Personal Essay, Memoirs

Peterson, Levi S., 1933- Mormons -- United States -- Biography Mormon authors -- 20th century -- Biography

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.

My ancestors -- That failed anthropologist, my father -- The ranch -- My mother's first marriage -- The family I was born into -- How green was her valley -- A piratical fraternity -- High school -- My early college years -- A missionary -- Althea -- Nebo by moonlight -- A grasshopper's way of life -- A silvery tinkling laughter -- An entire landscape of possibilities -- A wilderness journal -- Becoming a writer -- Putting a pathology to use -- The canyons of grace -- The backslider -- My mother's house -- Juanita Brooks -- Night soil -- Our compass swings northwest -- A stillborn book -- Retrenchment on the liberal Mormon front -- Armchair mountaineer -- Aspen Marooney -- Good-bye to Utah -- Running out of sunsets.

BX 8670.1 .P4426a 2006

480

June 15th 2006