Book Review: All That Was Promised

In the spring of 1847, Richard Kenyon, a humble Methodist minister in Cardiff, Wales, is called to the bedside of a member of his congregation and feels helpless when he can’t answer her grieving husband’s questions about death. Then Richard hears a Mormon missionary preach, finds the elusive answers, and his world is suddenly topsy-turvy, but he also gains the inner peace that will sustain him through staggering tests of his new faith.

All That Was Promised, Vickie Hall’s 231-page novel from Bonneville Books, takes the reader through a captivating story that includes many manifestations of persecution, both subtle and overt, suffered by early members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Wales. Richard’s wife Leah comes to her convictions later, but Richard’s brother Robert, sole proprietor of the Kenyon & Sons tea company after Richard becomes a minister, is outraged that his brother has converted to Mormonism and severs ties immediately. Though keenly hurt and disappointed, Richard never gives up on Robert.

Richard’s new friends enrich his faith—Ben Lachlan, the American missionary who baptized him; David Simmons, the LDS branch president; Henry and Charlotte, an elderly convert couple; Jonah Reese, a young convert boy; Claire and Samuel, Leah’s sister and brother-in-law who are also members; and Church leaders in Wales. Richard flourishes and finds happiness in his new religion despite becoming a target. LDS readers who understand the concept will appreciate instances where characters are “led by the Spirit” and miracles ensue. Through all the relentless persecution, the Mormon congregation continues to grow.

In contrast, Robert lives a grim, desperate, bitter life, the result of his own empty soul and a loveless marriage to the disparaging, malicious Abigail, a woman with no redeeming qualities. She controls, abuses and manipulates their fourteen-year-old daughter Amelia, imprisoning the girl in her own room for the slightest misstep. Robert hires John Morgan, sort of a one-man Welsh mafioso, to disrupt meetings, intimidate, and create personal havoc for as many Mormons as possible. However, they need someone on the “inside,” and that’s Meredith, a bar maid who pretends to believe even to the extent of being baptized, becoming accepted by the Mormons and gaining their trust so she can report to her nefarious boss where the LDS live and work. Their one miscalculation is that they didn’t expect Meredith to develop scruples. When he learns of Richard’s baptism, Robert misses a chance to change course, persisting instead in his “get the Mormons” campaign.

Hall’s prose is highly readable. Scenes of violence and cruelty—necessary in a story like this—are written without lurid details, describing what was suffered but sparing the reader gratuitous gore. Appealing characters, a tightly woven plot and non-stop acts of lawlessness, betrayal and treachery keep the story flowing. All the characters have ample opportunities to repent and forgive; as in real life, some people do, some don’t. And all the villains come to foreseeable ends, although a shrewd barrister could probably have won Robert’s case with a plea of justifiable homicide.

This impressive story would have been much better served with more meticulous editing. It also needed a Welsh-English glossary with an explanation of customs so the story didn’t have to be interrupted with historical and cultural facts to bring readers up to speed. Otherwise, as the author’s first published novel, it is a fine piece of work and one I recommend.

(I was asked to review this book and received a copy from the author.)

Twenty Random Things You May Not Have Known About Me

1. My first child was born on Guam. People often ask her if she's a naturalized citizen. (Guam has been an American territory since the Spanish-American War, FYI.)

2. I never went to a high school prom. However, I went on to live a normal life anyway.

3. When I was 14 I had a boyfriend, the only one I had in high school, and we went together for a year and then I lost track of him after we broke up. He later earned a PhD in human sexuality. I think that’s hilarious.

4. I’m a bit Monk-ish. (Monk was my favorite TV show; not long after it went off the air I gave up watching TV.) I LIKE having a place for everything and everything it in its place; however, unlike Monk, I don’t fall apart when it almost never is.

5. My feet are short and wide, making it impossible to go into a regular shoe store and find something that fits, other than a box. To complicate matters, one of my feet is size 6 1/2 and the other is size 7.

6. I love word games and jigsaw puzzles. It's probably a manifestation of my Monkishness because it's where order and organization can be found. I have discovered a lot of people feel the same way but are reluctant to come out of the closet and admit it unless someone else brings it up first. Why is it such a bad thing?

