Some people understand this better than others. My niece Michelle (also an aspiring writer) informed me that for my Christmas present, she had read my novel and would let me interrogate her for an hour or so about what she thought of it. Others have been taken by surprise by the intensity of my cross-examinations. I sense that in some cases, if they’d known what they’d be getting into they wouldn’t have read the book at all — or at least would never have let me know they had.

Being in Utah for six weeks this summer provided some nice opportunities to talk with readers, many of whom liked No Going Back very much indeed. One friend of the family found it difficult to get past the embarrassment and social awkwardness of the first chapter (where Paul comes out to his best friend), but after that found it more bearable. He used sticky notes to mark passages he particularly liked or found insightful, which he later shared for me. That’s an approach I heartily endorse if you want to warm the heart of an author.

One of the best opportunities for talking with readers came toward the end of my stay in Utah. I’d been hoping for a while to get together with some of the people from North Star, which its website describes as “a place of community for Latter-day Saints dealing with issues surrounding homosexual attraction who desire to live in harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the values and doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” With the help of Ty Mansfield, I was put into contact with someone who organized what turned into a small get-together at Red Butte Gardens, a botanical garden and arboretum maintained by the University of Utah. Seven other people showed up, and for about two hours we sat on the lawn and talked.

The person who arranged for the location basically left it up to me to decide what the event was going to be. So I composed the following rather vague announcement:

Faithful and Gay? An Evening with Jonathan Langford, Author of No Going Back

When: Tuesday, Aug. 17, 7 p.m.

Where: Red Butte Garden, above the University of Utah, Salt Lake City

Who: Members of the North Star community, family, friends, and anyone else who’s interested

What: Discussion, social event, and picnic featuring Jonathan Langford, author of No Going Back, a groundbreaking novel about a same-gender attracted LDS teenager, finalist for the 2009 Whitney Award for best general fiction novel by an LDS writer. He’ll give a short presentation and answer questions about writing the book and some of his experiences (positive and negative) since its publication, followed by general discussion and mingling. It’s a great opportunity to talk, share opinions, tell Jonathan what you liked and didn’t like about his book, and spend a Utah summer evening with other North Star community members in a beautiful outdoor setting. Bring a blanket/lawn chair and something food-like to share!

Then I spent some time jotting down one-page outline of things I might say, and printed out copies of various reader and review comments I’ve received (positive and negative both), and resolved to wing it.

It all worked out pretty well. Several of them had read my book, while others hadn’t. I read a short selection (chosen spontaneously) from the place where Paul is telling his fellow GSA members that being Mormon is a more important part of his identity than being gay. And I talked about how I came to write the book, and how it’s been received (positive and negative), and the great debate about whether the ending is depressing. And I encouraged people to ask questions, which I answered at greater length than I’m sure they really wanted in some cases. I talked and talked and talked (though I did encourage the others to talk too). Afterwards I wondered if I’d been too talkative — a vice toward which I’m prone, as anyone who knows me personally can attest — but took some comfort that everyone else seemed to have had a good time as well. And I sold another copy of my book.

I hope and anticipate there will be more chances to talk about my book, and especially to hear what worked and didn’t work for particular readers. It’s always interesting to find out people’s reactions, even if they’re negative. Indeed, although I love to hear how much people like my story — at great length, and in specific detail — I find that I’m less defensive about negative comments than I’d expected. Perhaps it’s because I’ve come to realize that negative comments are at least as much about the other person and why he/she reads books as it is about me and my writing. It’s all grist for my understanding — and potential information for my next creative project, whatever that may be.

