that "no subject is too private for good fiction if it can be made beautiful and enlightening." Dancing Naked adroitly addresses extremely private subject matter, but the last chapter plus the epilogue seem to be Van Wagoner's way of leaving us on an excessively "beautiful and enlightening" note to make up for the overall tone of darkness, confusion, and unhappiness. Comparing the earlier Lovely Deseret excerpt with the novel's final form, I noticed that Van Wagoner—or a Signature editor—considerably toned down the description of the gay pornography found at Blake's death scene. Although the novel retains some explicit elements, I wonder how much was rewritten to avoid alienating more readers than necessary. All things considered, the novel did not make me feel cynical about Van Wagoner's motives until the last pages—and if his motives are to build a literary career and leave readers wanting to come back for more, I don't fault him beyond letting these motives show in the novel's conclusion.

Now, about the novel's Mormon elements. Terry is an inactive Mormon who, as a young adult, makes his break with both his father and the Church by deciding to not go on a mission and to marry the Catholic Rayne outside the temple. In the novel's present time, Terry hasn't attended church in nearly 20 years. His feelings about God seem to be mixed up with his feelings about his father: "God was of little concern to Terry as long as he didn't report what he saw to Father" (239). I have wondered if Van Wagoner intends Father as a metaphor for the Church, an authoritarian patriarch who seeks to impose a skewed, intolerant morality on others through control and intimidation. Or perhaps it is Terry who is in some way a metaphor for the Church, a man who wants things to be right but does not know how to love because of repression and fear of the unknown, in this case mainly homosexuality. But Dancing Naked is not that easy to peg. I am happy to report that the novel does not have to be read as pro-gay or anti-Mormon, although it is possible to do both if a reader is so predisposed. The real concern of the novel is Terry's psychological journey, not how fiction can be used as propaganda.

Van Wagoner, an Ogden native who graduated from Weber State University with degrees in English and psychology, told the Salt Lake Tribune that initially the novel contained no Mormon elements, but he added some to give it a "firmer grounding in place." If those Mormon elements were stripped out, I believe the novel would still stand. Most other organized religions could have been substituted, or even just American culture in general. The novel is more the anatomy of a family than of a larger culture, though of necessity that culture looms behind the family members. For instance, Father's macho abuses are tied to the Mormon mindset, but they don't necessarily have to be—and the tie may not even be fair or justified. "Many of the issues are not Mormon specific," Van Wagoner said. "It's just that that is the environment I was born and raised in, and that is what I know about." In a similar way, Van Wagoner included homophobia issues in the novel not because of some agenda but because "homophobia is a powerful metaphor; it triggers issues of family dynamics that I wanted to explore."

Mormon elements aside, I find myself wondering if Dancing Naked could have been successfully published by a national press. Writing in the now-defunct Salt Lake Observer, critic Paul Swenson gave some intriguing glimpses of the novel's route to publication: "Dancing Naked was originally placed for publication through an agent with an out-of-state university press, but the deal fell through due to several areas of disagreement. 'It went to the boardroom of several publishing houses, but they were scared of the difficult issues it raises,' Mr. Van Wagoner said. 'The younger editors took it to their boards, but the senior editors didn't want to take risks.'" Kudos to Signature for taking on the novel, which—for better or worse—will only further cement that small, regional house's reputation for edgy, dangerous fiction that doesn't get sold in most LDS bookstores or reach many mainstream readers.

Before Dancing Naked, Van Wagoner had already won considerable acclaim and publication for his short fiction. With this successful first novel, which an agent is reportedly trying to place for publication in paperback, he has made himself a writer to watch. Although he has moved away from Utah, he is undoubtedly delving deeper into Mormonism with his next novel, titled The Hammerfest Fraternity, the story of some Mormon missionaries serving in Norway. It will be interesting to see what additional artistic capacity he displays in his sophomore novel. With plot points such as missionaries baptizing dead people to meet conversion quotas, it sounds more in a comic vein, and due to public readings the manuscript has already attracted the negative attention of Church authorities. Unfortunately, even with the achievement of selling about 2,000 copies of Dancing Naked in a difficult, polarized market, Van Wagoner likely won't be able to make a full-time living from his novels unless he can find either a national audience or a wider Mormon audience—or, ideally, both.

