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Mama's Boarding House

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John D. Fitzgerald produced a bibliography of over three hundred publications; yet in Utah where he was born, the literary community has rarely commented on his work. Because his books appeal chiefly to children, they are basically unknown to the state's over-thirty citizens, most of whom wrongly associate his name with the writer of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. At his passing in May 1988, only an obituary in the Salt Lake Tribune acknowledged the event. Yet to thousands of readers in the United States, England, and Germany he is a well known author. The Great Brain character in Fitzgerald's series for children is as familiar as Tom Sawyer to these young people.

To relax in the evenings Fitzgerald began Papa Married a Mormon as a family history about his boyhood. He said, "I was dumbfounded when it was accepted by Prentice-Hall and even more dumbfounded when it became a best seller." In the tradition of the culture it depicted, five trunks of souvenirs, carefully labeled by his mother, formed the basis of the book. Its creation was a tribute to her. Possibly critics of Mormon literature find it difficult go give importance to what some have labeled as a family memoir.