Here’s a short list of some of the things we’ve done:

• Did a paper on my book at last year’s Sunstone (pre-publication).
• Contacted Utah newspapers (including campus newspapers, which turned out well) and sent review copies to everyone who expressed an interest.
• Contacted Mormon book blogs and provided electronic review copies to those with an interest. Again, this worked pretty well in terms of getting reviews, though I don’t know how many sales that translated into.
• Contacted some of the readers of my book who were particularly enthusiastic late last year and mentioned the Whitney Awards nomination procedure (at least five readers not connected to the book’s publication have to recommend it in order to get the committee to look at it). This got the book considered by the nominating committee, which in turn led to it being listed as one of five finalists for its category.
• Sent out flyers to LDS institutes throughout the U.S. So far as we can tell, this was a dud.
• Attempted to get some kind of event going. There was the book reading/signing at King’s English, and there will probably be an event this coming Tuesday in Salt Lake City. (Watch out here for more details!)
• Attempted to get reviews in places like BYU Magazine, with mixed success. (I think I mentioned that Richard Cracroft planned to mention the book in his column, but the editors pulled it due to controversial subject matter.)
• Distributed free electronic copies far and wide within the Mormon same-gender attracted community (e.g., through North Star).
• Mentioned it in personal newsletters to friends, on blogs where I post, etc.
• Mentioned it in various discussion threads on Amazon.com.
• Gave copies to all the people who read the book and commented on it in manuscript.
• Sent electronic publicity packets to Utah libraries, with unclear results thus far.

There’s more stuff than that, if I wanted to get more detailed. Like the time I talked to someone sitting next to me in stake choir. (He wound up reading and then buying a copy.) Or getting a couple of copies placed into my local LDS bookstore back in Minnesota (which still haven’t sold, as far as I can tell), and getting a “local boy” review in my local newspaper in River Falls, though I doubt it will lead to many sales.

It’s unclear exactly what we can do from here. Like I say, there’s this event up in Salt Lake next week. And there’s another couple of reviews supposedly in the works at some point, though I don’t know if they’ll reach anyone who hasn’t already read about the book. But we do what we can.

“No Going Back” by Jonathan Langford (Zarahemla Books, $16.95): “I wanted to write a story that reflected the dilemma of someone whose emotions pull him in one direction, but whose religious commitment pulls in a different direction,” Langford writes in press material sent with his novel about a gay Mormon teenager and his straight friend. Langford, who lives in River Falls, Wis., is a former moderator of AML-List, an e-mail discussion group sponsored by the Association for Mormon Letters.

Your heart will break for Paul, the teen told by church leaders that it’s OK to be gay as long as he doesn’t act on it. Paul’s straight friend, Chad, wants to support his friend but also doesn’t want to become too deeply involved in the school’s organization for gays, lesbians and their supporters. Langford’s dialogue is pitch-perfect, and these boys are as real as the kids you see on St. Paul’s streets.

Okay, so it isn’t much. But it’s positive, and it’s from Mary Ann Grossman, a real-live newspaper book critic (one who isn’t even Mormon). And she liked my dialogue and the realism of my characters. And it’s from a newspaper that covers the area where I currently live, which also seems very nice.

I’d originally contacted her back in March with an email about my book and a query about whether she’d like to look at my book. She said to go ahead and send it, though she made no promises. She also said to make sure to put a prominent note on it about it being from a local author, because she gets so many books that sometimes some slip through the cracks.

So I mailed it, together with a bit of publicity material — four months ago. The next I heard about it was earlier today, when I happened to do one of my occasional Google searches on my name plus book title and happened to find her review, which had just been posted a couple of days ago.

This isn’t a review that I expect will bring me many sales. There just aren’t that many avid followers of Mormon literature in the Twin Cities area. But I’m happy to have it nonetheless: happy the idea occurred to me, happy I followed up and sent it, happy to have this additional evidence that my book seems realistic and can appeal even to non-Mormon readers.

The event (an awfully grand title for a pretty simple thing, but there it is) was held outside, in a patio-type-area (fortunately shaded). We four authors sat at a table in front, with chairs set up for our listeners. (One of the five originally scheduled authors didn’t make it.) There were about 20 people there I’d say (not counting the authors), of whom about half were people I knew who were (I presume) there because of their connection to me and my book. Thanks to everyone who showed up!