Irreantum
An Interview with Robert Van Wagoner

Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, author of Dancing Naked (Signature, 1999), is the recipient of best short fiction awards from Carolina Quarterly, Shenandoah, Sunstone, and Weber Studies, and has been published in The Best of Writers at Work, In Our Lovely Deseret, and other anthologies. Dancing Naked received the Publication Prize from the Utah Arts Council and the Utah Book Award from the Utah Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress's Center for the Book. He has been a resident artist with the Utah and Wyoming Arts in Education programs and a faculty member at Writers at Work, Southern Utah University Writers' Conference, and others. He and his wife Cheri are Utah natives but now live in Washington state. They say they are the proud parents of two sons, one rottweiler, and a big orange lizard.

IRREANTUM: Tell us about your beginnings as a writer.

Van Wagoner: I had no experience writing fiction until my senior year in college, when I wrote my first short story. A really bad short story. I was finishing up a double major in English and psychology at the time, and hadn't yet decided which field to pursue professionally. I had every intention of going to graduate school (contingent, of course, on figuring out what I wanted to do with my life), but when I wrote that bad short story, something clicked. The process compelled me, made me alive the way only rich and complex experience can. My wife, Cheri, and I were in our first year of marriage, and she, like me, was finishing her degree, tying up a secondary education certification. By the time we graduated, I'd managed a few stories more promising than the first, and had had one accepted for publication in Weber State University's student literary journal, Metaphor. I also had an idea for a novel and was intrigued by the idea of actually trying to write it. Together, Cheri and I came to the decision that I would take a year to figure out what I wanted to do about graduate school while trying my hand at the novel. (We were used to being poor, and a first-year teacher's salary looked pretty good to us by then. Yikes, were we naive!) So I did. I took a year and wrote a fatally flawed and never-published novel, followed by a series of pretty good short stories, most of which I sold in a relatively short period of time. Post graduation, my first published short story, "Love in a Unit," appeared in Carolina Quarterly. I'd been writing "full time" for about two years by then, and had just begun the novel that eventually became Dancing Naked. Obviously, my "one year" turned into a bad habit.

IRREANTUM: What writing influences you most? Do other cultural influences besides fiction—such as music—play into your creativity?

Van Wagoner: I'm a fairly eclectic reader and am most influenced by whatever I'm reading at the moment. Consequently I've become more discerning about what I read, partly because I'm not terribly fast and don't have much time for books I don't find compelling on multiple levels. Language has become increasingly important to me. I look for fiction, particularly, in which the language is textured and carefully balanced against other literary elements, such as character and setting and conflict. I am drawn to language that is sonically evocative, lyrical, yet understated. It's tough to do, though I hope someday to be able to do it myself.

As far as other artistic influences—I was born and raised in the home of the painter, Richard J. Van Wagoner. I grew up watching him paint in his studio and otherwise taking the arts for granted. I was very lucky that way. Early on music was my discipline of choice, and I pursued it seriously for many years. I was even a music major at BYU for three semesters before my mission to Norway. Now, I'm mostly a connoisseur, though I include both the visual arts and music in my writing process. In my studio, I require certain pieces of my father's work, and when I'm revising, I almost always listen to music: blues, straight-ahead jazz, and classical, especially.

IRREANTUM: Though you wrote it at a relatively young age, Dancing Naked is for many readers unusually convincing in its depiction of grief, middle-aged marriage, intergenerational conflict, and lifelong friendship. Most fiction is a combination of what the author has experienced, observed, and imagined. How did those three elements work together as you wrote Dancing Naked?

Van Wagoner: I was born and raised in an active LDS family, and I was a believer. A fervent believer. I've thought a good deal about how this has informed my art. During my early years of religious disaffection, I tried to convince myself that my art and my 25 years' fervent belief should remain separate. It was a thin and dangerous self-deception, and I was forced to play the contortionist for a time. I was angry. I felt as though I'd been betrayed, and felt myself complicitous in that betrayal. I was determined to excise my Mormon-ness, which of course was impossible, short of lobotomy.

So in many ways, Dancing Naked was the child of that painful struggle. I was still active in the Church during the time frame of those first few drafts, and I was much too close to both the Church and the work to recognize how profoundly my interior battles were affecting the novel's aesthetic and ideology. Ironically, I did not mention Mormonism once in those early drafts, an omission that bespeaks my years as a contortionist. The Mormonism was there, however, as it is in all my writing, whether I mention Mormonism or not. Every thought I think, every act I commit, every line I write, is fundamentally informed by my making. I am Mormon. It took me many years, but I finally understood that I had to stop knifing away at the unexcisable. I had to embrace who and what I was. When I finally accepted that I was forever Mormon, whether I believed in the theology or not, my art began to succeed in a whole new way.

