The Scholar of Moab by Peck, Steven L. (2011) Paperback

by Steven L. Peck

Winner of AML best literary novel of 2011 and a finalist for the national Montaigne Medal.

What happens when a two-headed cowboy, a high school dropout, and a poet abducted by aliens come together in 1970’s Moab, Utah? The Scholar of Moab, a dark-comedy perambulating murder, affairs, and cowboy mysteries in the shadow of the hoary La Sal Mountains.

Young Hyrum Thayne, an unrefined geological surveyor, steals a massive dictionary out of the Grand County library in a midnight raid, startling the good people of Moab into believing a nefarious band of Book of Mormon thugs, the Gadianton Robbers, has arisen again. To make matters worse, Hyrum’s illicit affair with Dora Tanner, a local poet thought to be mad, results in the delivery of a bouncing baby boy who vanishes the night of his birth. Righteous Moabites accuse Dora of the murder, but who really killed their child? Did a coyote dingo the baby? Was it an alien abduction as Dora claims? Was it Hyrum? Or could it have been the only witness to the crime, one of a pair of Oxford-educated conjoined twins who cowboy in the La Sals on sabbatical?

Take a blazing ride with Hyrum LeRoy Thayne, the Lord’s Chosen Servant and Defender of Moab. His short rich life spans the borderlands of magical realism where geology, ecology philosophy, and consciousness collide, in Steven L. Peck’s rip-snorting tale The Scholar of Moab.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Mormonism, Religion, Lds, Westerns, Science Fiction

Paperback

First published November 8, 2011

Reviews

[Michael Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

We cannot call Steven Peck's award-winning The Scholar of Moab a perfect novel. It lacks too many of the elements found in truly great literature. Like pirates. There are no pirates. Nor are there talking monkeys or Elvis impersonators. There may or may not be space aliens, but, even if there are, they do not appear to have cool weapons. And there is not a single scene in which somebody upturns a fruit cart. But mainly, there are no pirates.

But there are a lot of other things well worth reading about, including two-headed cowboys, French post-structuralism, book-burning, communist Book of Mormon ghosts, magic amulets, medieval homunculi, "The One Mighty and Strong," and religious bees--not a bad assortment of literary fundamentals to compensate for the shocking lack of pirates in the narrative. And, ultimately, the critic must review the book that got written and not the book that he (or she) would have liked to have seen. We must make due with such as we have been given.

And we have been given much. The Scholar of Moab is an elegant novel by a writer who takes the craft seriously. It revolves around two very compelling central characters, either of whom could be considered the "Scholar of Moab" from the title. The first of these characters, Hyrum Thayne, is a charismatic high-school drop out who fancies himself a scientist but becomes a religious icon--a lovable cross between Danny Dunn, Joseph Smith, and Jethro Bodine. About 2/3 of the book consists of entries from Hyram's journal, which follows a narrative arc something like The Sorcerer's Apprentice, only without the Sorcerer. He tries to improve himself and become a scholar, but, in doing so, things go drastically awry. Hilarity (albeit a dark sort of hilarity) ensues.

Perhaps the more interesting story, though (at least for me) is the second "scholar of Moab," the unnamed Redactor a generation later who tries to piece together Hyrum's story from his journal and other fragments of the past: poems written by his wife and his (probable) mistress, interviews with the highly educated conjoined twins who knew him when they were Utah cowboys, newspaper articles, and Hyrum's one scholarly paper on the religious faith of bumblebees. Like Hyrum, "Redactor" sets himself a daunting task. And, like Hyrum, he comes up short. Consequently, his product (which consists of the book itself) identifies the key questions in Hyrum's narrative, but it never quite finds the answers. The source documents are too incomplete, to contradictory, and too perspectival to answer even the basic "what happened and why" questions that get raised in the process of telling the story.

But (as is so often the case) it's the questions that actually matter, and they are legion. Peck takes us effortlessly through explorations of art, theology, narrative, history, morality, memory, faith, sexuality, and the nature of consciousness. Both of the scholars of Moab grapple with these issues, almost always in vain, but there is both nobility and a fair bit of comedy in their attempts.