Things were somewhat disorganized when I got there. The event was scheduled to start at 6:30 in the publicity I’d seen, and I’d received an email telling me to be there at 6:00. But when I got there about 5:45, the people at the front thought it was starting at 7:00, or maybe 7:30. It turned out that the time had been given differently in different publicity sources. Then when it came time to start, it turned out that apparently there wasn’t anyone scheduled to moderate the event, or that person wasn’t there, or something like that. Instead, the person who was only supposed to set up chairs wound up running the event. She handled it with great aplomb, however, and things went off fine.  (I believe the person who had done this before had since taken another job, which may have caused some of the confusion.) I have no complaints about King’s English and their staff: only gratitude for sponsoring such an event.

Previously, Chris Bigelow (my publisher) had shipped 10 copies of No Going Back for sale prior to and during the event. I brought another 10 copies in case more were needed. As it turns out, we didn’t need my extra copies, but King’s English did sell at least a few of the ones they had. So that’s good. Aside from the fact that I like it when more copies of my book sell, I can’t imagine that a bookstore would want to keep sponsoring events like this if they didn’t generate any sales.

So anyway. We all introduced ourselves, and then each read for about 5 minutes each from our books. At least, that was what was supposed to happen. One of the authors hadn’t heard that she was supposed to read anything, and shared a story about the horrid cover for the large-print copy of her book. (She was the only one of us who had published with a national publisher, and the rest of us were immensely jealous, though she seemed like a very nice person.) Another writer gave an overview of her personal finance book, as it wasn’t really suited to reading an excerpt.

I’d spent some time thinking and collecting suggestions for which scene to read from No Going Back. My first thought had been to read Paul’s coming-out scene to Chad at the beginning of the book. At least one person I talked to thought that was quite a bad idea, though, since (a) it does happen right at the beginning of the book, and (b) it doesn’t really reflect much of what the rest of the book is like. Read something that will draw your listeners in, was the advice I got from several people. William Morris, as I recall, said something that made me think about trying for a scene with some lightheartedness and humor. A family that I home teach suggested the scene where Chad’s father Richard breaks a table (not on purpose) trying to break up an argument between his wife and son after she’s found out that Chad’s best friend Paul is gay — a funny scene, at least in parts, despite its engagement with some serious themes. And so I did that, and it seemed to work well. I had also written a short introduction describing what my book was about and setting the stage for the specific scene I would read, and that turned out to be a good idea too, as when I reached that point it turned out that I wasn’t really up to spontaneous coherence.

And then after all of us read or told stories or gave overviews and such, we took a few more questions, then signed books and talked to people. That part lasted several hours in my case, spilling out into conversations on the road outside when we decided we should let the good people at King’s English finish clearing out the area where we’d been standing. And of course the topic wandered far from No Going Back into other territory, as it does when friends get together, though before that I did wind up answering some nice questions — probably at greater length than was strictly needed, but then, that’s typical of me. And I came home, and was quite pleased with how things had gone, though I spent much of the next day (yesterday, as I write this) recuperating from the rather extreme sociality involved.

It was fun. That, by itself, justifies the effort involved so far as I’m concerned, particularly since personal gratification is the main benefit I’m receiving from this book. And it helped generate a notice in the Salt Lake City Weekly, and is something I was able to list in a packet for libraries to strengthen my “local author” connections, though I don’t know if either of these in turn has generated any sales. But we do what we have the opportunity to do. And it was fun. Did I mention that part? Though for future reference, I might want to follow my initial instincts and see about bringing some refreshments for everyone…

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On other peculiarities: I noticed recently on e-bay that someone is selling a used copy of No Going Back, which they labeled as nonfiction and are trying to sell at more than the cover price. Hello?

Who’s the intended audience of No Going Back? In particular, does No Going Back fit the definition of a young adult (YA) novel? That’s proved to be a tricky question.

First, a point of definitions. As I’m sure most of you know, “young adult” novels are not, in fact, novels written for adults (young or old), but rather for teenagers — often stretching down to middle schoolers in practical application. For the most part, it’s a category used by publishers and librarians (as best I can figure out) in trying to target books to a specific clientele, whether that’s teenagers themselves or the adults who buy, recommend, and/or assign books for them to read. There’s also a general perception (whether justified or not) that such books tend to be shorter, focused on teen protagonists dealing with teen issues, and often written in a simpler style, compared to novels labeled as adult fiction.