The problem during those many years was conceptually simple, as most important problems are: How could I reconcile the dark issues I found most artistically compelling with my Mormon making, about which I was so conflicted? I was too conflicted, in fact, to see the obvious—that good art is never really about reconciliation, but about the tensions and energies and consequences at play when one tries to reconcile the (often) unreconcilable. Frankly, there is so little in life that's truly reconcilable. And let me tell you, reconciling the unreconcilable is hard work. With Dancing Naked, it took me nine years and about 60 drafts to realize it could not—and should not—even be done.

Which brings me more directly to the experience/observation/imagination part of the question. At the time I conceived Dancing Naked, I was intrigued by the way authority (be it personal or institutional) trains each new generation to accept and perpetuate certain attitudes, particularly intolerance. Moreover, I was interested in exploring what I perceived to be the high price such perpetuation exacts on the perpetuator. When I wrote the novel's early drafts, I did not know that my younger brother was gay, but I already strongly believed homophobia to be one of the few remaining bastions of socially sanctioned hatred. (My brother came out to me shortly after he'd read one of those early drafts.) I did not want a gay protagonist, because I did not believe I was qualified to write about a homosexual's interior life, in much the same way I am not qualified to write from a black protagonist's point of view. I did, however, know something about homophobia, having grown up a bit homophobic myself. And I knew something about sexual repression. And about authority. What would happen, I wondered, if a sexually repressed homophobic from an authoritarian background were forced, in the wake of a child's death, to face that child's sexuality?

I did not base Dancing Naked on any personal experience, though I had witnessed in my 25 years plenty of unsavory homophobic episodes. My parents are loving, wonderful people, with no resemblance whatsoever to any of the parents in Dancing Naked. When my brother came out, they accepted him even before they understood his sexuality.

So, rather than a story of authorial experience, Dancing Naked became the product of imagined characters placed in ferocious conflict, then strained (along with my raw and bleeding hide) through a very personal aesthetic and ideological evolution. Simply, I started with that father-son conflict mentioned before and let the characters take over. I had no idea how the novel would progress, how it would resolve. I seldom know such things about my stories and novels. E. L. Doctorow once said something like, "Writing a story is like driving at night with the headlights on. You may only be able to see a few feet ahead of you, but you can drive that way all night, and get home." Makes sense to me.

IRREANTUM: You said you felt your writing improved when you accepted you were forever Mormon, whether you believed in the theology or not. Could you expand on this? Maybe it would be easier to grasp in relation to nationality or ethnicity, but it's harder to imagine a Baptist saying, "I don't believe in the tenets of Christianity, but I consider myself a Born-Again Christian, because that's the tradition I grew up in." What is it about Mormon culture that allows you to say the same thing, and how do you feel it nurtures your writing?

Van Wagoner: For my first 25 years, Mormonism was my way of life, and the Mormon culture—its geography and demographics (both interior and exterior)—was my country. I did not often travel beyond its borders. Mormonism was so pervasive in my early life, I had little time for, and, frankly, little knowledge of, the bigger world. I accepted the old Mormon saw, to be "in the world, but not of the world," which effectively filled me with suspicion and fear of anything outside of my Mormon range of experience. Without effort or self-analysis, I spent my time with Mormons, participating almost exclusively in activities administered or sanctioned by Mormon organizational and cultural forces. Mormons organize and insulate themselves against perceived threats, which demonstrates the premium we place on community and cultural identity. Mormons and the Mormon doctrines seem easily threatened, however—threatened by criticism, by beliefs and behaviors different from our own, by doubts and contradictions, by changes and legal challenges to doctrinal or cultural tenants—and this, in my case, helped generate an intensity of experience that constitutionally and permanently shaped me. With all due respect to more traditional ethnic identities, Mormonism became my ethnicity. It played that large a role in my life, plays it still. Just because I ceased believing in the doctrines does not mean I suddenly reshaped myself, or assumed a different identity. I process information much as I used to, only now I have a much broader range of experience to draw from. My personal and artistic conclusions represent that growth.