And, ultimately, the impenetrable mystery surrounding the Redactor may redeem the book from its fatal flaw. For, you see, the mysterious Redactor could be a pirate. There is certainly nothing in the narrative that proves conclusively that he is not a pirate, so I, for one, choose to believe that he is. And if my supposition can someday be proven correct (and I do intend to give it my scholarly best shot), then we will indeed be able to call The Scholar of Moab a perfect book.

[Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peck's novel is difficult to categorize because it blends genres, draws on several disciplines, and employs multiple narrators to solve a series of interconnected Whodunnits. The strongest voices in the novel belong to Hyrum (the self-taught scholar), Dora (a local poet), and William (the most articulate of the cowboy conjoined twins). Each narrator invokes the viewpoints of additional characters, who serve to simultaneously clarify and confound the evidence around the related mysteries.

Despite this cacophony of perspectives, I was propelled through the novel because of its central question: What happened to the poet's baby, born in the La Sal Mountains outside of Moab? But the more I read The Scholar of Moab, the more I realized that the baby's fate was really not the knottiest problem to be addressed. Like the dingo-ate-my-baby movie, "The Cry in the Dark," the central mystery is really this: How do we as individuals and as communities construct and act upon truth?

In order to discover the truth of the baby's disappearance, a redactor presents a series of texts -- much in the same way that Stoker's novel Dracula assembles multiple documents for the reader. This device allows Peck to dismiss the truth-trumping single narrator. These various, sometimes conflicting documents dethrone truth and spread it around. Who has the authority to answer our questions about truth? The reader gleans information from the usual suspects: artists, scientists, philosophers, and mystics.

And in a manner that is partly realistic, partly satirical, we observe how truth gets played out by the people of Moab. They are a community who holds a largely common framework for constructing truth. An entire town of regular, salt-of-the-earth types combine church doctrine, folklore, and town gossip to make meaning out of the phenomena of their daily lives. We laugh at them, but they are really clownish stand-ins for the whole of the human race.

As this dark comedy unfolds, I was looking for a little comfort. One passage that provides comfort comes from Hyrum's quest to pinpoint the meaning of "Dickensian," a word that vexes him for a year as he reads the entire works of Dickens in an attempt to decode the word's meaning. He's rewarded finally with this epiphany: Dickensian for Hyrum means "a deep bleakness & poverty & misery suffered for a purpose that will eventually turn into Light" (p. 66). My own quest for making meaning of Peck's novel leads me to believe this is a key concept. The residents of Moab, its seasonal visitors, and even the main characters' far-flung colleagues and family members all suffer some form of bleakness, poverty and misery. Heck, we readers do, too. It's part of the human condition. But the novel also reveals moments of light that illuminate, comfort and bolster. Converging images, coincidental meetings, recurring themes, unexpected connections give the characters (and the reader) some hope that there is truth out there. Somewhere. (Cue music from X Files.)

If Peck offers any common ground, it's probably the landscape itself. Despite being a novel that explores a number of philosophical propositions, it's refreshingly vivid in its descriptions of the people and their environment, the beautiful landscape of the Moab area. So don't be afraid that you will be lost in a fog of philosophical statements. You get to take a tour of the red rock region of southern Utah with a brief side trip to Vienna. And on occasion there is a truck, a trailer park, a library, a parade, and a diner.

What the novel presents is a clash of competing paradigms at war with each other. Sometimes people fight with each other, as do Hyrum and Adam (a geologist), who quarrel over the question, "Is Dora sane?" Sometimes individuals are at war with themselves. The conjoined twins dramatize in a fantastical fashion the duplicity possible within a single entity. But as a single-headed person, this novel invites me to see such a war within my own multi-perspectival mind, my own multi-layered soul. And I was glad to have Peck unveil these conflicts, even if it means that I will never believe in "plain truth" again.

[Tatiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is undeniably imaginative and like nothing you've ever read before. It's taking me a while to get my head around it. It's quite puzzling, but I think I'm starting to see what it's about.

The reason I love Steven Peck's writing (what I've read of it) is that he engages with and illuminates some really big, really deep ideas. This novel is funny, also touching, confusing, and intellectually engaging. It's had me puzzling over it for days after finishing it.