Chris Bigelow (my publisher) and I didn’t label No Going Back as a YA book, for reasons that made sense to us at the time. Evidence continues to accumulate, however, that many readers — including some who almost certainly know better than Chris and I — see it as a YA novel. For instance, there’s the review in the spring 2010 newsletter of the American Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered Round Table, which evaluates No Going Back as an example of Mormon YA literature. If librarians see this as a YA novel, who am I to argue?

The easy answer, of course, is that I’m happy with people buying and reading my book, whatever they choose to call it. And there’s some truth to that answer. Let’s pretend for a moment, though, that this question of definitions has some importance, and look at some arguments each way.

First, reasons why No Going Back is a YA novel:

• Most of the action centers on a teenage protagonist, his best friend, and their agemates at school and Church.
• The central story arc is about growing up.
• The central issue is how the teenage protagonist will deal with his increasing awareness of the conflict between his homosexual attractions and the religious beliefs he’s been raised with, together with a large side helping of questions about popularity and peer group loyalties — classic teen issues, just the sort of stuff you might have seen in those much-dreaded After School Specials of yesteryear.
• Much of the story is taken up with details of teenage life, from lunch-table conversation to video games.
• The style is relatively simple and straightforward, with a lot of space devoted to dialogue and internal monologue.

On the other hand:

• Not all of the characters are teenagers. One of the three characters who gets a lot of air space is an adult, the protagonist’s bishop and father of his best friend.
• There’s a major subplot (seen as irrelevant by some readers, but praised by others) about that adult character and his relationship with his wife, which has been strained by the demands of his calling as bishop.
• The book is grittier and more realistic in areas such as teenage language than titles that are sold as standard Mormon YA fiction.
• Although it reads quickly, the book is actually longer than typical size for a regular novel, let alone a YA novel, weighing in at about 110,000 words (standard adult novel size is considered 80,000-100,000).
• Perhaps most important, the book wasn’t written with a teenage audience in mind. So far, in fact, the only teenager I’m aware of who’s read it is my own daughter. (No, I didn’t twist her arm.) To be honest, I don’t think it’s a story that would interest many teenagers (unless they’re dealing with this issue personally) or that they would enjoy.

Our way around this was to label No Going Back a “coming-of-age” novel within the broad label of adult fiction. That’s the category under which it was a finalist for the 2009 Whitney Awards. In our latest flyer for libraries, I’ve suggested broadening the classification to read “Adult/YA Fiction.” We wouldn’t want to lose any potential sales…

A criticism some readers have made (both from a faithful LDS perspective and from a gay perspective, interestingly) is that the book could easily be depressing for teenage readers who are themselves same-sex attracted (SSA) and Mormon. Certainly it doesn’t spell out any easy answers for them. And the main character gets hit with a lot of hard things, partly as a result of choices he makes but largely as a result of things that are completely out of his control. When it comes down to it, I’m not sure I’d want a same-sex attracted teenage Mormon kid to read this book. (Though I think it might be good if his bishop had read it.)

There’s a key definitional question that centers, I think, on differences between the Mormon YA market and the category of YA fiction in the larger non-Mormon world. Mormon YA titles are expected to be pretty much squeaky clean as regards language and what is considered inappropriate behavior, especially sexual behavior. You might have a (pretty daring) YA Mormon novel where a character or a character’s friend slips and falls morally, but all of the inappropriate behavior — and the feelings leading up to that behavior — would happen offstage. You could never (for example) allude to a straight teenage boy’s physical reaction to being next to a pretty girl — at least, that’s my perception — let alone a SSA teenage boy’s physical reaction to seeing a cute guy, as No Going Back does.

This is far from true as regards YA fiction nationally. In fact, YA fiction in general takes a certain pride in tackling the issues that are most relevant (if often embarrassing) for teenagers, like unwanted and socially distressing physical reactions. The very scenes in my book that would horrify buyers and editors of Mormon YA fiction actually increase its qualifications as YA fiction, judged by a national standard.