7. I taught creative writing for Snow College outreach for nine years, but I only had an inconsequential little BA, and when the People In Charge decided to compete in the big leagues, they refused to grandfather in a longstanding successful class because I didn't have an MA. At that point I had nothing to prove; ironically, many of my students were taking the class to get their masters degrees. I focused on poetry, drama, essays and novels, and a lot of my students later told me that as teachers they often referred to the things they learned in my class. To my knowledge, creative writing has never been taught in Richfield since my last class.

8. It's from ancient history (2008) but I'm still waiting for someone to explain this to me: “We are the change we’ve been waiting for.” Does that actually make sense to anyone? I see what it PRETENDS to mean, but that doesn't compute in my mind. It’s total, pretentious baloney masquerading as a clever, insightful aphorism.

9. I used to be a TV news junkie but my blood pressure got too high. Now I go online to select news sources that speak my language and philosophy.

10. Chocolate is my favorite indulgence.

11. How did I get along in the world before the internet? It's where I buy shoes, in case you were wondering, and I have been known to do ALL my Christmas shopping online.

12. I have the most wonderful husband in the world.

13. My total, complete, unequivocal most favorite place on earth in the Oregon coast, and beachcombing is my favorite pastime. August and September are the best times to go there.

14. I got my first cell phone on January 20, 2009. Now I don't know what I'd do without it.

15. Music and art are two of my great passions, even though I know little to nothing about them. They speak to my soul and that compels me to learn more. 

16. I have many nicknames, and daughter #2 is always making up new ones. When she got married, her Intended--the respectful soul that he is--asked what name I'd prefer he used, and I said, "Well, Chickie Babe would probably not be appropriate." My original name is Pamela Gay Stott, but I have also been known as Pammie, Pammie-wammie, Stottie-wottie, Pamalia, Miss Pam, Momster, Palmolive, Pamalamadingdong, Mommie, and GramPam. My kids often refer to me as The Pamster, and there are many permutations surfacing all the time. (By the way, hubby is sometimes known as Rogerbil--he and I are the cuddly little pets in the family.) When I was in high school, some of my sillier friends started calling each other by our names spelled backward. For a while I was Alemap Yag, or one of its many variations.

17. I love puns. Once when I was in college I lived in an attic apartment with three other girls, and with all the odd ceiling angles in the place it was hard to decorate and personalize. One day I came home to find my roommates sitting at the table enjoying apples and peanut butter (our favorite snack) and grinning with anticipation to see my reaction when I noticed the bigger-than-life-size poster of their favorite male Russian ballet dancer someone had mounted on the wall/ceiling. I looked at their giddy faces and sniffed with mock disgust, “Well, you’ve got your Nureyev.” They exploded in laughter that went on for ten minutes. It was one of my greater linguistic triumphs.

18. I have serious acrophobia as I get older. (Roger calls it ‘high-drophobia.’) Even in my dreams, if I’m going down stairs, the stairs gradually become steeper until they’re like a ladder, but I'm facing the wrong direction and I can't hang on, so I fall. But I don’t mind having a window seat in an airplane; in fact, I love flying into Portland and seeing Mt. Hood as we approach the airport.

19. If I were a Winnie the Pooh character, I’d be Pooh. I love honey and I’m afraid of heffalumps and woozles. Okay, and I'm also stuffed with fluff. Don't push it.

20. I love making people laugh, but I prefer to do it deliberately with wit rather than with pratfalls.

What Do You Do With a Bandelo?

Daughter #1, from upstate NY, has been here attending Education Week classes on the BYU campus and helping me organize and sort all the stuff I've been saving for my personal history. We divided it into categories--elementary school, high school, college, mission, marriage, and that doesn't include the last 40 years which still has to be organized. Some of my stuff is pretty strange--an empty aspirin bottle cast members gave me as a gag gift after a play production, a plastic tortoise shell bracelet my mother used to wear, and a bandelo. 


Like Boy Scouts have those long wide bands to display all the merit badges they've earned, kids in LDS Primary classes displayed this plastic representation of our achievements on a band of maroon felt we wore around our necks every week in our class. As we passed off Primary graduation requirements, we added bars and symbols of the things we had learned. I can't recite all the Articles of Faith anymore, and I don't recall what all the other symbols represented, but obviously I was there and ticked off all those requirements. I do remember how intimidating it was if my friends had more of their symbols on their bandelos than I did.


