Book #13: The Backslider

Title: The Backslider


Author: Levi S. Peterson


So yesterday, when I said I had to read my book club book and make a Target run, I lied. Actually, I intended to read The Ladies Auxiliary for the fourth time and go get some jalepenos at the store, but I got too engrossed in The Backslider to do anything but read. And right now, when I really, really should be brushing up on that other book (or writing the counting my blessings post I promised you all I'd write), I'm writing about The Backslider. And if I were Frank Windham, the protagonist of the novel, I'm sure I'd be imagining some inventive way of punishing myself for my sloth. Oh, and that ice cream I just ate, that would be a big no-no in Frank's mind too.


You see, Frank Windham grew up in Southern Utah (Escalante, to be exact), part of a family that was more than a little bit crazy. The back of the book jacket describes Frank like this: "Frank Windham is just a Mormon cowboy—hard-working, trying to be honest, convinced he is going to hell for incurable lust, and convinced that he deserves to. He has an ultra-pious mother, a brother who is more than just a little touched in the head, and a comfortable Lutheran girl friend who knows she has been saved. This is a novel about sin and salvation, written with raunchiness and reverence. It is also an extraordinary landmark in Mormon fiction--the first to consider the tension between guilt and sexual frustration."


Normally I'm not big on "Mormon" fiction. Those cheesy Jack Weyland love stories are not my cup of tea. Not that I even drink tea. But I loved The Backslider. Yeah, Frank is weird. Yeah, the book is raunchy. But it's raunchy in a funny, touching way. As a convert to the LDS Church, Peterson helps me understand the psychology of small Southern Utah towns where the legacy of polygamy still lives strongly. Even though Frank is in his twenties, The Backslider still qualifies as a classic coming-of-age story, where he grows and matures and makes decisions that will guide the rest of his life.


--originally published 3/1/06