I think part of the reason for this — on top of a general prudishness in what’s usually referred to as the Mormon market — is that YA Mormon fiction, unlike YA fiction nationally, is a category that’s been created largely by publishers and booksellers, not librarians. Furthermore, it’s being sold largely to parents, grandparents, etc., not directly to teenagers themselves. The primary marketing niche for Mormon YA fiction, as I see it, is as an alternative to mainstream YA fiction, for those who are horrified by the very realism that mainstream YA fiction is so proud of. Marketing No Going Back as a YA novel in a Mormon market would have targeted it at precisely those buyers least likely to like it, while guaranteeing that it would have been overlooked by many who might have liked it but who know what the code of “Mormon YA fiction” generally means.

Which leaves all that other stuff: the fact that even though it may look and smell like a YA novel (in many respects), it wasn’t written for teenage readers and there isn’t much evidence to suggest they’ll like it if they read it. In contrast, there’s a fair amount of evidence that readers from my main intended audience — believing adult Mormons with a tolerance for realism in their reading, without a particular investment in the issue of same-sex attraction but willing to consider how we as Church members can be more supportive in this area — may like No Going Back very much. One such reader, a friend from graduate school, wrote as follows:

As you may recall I rarely read fiction. However, I just finished reading your book earlier today…. This is an incredible story that I will never forget….

I love the theme about how the struggle to be good, to resist temptation and overcome our weaknesses is key to bringing the Holy Ghost into our lives, bringing us comfort, insight and testimony. I was impressed with how each of the main characters developed and became more Christ-like as they wrestled with their weaknesses.

I was also impressed with the range of character flaws…. I also noted your depiction of how our struggle against the idiots in the church exposes us in that process to truly remarkable saints that help us and love us and give us wonderful experiences with the spirit that confirm the truthfulness of the church….

My reason for quoting this (aside from simply putting a smile on my own face) was because it illustrates a level at which I would hope that believing Mormons can identify with the main characters and their experiences, even if they don’t have any personal knowledge of same-sex attraction. Labeling No Going Back as a YA novel completely misses that demographic.

But then, I’m pretty much missing every demographic at the moment anyway (except those like my friend who get their copies directly from me). So I’m not going to complain if someone wants to call No Going Back a YA novel, particularly if (as in the case of the ALA GLBTRT review) they’re also encouraging readers to think about buying my book. It’s all good to me.

I don’t honestly see this as bringing in a lot of sales. From talking to people who have been there before, I’m guessing there may be about 30 people there. Most of those people will clearly be there for the other authors, along with whatever friends and relations I can coerce into showing up. (If you’ll be around, I’d love to see you there!)

The value comes in the leverage I might be able to gain for possible reviews or news articles. Chris Bigelow and I have been busily sending out emails to various local newspapers, etc., saying that a review or article would be “particularly timely” right now and listing other items of recent interest, such as No Going Back’s positive review in the Spring 2010 ALA GLBTRT Newsletter and conflicting positive and negative reviews in various local Utah college newspapers. I just got an email from an acquaintance who had been trying to place a review in one of Salt Lake City’s magazines, suggesting that this strategy may be working. So that’s all to the good.

So now all I have to do is make sure we get to Utah in time and figure out what to read. I wonder what might appeal to fans of (as best I can tell from the descriptions at the King’s English website) a murder mystery, a supernatural suspense novel, a book about managing money, and how-to book instructions for creating a family history cookbook?

Cross-posted from A Motley Vision website.

If art is, in part at least, the imitation of reality, it’s an imitation that’s largely bounded by and grounded in artistic convention. That’s something I’ve long been aware of from a literary/critical perspective, but writing a novel myself — and then seeing the reaction of different readers to the specific choices I made about where and how to be “realistic” — has borne that truth in on me in a particularly vivid fashion.

No one actually writes scenes, dialogue, storylines, and internal thoughts to match the way things happen in real life. Stream-of-consciousness, that most famous of experiments in literary style, tends to strike readers (in my experience) as self-consciously attention-drawing rather than realistic: yet another way for the writer to get between the reader and the experience. Attempts at realism can, ironically, make readers all the more conscious of the writer’s craft.

