Background
Peterson, Levi Savage was born on December 13, 1933 in Snowflake, Arizona, United States. Son of Joseph and Lydia Jane (Savage) Peterson.
(From the back cover: Crafting his stories in a powerful a...)
From the back cover: Crafting his stories in a powerful and compelling style, Peterson has wonderfully shaped his original characters around an essentially Mormon core. His Mormons are head-to-toe Mormons, not veneer Mormons. Like Jonahs they fear God, flee his grace, consistently manifest a "private obduracy," a hesitancy to yield to God in humility. For Peterson's characters, the skewer pin seems to hurt too much to allow gracious acceptance; they struggle on. Not all readers will cheer Peterson's vision of man's lot, but all who love Mormonism and literature will cheer his stories and the questions they raise. Publication of this book cheers us as well, suggesting as it does that Mormon letters may have found in Levi S. Peterson a sunnier Hawthorne to assist us in interpreting the human condition-the Mormon human condition-as far as it is translated correctly. -Richard H. Cracroft
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0252009983/?tag=2022091-20
( Recognized as a Mormon classic twenty years after its ...)
Recognized as a Mormon classic twenty years after its release,The Backslider features longstanding Christian conflicts played out in a scenic, sparsely populated area of southern Utah. A young ranch-hand, Frank Windham, conceives of God as an implacable enemy of human appetite. He is a dedicated sinner until family tragedy catapults him into an arcane form of penitence preached among frontier Mormons. He is saved by an epiphany that has proved controversial among readers, either interpreting it as an extreme impiety or celebrating it as a moving and entirely plausible rendering of a biblical theme in a Western setting. Frank comes into contact with a host of rural and urban characters. Of central importance is his Lutheran girlfriend, Marianne, whom Frank seduces, begrudgingly marries, and eventually loves. Frank’s extended family is just a generation removed from polygamy and still energized by old-time grudges and deprivations. Along the way Frank encounters a closeted secular humanist, a polygamist prophet, a psychiatrist, a Mason, government employees, college professors, lawyers, and entrepreneurs—all drawn with heightened realism reminiscent of Charles Dickens or the grotesque forms of William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. The story engages readers as it alternates almost imperceptibly between Frank’s naïve consciousness and the more informed awareness of its narrator. It can be read as a love story, a satiric comedy, or a dark and sobering study of self-mutilation. Shifting from one to another, it builds suspense and elicits complex emotions, among them a profound sense of compassion. More joyous than cynical, it sympathizes deeply with the plight of all of God’s backsliders.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1560850035/?tag=2022091-20
( Born in 1898 in Bunkerville, Nevada, Juanita Brooks led...)
Born in 1898 in Bunkerville, Nevada, Juanita Brooks led an early life similar to that of many who grew up in isolated, tightly knit, rural Mormon communities. An early marriage suggested her future would follow a predictable course, but the death of her husband, the need to raise a young son, and a passion for knowledge led her along a different path, when at mid-life she became a well-known author after publishing The Mountain Meadows Massacre. In this book she exposed the killing of some 100 California-bound emigrants traveling through southern Utah in 1856 as an atrocity carried out by a Mormon militia with Indian allies and not solely as an Indian massacre, as it had been for so long portrayed. Juanita Brooks was a faithful and active member of the Mormon Church, and her courage to tell the truth about this dark moment in Mormon history established her reputation as a respected historian. While there was no official church condemnation of the book, there was unofficial disapproval and Brooks was shunned by many in her community. She nevertheless doggedly pursued church authorities to revise their stand on the incidents at Mountain Meadows. The desire to tell the truth as she saw it became her hallmark, and Brooks’s life as wife, mother, teacher, community member, and undaunted historian became an uncommon story of personal stamina and intellectual courage.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1607811510/?tag=2022091-20
(In this quietly seductive novel--Levi S. Peterson's lates...)
In this quietly seductive novel--Levi S. Peterson's latest foray into the ever-intriguing topics of memory, regret, and sin--a suspenseful ambiance is created from the backdrop of a rural high school reunion. While acquaintances interact tentatively at first, then more freely, Aspen confronts a particularly dark secret from her past. But there is also hilarity here. Despite everyone's best attempts to impress former classmates, they gradually reveal their true selves; lapsing into old habits, they demonstrate how little has changed. This makes for a particularly satisfying reunion and, for readers, a compelling vicarious experience.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1560850787/?tag=2022091-20
( I will introduce myself with a few facts. I was born an...)
I will introduce myself with a few facts. I was born and raised in Snowflake, a Mormon town in northern Arizona. I have lived most of my adult life in the cities of the American West. Although I consider myself a religious person, I know very little about God. At first I intended this book to be about wilderness, but as I wrote it, it became an autobiography with many themes. Among these themes are wilderness, my vexed and vexing relationship with Mormonism, my moral and emotional qualities, and my family.' So begins the autobiography of educator and author Levi S. Peterson. Peterson has won a wide readership for his novels and short stories, his prize-winning biography of historian Juanita Brooks, and the essays that have appeared with regularity in western and Mormon literary and historical journals. In his autobiography, Peterson describes growing up on the Mormon frontier of rural Arizona, his growing skepticism with his Mormon faith, his teaching career at Weber State University, and his struggle to understand and master personal crises of confidence that kept him in therapy for almost two decades. Of particular interest to readers familiar with Peterson’s fiction are the many pages devoted to the creative process.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874808510/?tag=2022091-20
Peterson, Levi Savage was born on December 13, 1933 in Snowflake, Arizona, United States. Son of Joseph and Lydia Jane (Savage) Peterson.
Bachelor, Brigham Young University, 1958. Master of Arts, Brigham Young University, 1960. Doctor of Philosophy, University Utah, 1965.
Assistant professor, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah., 1965-1968; associate professor, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah., 1968-1972; professor, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah., since 1972. Director honors program Weber State University, 1973-1982.
( Recognized as a Mormon classic twenty years after its ...)
(From the back cover: Crafting his stories in a powerful a...)
( Born in 1898 in Bunkerville, Nevada, Juanita Brooks led...)
( I will introduce myself with a few facts. I was born an...)
(In this quietly seductive novel--Levi S. Peterson's lates...)
(Book by Peterson, Levi S.)
(Book by Peterson, Levi S.)
Trustee Weber County Library., Ogden, since 1988. Member Association for Mormon Letters (board directors, president 1980, 90), Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters (editor Encyclia 1976-1981, Distinguished College Service award 1984), Western Literature Association.
Married Althea Grace Sand, August 31, 1958. 1 child, Karrin.