Here's the problem: It isn't flat and doesn't fit easily into a scrapbook. It has no earthly purpose now and would be meaningless, and therefore useless, to shoppers at Deseret Industries, so I can't pass it on to the thrift store. It has no significance to anybody else, but it doesn't mean anything to me anymore either. I look back now at the concept of displaying our achievements on maroon felt bands around our necks and am seized with the urge to shriek, "What were they thinking?" And yet, would I feel guilty if I tossed it out?


Before Daughter #1 left today for the airport she showed me that she'd clamped my bandelo inside the rings of the binder/scrapbook with my early history. If it becomes annoying when people try to turn the pages of the book we'll have to think of an alternative.


If you had a bandelo when you were in Primary, what did you do with yours? What should I do with mine? I've already decided against suspending it in clear plastic, so let's move on.

Music Magic

When I was a little girl my mother listened to the radio every morning as she did her chores, and she would often sing along with her favorite music. I listened as I worked with her or played where I could hear the radio. Programs were about 15 minutes in those days, with few commercial interruptions. One program of popular song and light patter involved several singers and lots of laughter. I remember one inconsequential little ditty, a tribute to the joy of camaraderie:

In the cool, cool, cool of the evening,
Tell 'em I'll be there.
In the cool. cool, cool of the evening,
Better save a chair.
When the party's gettin' a glow on
And singin' fills the air,
In the shank of the night,
When the doin's are right,
You can tell 'em I'll be there.

Of course, in my child mind, it never occurred to me that a party getting a "glow on" might refer to the consumption of alcohol, with which I was unacquainted. Nevertheless, it was a catchy tune and I've remembered it all these years.

Mother also listened to a program of inspirational music every morning, and then later in the day there was Arthur Godfrey from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I knew where all these programs were on the dial and could run to the console radio and change the station when one program ended. In the evenings we listened to Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Nat "King" Cole. On Saturday mornings the sounds of the Metropolitan Opera broadcast from New York wafted through the house, and in the evenings we heard a program of island music, "Hawaii Calls," complete with steel guitars and ukuleles, followed by the authentic Western sounds of Gene Autry's "Melody Ranch" and the sweet harmonies of the Sons of the Pioneers.

To say that my musical influences were eclectic is to understate the situation, especially when you add to this the fact that I grew up in the 60's with Pat Boone, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and folk music at hootenannies. I listened faithfully to the Top Twenty countdown on Saturday nights to see if my favorites were there. (FYI, Elvis never appealed to me and I didn't see the charm of the Beetles--too shallow, not enough substance, like 99% of the rest of popular music.) Later I discovered jazz--nothing like the Modern Jazz Quartet--and then in college the world of classical music opened up and filled my soul and spoke to my spirit. All that explains why my present music collection is still rather diverse, including Bach played on the marimba, British folk tunes played by a harp and harmonica, and masses from Spain, Africa and South America.

Fast forward to my life as a writer of fiction--a computer with iTunes on the desk in front of me, with the potential for playing uninterrupted music of my choice for three or four days straight. Early on I discovered that if I chose a piece of music representing characters in my book and played it while I was writing, my brain was sharper, my vocabulary quicker, my ideas more forthcoming. With the music the words began to flow, and writing a 300-page manuscript was practically effortless. I can't listen to anything with words because they're telling a different story than the one I'm engaged in portraying and that's too confusing, unless it's a language I don't know--think Daphnis and Chloe, Rachmaninov's Vespers, or Carmina Burana.

Now I'm working on a trilogy of stories based on the Book of Mormon, and I'm struggling with ideas and sometimes the flow of words that I've been accustomed to is more like a puny drip. It's like swimming through old honey. But why? I didn't understand. And then it occurred to me that I haven't assigned a piece of music to these books yet, something that will stimulate the synapses and make it cascade rather than trickle. So what am I waiting for? Excuse me while I go find a CD that fits. I think I'm going to start with the Mahler First Symphony, one of my favorites, and see where that takes me.

Any suggestions? What music inspires you?

Latedom

This was the verification word when I made a comment on a blog this morning and it might as well have been flashing neon in 12-foot letters. Latedom describes the world I live in. It is the state of always being behind with projects, this month's book club selection, dinner preparation, whatever. For example, we just sent Father's Day cards to our son and son-in-law today. It takes less than two minutes to drive to church but why can't we ever get to choir practice on time?

