Miguel Santana

This novel is about the lives of six Mormon women related by marriage. Emma Harris, a 70-year-old widow, throws her family into turmoil when she decides to marry a younger, non-Mormon man. Emma’s daughter (Joy Pratt), Joy’s daughter (Jena Ahmed), Joy’s daughter-in-law (Wendy), and Joy’s sisters-in-law (Ramona and Lupito) are the five other women whose stories are told as they react to Emma’s decision. Each chapter begins with a recipe that reflects the concerns of the woman highlighted in that chapter.

Although there are six main characters and it may initially be difficult to determine and remember the relationships among them, they do emerge as distinct personalities. I found that my opinion of some of the women changed as they were developed through flashbacks which helped explain their emotions and behaviour in the present.

Readers with limited knowledge of The Church of Latter-Day Saints might experience some difficulty since things like the structure of the church, sacred garments, perpetual marriage, and Relief Society are not really explained. For this reason, a glossary would have been useful for non-Mormon readers.

The Mormon women featured represent a wide range of religious devotion from ultra-conservative to very liberal. Ramona represents one end of the spectrum; she is the fundamentalist who refuses to let her children have any contact with a homosexual relative. Jena is at the opposite end; she is the rebel who has no difficulty accepting her uncle’s gay partner and even married a North African who converted from Islam to Mormonism. Others of the women are casual practitioners who interpret church doctrine sometimes rather liberally. Fundamentalist and liberal views can, of course, be found in all religions.

Despite perhaps thinking Mormonism different from other religions, most readers of other faiths will still be able to identify with some of the issues mentioned. Mormonism is not the only conservative religion that seems to want to exclude passion and sensuality from much of life or that has aspects of its history that it might wish to forget. Some of the issues raised in the book are homosexuality, abortion, and the role of women in the church; these, for example, are also concerns for Catholicism, the religion with which I am most familiar. Polygamy and the church’s past attitudes to people of colour may be particular to Mormonism, but other religions have their skeletons as well; the Catholic Church has the Crusades and, more recently, the child abuse scandals. Non-Christian religions are also not exempt from failures.

What is interesting is the reaction of the various women to these topics. Sometimes church dogma is in conflict with how they wish to lead their lives; this may cause a great deal of soul-searching in one woman and none at all in another. Some are hypocrites in publicly declaring themselves to be believers but privately engaging in activities like prescription drug abuse and not paying tithing on extra income gained in questionable ways. Again, this is no different than so many North American Catholics disregarding the Pope’s declarations against contraception. In other words, what comes across in the novel is that Mormon women are like all women of faith: they reconcile their religious beliefs with their personal beliefs and live their lives accordingly.

The book is a worthwhile read; it challenges the stereotypes people may have of Mormon women by presenting the perspectives of six very different Mormon women.

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.… (altro)