It’s a pleasure to read Levi S. Peterson’s novel, “The Backslider” every year or two. It’s the tale of Frank Windham, a rural Utah young man in the mid-20th century who is a bit of a hell-raiser but heavily influenced by his Mormon religion. Frank is 20 and “one of those fellows who got bogged down making another man rich,” as Peterson writes on page 4 of the novel.
Out of spite, and soon after he is dumped by the college-gone girlfriend he loved, Frank seduces Marianne, the college-age daughter of his Lutheran employers, Wesley and his wife, Clara. When Marianne gets pregnant, she and Frank decide to get married, give the baby a name, and then eventually part. No one else really takes that pledge seriously except Frank, who has some real issues with enjoying sexual pleasure with a young woman, even if it is within the bounds of marriage.
“The Backslider” is a love story between Frank and Marianne, but it’s also a primer on how to love. Old-fashioned Mormon codes of sex, such as having relations with temple garments on, serve to bridge the old versus the new mores that Frank encounters growing up.
As the late Paul Swenson, writing in Utah Holiday notes, “Guilt, depravity and grace —, Cowboy themes that Peterson finds fruitful to explore in The Backslider — are not exactly commonplace in fiction peopled primarily by Mormons.”
“The Backslider” is a frank, sometimes comic novel with incredible depth, that gets into the guilts, resentments, pities, excitement, lust and exaltations that make up high and low points of our lives. Frank’s battles pit his desire to be pious versus his gut-wrenching need to hell-raise makes for wonderful reading, as does his struggle to accept adulthood and take responsibility of himself and his unexpected wife.
Although Frank’s mother, Margaret, is a faithful Latter-day Saint, both Frank and his brother Jeremy have impressions of the church that are distorted, thanks in part to her, as well as the general culture of the novel’s setting, mid-20th century rural Utah. This leads to tragic consequences for Jeremy. One well-written, amusing passage involves Margaret’s uncomfortable observation that Frank and Marianne’s bed frame needs to be oiled to stop the loud squeaking at night.
Frank, badly affected by his brother Jeremy’s insanity and self-mutilation, finds it almost impossible to reconcile sex with his wife as anything other than a sin. Even her impending baptism doesn’t drive that obsession away until Frank receives a visit from a “Cowboy Jesus,” who tells Frank to stop worrying about these issues, that His atonement has paid the bill up in full. The Cowboy Jesus advises Frank to enjoy his wife and their carnal pleasures and comfort his mother-in-law, who is shook up about her daughter becoming a Mormon.
The whimsy of the final scenes underscore a serious message: pleasure is usually not a sin, although it frequently is assumed to be.
The Backslider can be purchased at many locations. The Signature Books website has it here.
-- Doug Gibson
Portions of this column were previously published in StandardBlogs.
Have to read the book.
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