And then there’s the fact that what strikes one reader as realistic isn’t the same thing that strikes other readers as realistic. Case in point: the dialogue of my teenage character in No Going Back. I’ve had reviewers comment on the awkwardness of their dialogue as a negative thing. Other readers described the realism of my teenagers as a particular strength. It’s occurred to me that both may be true, since one of the things I was trying to imitate was the awkwardness of teenagers in grappling with serious subjects. They start and stop sentences, they interrupt themselves, they dance around what they’re saying. I’ve wondered if that attempt at realism is part of what irritates some of my readers, and whether a smoother and (to my mind) less “natural” style might have kept them more engaged. It’s hard to know.

Listening to my children talk, I’m struck by how repetitious and bizarre a transcript of their speech would look, lifted verbatim into a story. And then there’s the matter of capturing intonation, tone of voice, gestures and other signals that accompany speech. Which details do you include? Frequently, I wound up cutting pieces of information just because they made a scene or paragraph or sentence go on too long. Less is more.

Thinking about this now, I’m reminded of BYU professor Steve Walker’s insight into the invitational nature of J. R. R. Tolkien’s prose: that by including only a few key details, he invites readers to co-create his characters inside their own minds. It is, as he points out, a rather different approach from the values of the realistic tradition in fiction, where the goal is seen as creating a picture of life that is so detailed and real readers can imaginatively step directly into it.

Extending this thought, the value of an approach like Tolkien’s may lie in its implicit acknowledgment that stories are not independent realities created by the writer and passively experienced by readers, but rather negotiated interactions that take place within the space of the reader’s mind. Of course, there’s a certain irony in applying such an insight to Tolkien, the great proponent of story as sub-created experience and one of the most detailed world-creators in all of fantasy…

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Writing my novel, I was struck by just how little real time is depicted in a typical narrative. Looking at the timeline I created of scenes from the year and a half covered by No Going Back, it’s quite common to see gaps of a week or more during which there’s simply nothing written.

Decisions about which life-details to include serve several masters. One is realism, which I think is essential to feeling sympathy for the characters in a story. We have to believe they are humans like ourselves before we can care about what happens to them.

The other is strategic importance to the story. Events and details that don’t play a part in advancing the story inevitably take time and attention away from that story. Stories (and readers) can take only so much of that before distraction sets in. Just how much varies, depending on the story, the genre, and (most especially) the tastes and mental/information processing habits of the individual reader.

Personally, I’m the sort of reader that rather likes a meandering storyline. I like the time that the hobbits spend in the Old Forest and the house of Tom Bombadil. One of the attractions of story reading, for me, is spending time in worlds and with characters I enjoy.

An author’s judgment in such areas is inevitably suspect. How much detail is needed to bring one’s characters and settings to life? The author can’t possibly know, because for him/her they already exist. On the other hand, as their creator, the writer is probably the last person who will tire of spending time with them.

There’s a fair amount of detail I wrote that didn’t make it into No Going Back. For example, given the age of my characters, it occurred to me at one point that they almost certainly would be getting driving lessons during the course of the novel. I decided this could provide fodder for some entertaining parent-child interaction, and drafted a couple of scenes based on that. And then I went back and took them out, because no matter how I tried to fit them in, they felt like a distraction to me.

It’s likely that I should have done the same thing on a few other occasions. Details about video games and teenage music and the like were (for me) a way of giving a more concrete sense of how my characters filled their lives when they weren’t working on homework. (I actually had included a reference to watching YouTube videos until my editor pointed out that YouTube hadn’t been founded yet at the time of my story. Hurray for Chris!) It’s my impression that some readers like those details, but I’ve had more than one comment on how distracting they can get.

And then there are the details I had originally left out that Chris forced me to put in. Most often, these were stage details, as I think of them: information about where people are physically situated, how they move and where they go while conversations and other interactions are taking place. Thinking about the way I read, it makes sense that I might miss these small details, since I tend to process scenes auditorily rather than visually. With more practice, I hope to gain a clearer sense of just how much of this kind of stuff to include. In the meantime, I’m glad I had a good editor.

