Deep in the recesses of the Mormon heart, Jesus is an experienced but unpretentious cowboy who, like our own rugged fathers, watches over us with kind and sparing advice. Enter Frank Wind-ham, a hard-working Mormon, trying to be good but convinced he's on the road to hell. He has an ultra-pious mother, a brother who is more than just a little touched in the head, and a comfortable Lu-theran girlfriend who professes to have been saved. An expression of the human struggle with imperfection and hope of redemption, The Backslider is a landmark in Mormon fiction, now issued in an illustrated fine edition on its twentieth anniversary.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Provocative, entertaining, illuminating ... and deeply gratifying." --Dialogue
About the Author
"Born in 1933, I was raised in Snowflake, a small Mormon town in northern Arizona. The isolated town gave me an intrigue with Mormon villages wherever I find them. Being on the edge of a vast range-land, the town also gave me an enduring taste for wilderness, as well as the ultimately untenable assumption that the civilized and the wild are compatible.
"I was the last of thirteen children in a composite family, my father having had six previous children and my mother two. My father died when I was nine, so my mother, an intensely religious person, was the chief influence of my childhood. I felt guilt and grief over leaving her alone when I went away to college--a regret from which I suffer even now. I interrupted my studies to serve a French-speaking mission in Switzerland and Belgium, then returned to complete a doctorate at the University of Utah in 1965, which is when I joined the faculty of Weber State University.
"In 1958 I married Althea Sand, a non-Mormon. We have a daughter who lives presently in the Puget Sound area with her family. In retirement, we have followed her to the Pacific Northwest and now spend a good deal of time with our grandchildren.
"Although I aspired to write fiction from my earliest college years, I postponed my endeavor until I had turned forty in the 1970s. I then settled into serious writing, producing two collections of short stories, two novels, a biography, and an autobiography. I do not regret my late start. At forty, I had something to say and a better idea of how to say it. I became active on the liberal Mormon circuit, writing essays and delivering speeches aimed at liberalizing my church. Currently I serve as editor of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought."
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Landmark In Mormon Fiction,
By
This review is from: The Backslider (Paperback)
This is a legitimate contender for the title of "The Great Mormon Novel" (if there is such a thing.) It's a comedy of the most profound order. A young LDS cowboy in the 1950's wrestles with guilt, especially that of a sexual nature, although ironically he has very little to feel guilty about. His struggles lead him to one of the great epiphanies of recent fiction--the "Cowboy Jesus." Some Mormon critics see this figure as blasphemous; other see him as quintessentially LDS (I think this scene is one of the most touching things I have ever read.) This novel established Peterson as one of the foremost Mormon writers, and one of the most shamefully neglected American fiction authors. He should be at least as famous as any yuppie Montana writer.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great story about a character and a culture,
This review is from: The Backslider (Paperback)
The Backslider is not a light temptation story with a hero who gives in at first and then repents with complete success. Rather, like many great works, it presents a hero who succumbs, first denies his actions to himsef and others, and then repents, only to succumb again. The Blackslider tells the story of a simple, well-meaning Mormon cowboy who can barely keep his pants on and head together. Neither very attracted nor committed to his Lutheran girlfriend, he finds himself well on the way to marriage and all sorts of other obligations to her. Meanwhile, his family encounters much hardship with a brother and his mental illness.The novel's themes of temptation, redemption, religious hypocrisy and cultural pressures are convincing. Neither preachy nor prim in description, the Backslider has an earthy quality that draws the reader in. Probably a racy story for the average Mormon reader, the Backslider is also somewhat disappointing for the non-Mormon reader as the conclusion includes a seemingly obligatory conversion, thus maintaining the traditional and official Mormon worldview in an otherwise spirited and intrepid narrative. Sigh. But given that this is the premise of the book anyway, and given that the conversion comes across as sympathetic, general readers might do best to suspend judgment on that front and appreciate the book's ultimate visions of faith and love, which are original and very moving indeed.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a sweet, intelligent novel deserving of wider exposure,
By susannah eanes "susannah" (south carolina) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Backslider (Paperback)
i love this book, it is one of my favorite novels of all time. because of the regional emphasis i believe it has been vastly overlooked by mainstream america, but if more people were aware of it, it would be a bestseller. honestly.
although it is a book about a young man coming of age in the mormon world, it isn't what you think. it explores the basic tenets of faith in a very gnostic way. i am one of those people who actually believes mormonism should probably be classified as a cult rather than a religion, and yet i still believe the struggles of this man to find his faith mirror those of any searcher who is looking for authentic truth in christianity itself. powerful characters, timeless wisdom, honest passion, and hey, it's even uproariously funny in places. no spoilers for me, just read the book. you'll be glad you did.
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