As a writer, then, I tackle ideas using all the tools I own. I'm in an interesting position, knowing personally what it means to be a fervent believer and an ardent nonbeliever. It was an important moment in my development when I realized both my belief and my nonbelief pivoted on my Mormon-ness, that same fundamental identity. Once I accepted this, I was strangely free to identify with the individual and cultural struggles inherent in being a Mormon who believes and a Mormon who doesn't. I was suddenly able to empathize, not just sympathize, to feel compassion not just tolerance (or intolerance). I was able to do these things, and in ways, with a creative range, I'd not experienced as a fervent believer and, later, as an angry nonbeliever. The synthesis of my disparate parts became, largely, my muse. I am a much better writer in the aggregate, and I have many more things to write about.

IRREANTUM: For all Dancing Naked's angst and darkness, it has a surprisingly happy, resolved ending. What if the novel had ended on page 345, without the last chapter and epilogue? Tell us about how and why you developed the novel's denouement.

Van Wagoner: I'm not sure I would agree that the ending is either happy or resolved, though I do agree that it's hopeful. One alternative resolution, the one you suggest by your reference to page 345, would obviously have been worse for everyone—except, of course, for Blake and Father, though even there, Terry's ultimate demise would have come at the expense of their memory. Still, I accepted the possibility that such an ending might be necessary, though I admit I was pleased that the narrative's momentum carried everyone through.

So how and why did I develop the novel's denouement? I didn't, really; I left it up to Terry and Rayne, who'd led the way all along. John Gardner in The Art of Fiction discusses a concept he calls profluence, which I've subsumed and bastardized in order to understand my own creative processes. (I looked for my copy just now and can't find it, so you'll have to forgive me for dealing mostly with my own take on the concept, which was nonetheless inspired by his.) In essence, profluence is the physical act of plotting, and it occurs in real life and good literature. For my own needs, I think of profluence as the chemical reactions that take place when real characters authentically interact with real conflict. In my work, that chemical reaction fuels the narrative's forward movement. Characters are real people with real personalities, real strengths, real flaws. We writers so want to interfere—and, yes, we must, occasionally do so—though sometimes we interfere in ways inconsistent with the story's authenticity and honesty. A fatal mistake, for without authenticity and honesty, all natural chemical reactions cease, and the forward movement stops, and unless we beg our characters' pardon and return them their heads, we are left to drag and push our poor, manipulated stories to their sorry, failed endings, I know. I've done it plenty of times.

Let me put it this way: Despite himself, Terry is a good man. I love the guy. As evidence of his strength, read to page 364. I am very proud of him.

IRREANTUM: Comparing the chapter of Dancing Naked exerpted in In Our Lovely Deseret, I see you—or a Signature editor—toned down the description of the gay pornography found at Blake's death scene. How much explicit material was similarly edited, and what were the motives? How much rewriting did you do after acceptance for publication?

Van Wagoner: I did quite a bit of rewriting after Dancing Naked was accepted for publication. It had been some time since I'd worked on the manuscript, and based on Signature's comments, and on my own neurotic proclivities, I worked very hard to get everything right. Though of course I never get everything right. In terms of toning down, Signature and I negotiated and compromised—both of us. Every writer over-reaches at times, and a good editor (which I had) is often able to see things the author can't or won't. When I say good editor, I'm speaking to a kind of selflessness. A good editor understands the author's intent and suppresses his or her personal agenda for the sake of clarifying the author's meaning. For this to work, both the author and the editor must always remember that it's about the work, and nothing else. Anyway, when I thought a specific word or image didn't particularly matter to the overall impact of the narrative, I conceded and toned it down, so long as the change didn't compromise my intent. By doing this, I was able to stand firm and keep what I felt strongly about, which in a couple of cases meant some risk for everyone. Nothing essential was toned down.

IRREANTUM: You've said you didn't initially include any Mormon elements in your novel, though it was always set in Salt Lake City. The Mormon additions you later made seem mostly related to the main character's macho, authoritative father, and Terry's rejecting of him and of Mormonism is an interrelated process. Is the father—or Terry himself—any kind of metaphor for Mormonism? Talk to us about Mormonism's influence on you as a writer. Is there anything you find redeeming about the culture or religion that would ever find its way into your work?