Latedom is a good way to describe the foot-dragging I've been doing on my latest writing project. It's a fictionalized Book of Mormon story that I first wrote as a play more than 25 years ago, and although it was later revised as a novel--after all, nobody reads plays--it was rejected about five years ago, even with great reviews and high praise by the editor because her company wasn't giving contracts to new authors at the time.

Latedom manifests itself in many ways for me. I can avoid writing because my fingernails are too long, so I have to stop and clip them. I can avoid it by looking up stuff on google, reading the catalogs that came in yesterday's mail (that's my best trick--have you checked your mailbox lately?) or by answering emails, checking my friends' blogs or Facebook, or in my extremity even cooking. If you've checked my blog lately, you know I'm a genius at latedom here.

Nevertheless, all things work together for our good. In the ensuing years since I wrote the Book of Mormon play, and as I've concentrated on fiction instead of the other kinds of writing I've always done--journalism, essays, poetry--I know this piece is much stronger now as a novel. I still love the story and characters and the new understanding I get of the Book of Mormon as I scrutinize it again and again for additional insights.

So why am I so strangled by "latedom" with this project even though I love it so much? It isn't that I can't meet a deadline. I've done that satisfactorily all my life. I think it's that in the revision process I--the renowned queen of tweak--found a plot twist that enriched the main character so much I made a major plot change, which had a ripple effect through the whole manuscript, and then I found another twist that bumped into that ripple, and I'm driving myself crazy trying to keep everything consistent.

What I have learned from this frustrating experience is that I'm strictly a write-from-an-outline kind of writer. I've been at writing conferences where speakers talked about free writing without an outline. I stand in awe of those who can write by the seat of their pants. To me that's like a trapeze artist performing without a net. Because I haven't taken the time to revise my outline along with my manuscript, I'm in a perpetual state of topsy-turvy. Blinding flash of self-knowledge: I'm a person who needs fences.

Well, I'm here to announce that this morning I made a break-through. Like a child whining "I don't wanna," I finally struggled my way to the end of the manuscript, then did the sensibly useful thing at the moment--printed it out. I often do that at this point in the process, so maybe I've caught up with myself. Now I'll red pen it, make the changes on the computer file and send it off for its "summer camp," i.e. line-and-content edit, on August 1. Barring some unforeseen plot twist lurking in the corners of my imagination, its two companion pieces will be ready as well. And all's right with the world again. Ta-da!

My Solemn Promise

Names I will never give characters in my books: Araminta, Elphelia, Lispenard, Howso, Freelove, Tatiana, Alpha, Wormley, Cleghorn, Zerilda, Bossieux, Parthenia, Dorfish, Seldra, Rathborn, Tazewell, Goldendine, or Caroline Valentine.

Under the right circumstances (certifiable madness) I MIGHT give my characters these names: Agrivalla, Sydolia, Launbural, Luberta, Egberta, Delaware, Oneidgia, Lillis Willis, Lena Farina, Lizzie Blizzard, Emma Lemmon, or Lydia Middleton.

Just thought you'd like to know where I stand on the naming of characters.

Rhapsodizing on the Rapture

Yes, today's the day to contemplate for a few minutes the state of your soul. Unfortunately, deathbed repentance has a low approval rating in heaven, so if you're not ready to go now, you'll be left behind with the wicked. And the Mormons, some say.

Still, if the rapture does begin today, and the Second Coming is in October--sometime between the second session of Saturday conference and priesthood meeting as I've always imagined--then today's headlines are all irrelevant. Obviously, it doesn't matter what our Israel policy is; in fact, betraying Israel seems to be part of the plan, so we're on track there. I believe, as an old 1960's bumper sticker used to say, that we should "Support Whirled Peas" and that seems to be the guiding principle of US foreign policy the last couple of years. After all, it has brought is to this point of being ready to be raptured.

But just in case--a smart person would prepare for ALL contingencies--I also intend to have some chocolate cheesecake today, and brownies with chocolate chips and chocolate frosting, maybe a little...no, a LOT of pasta, and bread...WHITE bread, plus raspberries by the handfuls, and all the chocolate cinnamon bears I can find, and maybe I'll stop by Carl's Jr. for something with a lot of bacon on it.

On the other hand, just in case somebody misread the calendar, maybe I'd better go ahead and get my Primary lesson ready for tomorrow.