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Stories — even nonfiction stories — are different from reality. We all know this, I believe, no matter how much we may allow our vision of reality to affected by the stories we hear and read. As Patsy says in Monty Python and the Holy Grail after they’ve been oohing and ahhing at their first glimpse of Camelot: “It’s only a model.”

The thing I hadn’t truly appreciated until I tried to do it myself was just how arbitrary and unintuitive the choice of details can seem, in trying to tease readers/viewers/listeners into supplying what’s missing to create the internal illusion of reality. Over and over, I found myself deliberating quite basic questions, from whether to accent a bit of conversation with an accompanying eyebrow lift to how much detail to include about a boy’s physical reaction to a hormonal moment. Something that had appeared quite seamless to me from a reader’s perspective was revealed to be the result of considerable craft, at a nuts-and-bolts level. Maybe that’s one of the things they talked about in all those creative writing classes I never took…

The next time I undertake to write a story, hopefully I won’t be quite so clueless about these things going in. In the meantime, I feel that I’ve gained a greater understanding of one of the things that makes narrative writing such a complex and judgment-driven endeavor. I hope it’s made me not only a more wary and alert writer, but a more appreciative reader as well.

I’m a socially motivated person. I like spending time with people, talking to people (face-to-face or at a distance), getting to know people. Part of what I’ve always liked about literature is the feeling of truly getting to know the people I’m reading about. Characters are my friends.

Writing stories, I find, is the same kind of activity—taken to another octave of intensity. The horrible vulnerability that comes in story-writing is the flipside of this desire to reach out and connect to other people on the kind of personal level that comes with creating something that touches your readers.

As it turned out, reaching out to people has been my chief method for publicizing No Going Back, as well as one of my major reasons for writing it. Most of the book’s reviews are ones that I’ve individually recruited via email and/or telephone call. Heck, a goodly percentage of the book’s sales so far are the direct result of personal contacts I’ve made. Which is somewhat disappointing, in a way, but there you are…

So anyway, this past week I’ve been following up on some personal contacts from a while back: emailing people I’d sent electronic review copies and the like. Part of me is a bit apprehensive, because I’m guessing that in some cases the reason I never heard back from them may have been because they read the book and didn’t like it. Even if that’s the case, though, I figure it’s better for me to know than not.

Back when No Going Back was first published, I contacted some friends in the LDS same-gender attracted community asking for suggestions for people who might enjoy reading a free electronic review copy. I got about 20 names, and wound up sending out electronic copies to most of them. Some responded with posted reviews, others with private comments. Still others I haven’t heard from at all. I don’t want to nag — okay, I suppose I do want to nag, but not unpleasantly — but I also can’t help but be curious what they thought of the book, assuming they read it. Considering that these also were intended to act as “seed” copies for the LDS SGA community, I also feel like I ought to know what the reaction has been, just so I can know what’s being said about my book. And talking about my book helps to satisfy that desire to reach out to other people as well.

If there’s one thing that has surprised me, it’s that there hasn’t been more discussion about the book in general. I’d love to see people writing and exchanging opinions about some of the issues and questions that have been raised in people’s individual reviews and in emails and comments to me. I’d thought that maybe this blog and my website might be a place where some of that could happen, but clearly I overestimated just how much interest and discussion the book (and this blog) would generate. Still, it was certainly worth doing. And I would have felt guilty if I hadn’t at least made the effort.

Meanwhile, I keep trying to think about more ways to reach out to people who might have an interest in the book, who haven’t heard about it yet (or not in the right context), and how I might get the word out to them. Just a few weeks ago, the publisher and I put out a mailing to LDS institutes of religion on the west coast and a few other places, on the theory that working with college-age students might give them a greater interest in this contemporary topic. (Some of our best responses have been from people in the Church who work with young single adults, such as bishops of student wards.) So far, there doesn’t seem to have been any response to our mailing, so I guess it’s time to put on our thinking caps again. Suggestions are more than welcome…

Mormon YA literature has come a long way with the publication of No Going Back. Many novels written for the Mormon audience are designed to be, first, faithpromoting. In No Going Back, we have a more realistic novel.