Van Wagoner: As I said above, Mormonism is always present in my work. In the case of Dancing Naked, I didn't add much new material but rather called things by their real names. It was a very easy thing to do, and the changes tightened and justified the motivations considerably. As far as Father or Terry standing metaphorically for the Church, I'd have to leave that to the reader. I will say, however, that the novel is not about Mormonism, not in the least. It's about human beings, some of whom happen to come from a Mormon background, who find themselves wrestling with human conflicts. No matter how hard we imagine or pretend, real Mormons in real crisis seldom look like the cover of the Ensign. In their dire and private hours, Mormons look like everyone else. Likewise, Mormonism does not have a corner on intolerance, or on crisis of faith, or on sexual repression. No matter how much we want to be "peculiar," we're far from it.

It's simple: I'm Mormon, and Mormonism is my experience. My goal has always been to deal with universal human issues through the specifics of the culture I know. Readers may not always recognize themselves in my characters, but when I'm doing my job well, those same readers have a hard time denying the characters' authenticity. Just because a reader does not like my depiction of something, that dislike, whatever its source, does not alter the depiction's accuracy and truth.

The final part of your question, "Is there anything redeeming about the culture or religion," reveals an interesting bias on your part and assumes a bias in my work as well. What do you consider redeeming? How should such a thing be defined? Like I said, some readers are troubled by my stories' depiction of Mormonism and it's culture, others are relieved and grateful to find themselves among characters and issues they understand and recognize. Dancing Naked is a story of redemption, I suppose. In the end, even Father is redeemed to some extent. I have just this week finished a collection of short fiction, most likely to be titled Strong Like Water. Eight stories, some of them connected, all of them with Mormon characters. Again, I find every story redemptive on some level. Almost every character is a good person, struggling with his or her own problems. Once again, none of the stories is about Mormonism, while all are fundamentally Mormon. However, whether the Mormon culture or religion is redeemed or redeeming in my work does not much matter to me. Writing about what I know, getting it right—those are the things I care about.

IRREANTUM: Do you like writing? Tell us more about your writing habits: how often you write, how you balance it with other things, any rituals or conditions you must have for a good writing session, and perhaps some comments about whether you use notes, outlines, research, multiple drafts, etc.

Van Wagoner: Like is not a term I much understand when it comes to writing. Well, maybe I should say, I like to have written well, but I find the process very difficult and painful, even in the good times. I am, however, physically and emotionally better when I'm working. I have long periods when I'm not cutting new material, and not necessarily because I'm busy rewriting or promoting my work. I feel weak and lifeless during those periods. I am inclined to depression and anxiety. If I will force myself to read, though, I find over time that the intellectual stimulation pulls me back, until pretty soon I'm churning through books at a pretty good pace. My best ideas—and the desire to write about them—almost always come when I'm actively reading.

I seldom use notes, never an outline, at least not so far. Accuracy is important, so I research when necessary. I write many, many drafts, and sometimes those drafts include large and radical changes.

IRREANTUM: What have you learned about marketing yourself as a writer and approaching different publishers? Trace for us your experiences with national publishers and how you ended up at Signature. How is your agent currently doing handling your prospects, such as paperback rights to Dancing Naked? Are you trying to go national as opposed to regional?

Van Wagoner: I dislike the practical and financial parts of marketing, but I enjoy meeting people and discussing ideas. I was very glad when I linked up with my agent. I was going through a nasty negotiation with a university press that had accepted Dancing Naked, and my agent helped me through it (I ultimately withdrew the book because the publisher was not handling the negotiations to my liking. They were very angry when I pulled the manuscript.) After resolving that nasty episode, Jenny Bent, my agent, shopped the manuscript for a time, and though we were not able to sell it on the national market, the book made it to the boardrooms of three large houses. Ultimately all three publishers rejected the work because it was "too dark and literary" for a first novel by an unknown writer, and because they were afraid Terry was too unsympathetic. We did, however, make some friends and fans among the senior editors at those houses, and we have agreed to give them a first look at my next work. Unfortunately, collections are pretty tough to sell, even when they're very good. If we manage to sell the collection or the next novel to a big house, certain prospects become more likely. We currently have a number of trade paperback imprints watching how Dancing Naked performs, but if it hasn't been sold by the time my next work sells, there's the possibility it could be included in some multiple book deal.

