A Light to Come Home by: A Novel
Johnson-Choong, Shelly. 1995. A Light to Come Home by: A Novel. Covenant Communications Inc.
Rating:
1
Summary:
Where’s the conflict?
Micah and Jessa are best friends, in large part due to Jessa’s intervention in Micah’s teenage alcoholism (related in the prequel). But now that they are out of high school and Micah is back on the ‘straight and narrow’ path toward exaltation (they are both righteous Mormons), they are going separate ways. Micah has received his mission call to the ‘Southern States’ mission and Jessa is going to BYU-Idaho (a.k.a. Ricks College).
Micah, who turned to drinking to cope with his parents divorce, is contacted by his father, Monty, who is now living in Savannah, Georgia. Monty is dying from liver cancer, which is attributed to his alcoholism. Micah, believing that he is in the ‘Southern States’ mission as a result of God’s divine will, is now able to get to know and help his father in the last 6 months of his life as the cancer is terminal.
Meanwhile, Jessa has met a returned missionary at school named Connor who appears to the be man of her dreams. But all isn’t what it seems as it turns out Connor is wife shopping. But not just any wife will satisfy Connor, he has to have the most beautiful and talented one out there. He believes Jessa is the pick of the litter at BYU-Idaho and proposes to her. But when he arrives in Oregon (where Micah and Jessa are from) to meet Jessa’s family, he also meets Jessa’s nemesis from her ward, who happens to be even more beautiful than Jessa. This leads Connor to call off the wedding, which breaks Jessa’s heart even though all of her family and friends had warned her that Connor wasn’t right for her.
The book ends renewing the notion that Micah and Jessa might eventually get together.
Review:
This has to be the most unengaging book I have ever read. The only reason I read the entire book was because I was interested in the propagandizing techniques employed by the author to reinforce the Mormon ‘program’. Let me explain. As is the case with most religions, but is especially true of strict, exclusivistic religions, the religion has to socially construct a mentality that reinforces their particular worldview. For Mormons, this mentality includes a number of factors, such as the notion that God’s hand can be seen in everything and that obedience (often euphemistically referred to as ‘faith’) is the ultimate goal. I think Judith Freeman was right to point out in a talk about her novel ‘Red Water’ (Sunstone Symposium 2003), that religions that get their adherents to blindly follow their precepts are scary.
The Mormon worldview of blind obedience (which isn’t true for all Mormons, just most of them) is reinforced in ‘A Light to Come Home By’ in innumerable ways. For instance, in describing Micah’s Missionary Training Center (MTC) experience, the author says, “Jessa knew that Micah didn’t resent the tight restrictions. In fact, knowing Micah as she did, she was sure that he thrived on the schedule” (p. 16). Most individuals that have lived through the Mormon MTC experience will admit that the ‘tight restrictions’ have one, primary purpose – to guarantee that the missionaries that make it through this total institution (see Goffman 1961) will be obedient. The author turns a total institution-like experience into a positive, claiming it is a rewarding experience that will actually make people ‘thrive’. Well, if you define ‘thriving’ as mindlessly adhering to ridiculous, socially constructed rules, then yes, it does accomplish that end. But if you define ‘thrive’ as reaching one’s potential, the MTC falls short, very short. So, the book is Mormon propaganda… but that’s not its biggest problem.
The biggest problem of the book is that there is virtually no conflict. Generally stories use the first part to introduce the characters but by ¼ of the way into the book, it’s time for some conflict to erupt which will drive the rest of the story. I kept looking for the conflict that was going to drive this story and only began to see the possibility of conflict on page 120, which is over half of the way through the book. Up to that point, the author has a very bizarre habit of opening chapters by resolving conflict (see Chapter 9 for an example of this), which is actually quite undermining if you really want to keep your readers interested.
But the conflict problem only gets worse as the author begins to introduce what she believes to be conflict. The conflict in this novel includes two things. First, Micah’s father refuses to listen to the missionary discussions (one of the two twists I wasn’t actually expecting; kudos to Monty Stevenson!). Second, Jessa is sort of deceived by Connor, (kudos to Connor for leading on such a gullible sap so well!). If you were to create a conflict continuum, with 1 being virtually no conflict and 10 being the endangerment of the world (or for Mormons, the endangerment of your testimony J), the conflict in this novel never gets past a 2. It’s as if the author has never experienced any real pain in her life, so her sheltered mind reaches out as far as it can to create what she believes to be ‘severe’ scenarios – a father that won’t convert to Mormonism and an unfaithful boyfriend. This has to be the most menial and ridiculous conflict I have ever read about. This reeks of emotional superficiality. Give me Levi Peterson’s ‘Backslider’ any day over this inept drivel.
Having highlighted the biggest problem, let me turn to just a few of the smaller problems. First, in keeping in line with the Mormon ‘program’, from which the author never really deviates (no wonder it sold in Mormondom), the author then proceeds to encourage a number of additional behaviors. For instance, Micah loves his companion(s). Out of the 15 or so companions I had on my mission, I really liked about 3 of them. I got along well with another 7 or 8. And fought like cats and dogs with 3 of them. The idea that Micah never has a problem with his companion isn’t based in reality. The author also has a tendency to romanticize everything. If the conflict borders around a 1 for the majority of the book, the romance hovers around an 8. If you can imagine it, it’s almost like reading a trashy romance novel without the sex. I think the author would do well to reread 2 Nephi 2:11 which presents the idea that there ‘must needs be opposition in all things.’ If everything is without conflict or is always romantic, there is nothing to compare it to. Just because you want a perfect world doesn’t mean reading about one is interesting. It’s not.
The author is also remarkably demeaning to both Southerners and people that like to drink alcohol. This is how Micah relates his initial impression of the South, “He had never seen so many trailer parks in all of his life. It seemed as if every citizen in South Carolina either lived in one or owned one that housed someone else” (p. 33). She also portrays alcohol as though it were the most evil thing on the face of the planet. Why couldn’t Micah’s escape have been drugs or skateboarding or any number of things? I’ll tell you why, because Mormons aren’t allowed to drink alcohol. What better way to reinforce that message (and simultaneously guarantee an audience for your novel) than to demonize alcohol consumption?
The author also reveals her ignorance when talking about a number of other subjects. For instance, she describes the South as ‘humid’ compared to Dallas, TX, which she considers to be dry. If she had taken just a couple of seconds to look up weather patterns for Dallas she would have realized it’s average year-round humidity is 71%. Average humidity in South Carolina is 54%. She also describes a move from Las Vegas to Oregon as ‘culture shock’ (p. 20). Having been to both, I’m fairly certain no one would experience ‘culture shock’ from such a move. This author really doesn’t have a clue. Finally, the author mentions a car accident (that may have taken place in the previous novel) in which Micah’s mother and brother had their legs crushed. As a result, “Both of them had been in the hospital for over a week, healing from shattered legs” (p. 11). One whole week for shattered legs?
I guess, I should also mention that the writing itself is juvenile. The majority of the author’s metaphors and descriptions are cliché and, frankly, not very interesting. However, this could be seen as a positive considering the ideal audience for this book – 11 year-old Molly Mormons. If you actually want to read an engaging, interesting story and get a feel for what Mormonism is really like, I would highly suggest Levi Peterson’s ‘Backslider’ instead of this novel. Even though the author would probably like to believe that her romanticized, propagandist, ‘program’ following novel mirrors reality, what she has really done is presented a vision of the ideal life that will only appeal to those that are delusional enough to belief that these things are ideal.