Paul, 15, comes out to his best friend, his bishop, and finally his mother. His life is complicated by the members of the Gay Straight Alliance at his school (who expect him to be true to himself as a gay teen), navigating the expectations of his church that he remain celibate, and dealing with a political campaign to limit gay rights, in which members of his congregation are actively participating.

There is much to admire in No Going Back, given its intended audience. There is frank discussion of teen sexual issues, a great portrayal of friendship when Paul’s friend Chad sticks by him after he comes out (despite pressure from some church members and peer pressure at school), and an honest examination of the pressures on family life that church members often go through. These types of issues are rarely seen in what is intended as popular fiction for a church audience. While they are common in mainstream YA literature, they are new in this market.

Some readers will be disappointed in Paul’s decision to put the church first. But it is an appropriate ending for the market for which No Going Back is intended. As a matter of full disclosure, I am a former Mormon who chose the same path as Paul for many years. So, while reading, I understood what is happening here, and why. But a huge issue for non-Mormon readers will be the total lack of explanation of the Mormon world. Church jargon, organization, and theology are presented in a way that will be clear to the intended reader, but will not be clear to others, since the author assumes reader familiarity. If not for the unexplained Mormon terminology, this book might have had a broader market for other conservative faiths.

So, what should librarians do with No Going Back? Just as we fight for LGBT YA books to be in our libraries, so that LGBT youth can find themselves and their lives on the shelves, we should consider material that suggests to youth another choice, so that those who decide to choose faith will also find themselves there. Libraries located in communities or states where there is a sizable Mormon population should consider this book.

Reviewed by: Dave Combe

EP Foster Library

Ventura, CA

Back to Jonathan: This review raises several interesting issues, which I’d like to write about more at some other time. First, there’s the matter of marketing to libraries, which is something I’m still figuring out. There’s the question of whether or not No Going Back is a young adult novel, which I think may vary depending in part on whether it’s considered in a Mormon context. And there’s the question of how much translation is needed for non-Mormon readers. My original assumptions were much like Dave Combe’s as described here, but actual feedback from non-Mormon readers has suggested that they don’t have as much trouble following the story as I had expected (see my earlier blog post, Writing Mormon Literature for a non-Mormon Audience). For right now, though, I’m basking in the glow of a positive review.

I was over at Amazon.com the other day, trying to figure out someplace to post about my book in the Mormon community. I mean, I was able to find a couple of places to post in the Gay etc. community. Surely there ought to be a place to post in the Mormon community

Except, not. Oh, sure, there’s a lot of activity over there, but it all really seems to amount to people screaming at each other about whether LDS doctrines and practices are justified. Which, okay, fine, if that’s your thing. Except that it’s really not mine — the whole virtual-shouting-at-people thing, I mean — and, hello? I think of Amazon.com as an online bookstore, not an online debating club. So how about some talk about books here, people?

So I decided to start my own thread about Mormon literature. My post started as follows:

I find it interesting — but somewhat frustrating — that this whole “community” seems focused on Mormon doctrine and practice. So I’d like to propose a thread that is NOT dedicated either to attacking Mormonism’s so-called errors or to witnessing for the LDS faith, but rather simply to talking about Mormon literature, and particularly GOOD Mormon literature.

And then I talked about the good stuff that’s out there in Mormon literature, and posted links to the Whitney Awards and the Association for Mormon Letters and A Motley Vision. I concluded with the following:

Please feel free to chime in with book recommendations, website recommendations, or other thoughts about Mormon literature in general!

That was on Tuesday morning. As of right now (Wednesday evening) there have been two more posts. One was even about Mormon literature! So cool.

See, it’s an experiment. And it’s an effort at outreach on my part. Just a month or two ago, I was claiming on the Association for Mormon Letters website that the big challenge in Mormon letters was simply letting people know that Mormon literature exists — outside the rather small existing LDS literary community. (Though of course we make up in quality for what we lack in quantity.)

So it’s out there. Don’t know if it’ll go anywhere, but I’ve done my bit. Anyone else have some Mormon lit missionary stories they’d like to tell?