Having said this, I am very pleased with my Signature experience. I was treated fairly and with respect, and they made a beautiful book. My intended audience is literary, be it regional, national, or international. Naturally I prefer national because it means more people are reading my work. Though I have not had much national publicity, my readership is slowly creeping toward both coasts, and publications like Bloomsbury Review, Publishers Weekly, Gay Today, Midwest Book Review, and Feminist Bookstore News have reviewed it favorably and in some cases multiple times. Signature is not a large house, but it is becoming increasingly respected nationally, and for good cause. Trite but true, bigger is not always better, and though like most writers I hope to have a large, national readership someday, I would be pleased to see Signature as part of that equation, supposing they would have me again. At this point, it's a matter of wait and see. Books are a strange business.

IRREANTUM: What other things have you done to carve out and maintain a full-time writing career—in other words, how do you support your wife and children? You've won some awards and grants. Tell us about that side of the writing profession.

Van Wagoner: I don't financially support my wife and family. Cheri has been the family's primary breadwinner since we graduated from college. However, about seven years ago we purchased some reasonably priced rental properties. We did this by selling our home and using the equity for a down payment. Such ventures do not always work, but in our case it proved to be a good investment. Anyway, I manaaged the properties part-time, did most of the remodeling and upkeep, and now the investment provides a small income, which has helped a great deal. Additionally, I sell stories now and then, have royalties coming in, and am paid for many of the literary events I participate in. I teach at writing workshops when I'm asked, and even substitute teach when things get tight financially. Cheri and I take this writing thing very seriously and do what we must in order to ensure the next project. Obviously, I'd have never made it anywhere without Cheri.

Awards and grants have made a big difference in my career. Besides affirming my efforts (in what is a difficult and lonely profession), they have provided good publicity, recognition from editors and agents, and cold cash. I was contacted by five agents because of short story awards. Jenny was one of those agents. I have been asked to participate in events in which a certain amount of award status was prerequisite to the invitation. Then there are the less tangible benefits, such as confidence and motivation. No matter how much I want to rely on writing's intrinsic rewards, I need some extrinsic validation every now and then too. And grants—before my sons were in school, grants bought me some time to write. I was the primary caregiver during those years, and with the money, I was able to bring a nanny in for a few hours each day while I wrote. I liked having the boys at home with me while I worked, and a nanny made that possible.

IRREANTUM: Please comment on the story that was nominated for the Pushcard Prize. What did it mean to you to have it nominated? Did the nomination open any doors for you? Would it help Mormon writers if publications like Sunstone, Dialogue, Exponent II, IRREANTUM, and others regularly submitted the best work they publish?

Van Wagoner: I've had two stories nominated for Pushcarts, neither of which won. Both nominations pleased me greatly, and if not directly, indirectly opened certain doors. Every agent soliciting my work has commented on the nominations. No matter how much we wish it were otherwise, writing is a political profession. The bigger and better the vita, the easier it is to get a good reading from editors and agents. Without a doubt, Sunstone, Dialogue, Exponent II, IRREANTUM, and any other Mormon periodical publishing literary work should submit the very best to the appropriate competitions. "The very best," however, must be defined by the highest literary standards, and nothing else.

IRREANTUM: How do you think the contemporary literary establishment views writers with any kind of religious affiliation?

Van Wagoner: It's tough to generalize, because there is no one contemporary literary establishment, really, and a writer's religious affiliation can manifest itself in so many ways. Still, I think I know what you're getting at. For me, the most important word in your question is "literary," which to me suggests an aesthetic sensibility that precludes dogma and propaganda. Some writers have a tough time making distinctions between what's aesthetic and what's pretty or reassuring. Great art rarely assures us that all is well, and it never prescribes the one true answer that will solve the world's problems. None that I've seen, anyway. Circular, self-referential arguments cannot withstand question or scrutiny, yet so much religious fiction is just that—circular, self-referential, indefensible. Thus, religious fiction rarely rises to literary levels. Nobody wants another person's faith crammed down her throat. Serious readers don't want all the answers—sometimes they don't want any answers. Still, some writers with religious affiliation write and publish great, well-received literature all the time.

IRREANTUM: Do you think this nation will ever have a Mormon Saul Bellow or Flannery O'Connor, someone winning a Pulitzer or National Book Award for fiction that deals with Mormon themes, settings, and characters? What will it take for Mormon literature to assume a place in the culture the way that Irish, Native American, and Jewish literature has since World War II?

Van Wagoner: Yes, I do think the nation will have its Mormon Bellows and O'Connors, perhaps writers of even greater importance, though it seems likely to me that those Mormon writers (and their works) will not, at least initially, be embraced by the institutional Church, nor by the more orthodox factions of our small but growing literary establishment. Which, of course, won't matter one bit, because the artifact will not need the Church's endorsement or approval to define it as Mormon or successful or anything else. The works' quality and accuracy will transcend the inevitable socio-political smallness, the fears engendered when power and control are forever lost. Already, there are a few Mormons writing promising fiction, and there are certaily more to come. It's just a matter of time. And growth. And courage.

My friend Margaret Rostkowski (author of After the Dancing Days, The Best of Friends, Moon Dancer) once said she believed loss to be the soul of great literature. I have thought a lot about her observation and have come, over time, to believe she is largely right. Loss, however, presents some interesting problems for Mormons. Mormonism, as a theology and a culture, exists, at least in theory, to neutralize loss, which is perhaps why so many Mormon writers treat loss as tragedy and strive to overcome it by applying Church- and faith-approved solutions to their fictional conflicts. The irony in all of this is that loss, deep and permanent loss, is sometimes the only way to salvation. What happens when a Mormon protagonist finds hope, or yet more dangerous, salvation, by losing her faith, or her church, or her chastity, or her community? What if she loses her god, and in the process, finds some other belief that makes her whole? What if she actively participates in the mercy killing of her old and suffering parent? What if she chooses abortion, and that choice ends up bringing life and salvation to many? What if she embraces her homosexuality, and finds peace and spirituality and love? These things and many more like them happen all the time. They happen to everyone, including Mormons—even earnest, faithful Mormons. Yet how many Mormon writers are willing to wrestle with such issues, knowing that so many Mormon readers and leaders could never read their stories without thinking it all tragic, perhaps more than tragic, because the struggle appears to embrace the greatest of all Mormon losses—separation from the Mormon god and the Mormon concept of eternal family?

You asked what I think it will take for literature written by and about Mormons to assume a significant place in American letters. A writer of such a work must be willing to wrestle honestly and authentically with the human condition, not simply the Mormon condition. By necessity, the art that writer makes will explore and document that struggle with finesse, beauty, insight and compassion. Finally, the work and its maker will have to overcome fear, her own and others', because such an enterprise will be terribly dangerous and painful and permanent. But it will happen. Sooner or later, it will happen.

IRREANTUM: Tell us more about the response to Dancing Naked, including sales figures. What sort of reader feedback are you personally receiving? How has the reponse met, exceeded, or failed to meet your hopes? Have there been any misunderstandings by critics that you'd like to respond to here?

Van Wagoner: As far as I know, we're well into the third print run, headed for the fourth. I don't know how that translates into actual numbers, though the print runs were not large: one thousand and change each, I believe. Reviews keep coming, and to date, every one has been favorable. A few have been quite extraordinary. I love personal feedback, and most of that has been favorable as well. People who don't like a work seldom call the author to complain, though, so who knows. As far as expectations go, I try to avoid them so I won't be disappointed—though who can really do that? The reviews have been great, but there are never enough. The sales have been good, even brisk at times, but I'll never sell enough copies. Dancing Naked has launched my career, but thankfully, there's much, much more to be done. No misunderstandings so far. I put it all out there in my work. In the end, each piece has to live or die on its own.

IRREANTUM: Your next novel is about Mormon missionaries. How will that book compare with Dancing Naked? How will the Mormon elements be handled? What audience and publisher are you shooting for?

Van Wagoner: I've just recently gone back to that novel after a long hiatus. The Hammerfest Fraternity is its working title, and yes, it does deal with Mormon missionaries in Hammerfest, Norway, high in the Arctic Circle. Like Dancing Naked, Hammerfest has taken me a long time to write. In a previous life, it was a novella. I fleshed it into a pretty long novel a few years ago, but I wasn't satisfied with its shape and language. It's an ambitious idea, and I've had to work hard to grow into it. I may not be there yet, but I've begun to identify some of my mistakes. I'm enjoying the early stages of this particular rewrite, which will be major, an entire change in narrative voice and point of view, probably. Plus I'm dabbling in mystic realism, which may or may not succeed, but it's fun and it feels correct and it allows me to try some things I've always wanted to try. Hammerfest is more overtly Mormon than Dancing Naked, and I hope to see it cross demographic lines.