I think it's deliberately meant to be rather undefinable, but if there is one theme that runs throughout it's the nature of truth, of belief, of understanding the world. How do we do that? What constitutes truth? Is it established by science? By majority rule? By personal testimony and spiritual witness, as in Mormonism?

First of all, there's Dora who's been kidnapped by aliens. Nobody believes her but Hyrum, and possibly the reader. The redactor doesn't seem so sure. (But one and maybe both of the two conjoined twins, the two-headed cowboy -- another quite memorable character, seem to be convinced before the end.)

Then there are the twins, who are two heads who share a body. In addition to William and Edward, the two heads, there's a third person they call Maurice, a neural mass, who decides which twin gets control of the legs, and who in one case is almost certain to have noticed or understood something that neither twin did. One twin is gay and the other is straight. One is a believer and the other is an atheist. They have the same genes and the same experiences, except for one is on the left and one is on the right. How can the nature of the whole universe be so different for one than the other?

There's Hyrum himself, who believes in God but acts in very duplicitous ways. He's good and bad inextricably. We like him but see him for a total con man and someone untrustworthy. His scholarship is not much use in overcoming his profound ignorance about the world. Yet he's quite canny in many ways. He figured out how to rid himself of a tiresome coworker, for instance, and played on the fears and beliefs of the townspeople very cleverly.

There's Mormonism, a religion the author and I share, which establishes truth by revelation and the testimony of the spirit in a unique manner. That's being made fun of, but in an affectionate way by someone who gets it.

There's science, another religion/body of belief the author and I share, which establishes truth in its own way. The bumblebee experiments make fun of science, also in an affectionate way, and yes, by someone who gets it. Far too many researchers do exactly as Hyrum did and build their own assumptions into the experiment itself, then use the experiment to prove their assumptions in a way that's actually completely circular.

In the end we have no idea what actually truly happened. Who was the redactor? I kept thinking it was Hyrum himself, but then why would he need the witness of the twins to tell him about a scene at which he himself was present? And why would he give away his own secret to Adam, his affair with Dora which he didn't even record in his journal? And how could he interview Sandra at the end without her recognizing him? The redactor must be a friend of all the actors, though -- someone well-known. Yet there's just nobody for him to be. (Edit: see spoiler in the comments for my new theory on that.)

Neither are there any corpses recovered for Hyrum, the baby, or Dora from their various mishaps in which they're presumed dead, that occur at different times. Did they run off together? That seemingly would have happened decades earlier, if that were the plan. Was Dora really psychotic? Were the aliens real? Did the trickster Hyrum fool Dora into believing her baby was kidnapped by aliens to get out of the consequences of his illicit affair? It's hard to believe he was evil enough to kill his own baby, though. I can think of a dozen different theories, but none of them really fit or ring true to me.

As a tangent, I once read a paper by Steven Peck, the author, about an episode he had of psychosis caused by a bacterium that got into his brain during a field trip to somewhere exotic and tropical. It was a terrible episode, and he nearly died, but was saved by a doctor recognizing the organism and giving him the right IV antibiotic. His description of what it feels like to be psychotic from the inside, coming from someone who is now well, is fascinating. As a scientist he was particularly interested in how absolutely sure he was at the time that his delusions were real. There was no hint of doubt possible for him in that state. So that brings up the question of how do we know what we know is real? What is the nature of truth? That philosophical and scientific question seems to me to be the main idea behind this novel.


I've noticed that the people who are real scientists, like Peck and Richard Feynman, and so on, they always seem to have this playful and imaginative thing going on about reality. They are willing to entertain dozens of wild hypotheses that might sound completely nuts to non-scientists.

Other people, those who have learned about science but are not great scientists themselves, they all seem to be firmly sure of everything. They will argue you down and insist they know all kinds of things. They're very sure of all sorts of stuff we think we do know. They have no interest, really, in all we don't know.

But reality itself is far more capricious than that. Take quantum electrodynamics, for instance. Nobody can explain it in a way that makes sense because it doesn't make sense. It just is true. It fits experimental data to 15 decimal places, and nobody can get their head around it or understand how it can actually be that way.

So maybe having no idea what actually happens or happened is pretty definitive of all our human experience, in which we believe all kinds of impossible and mutually-inconsistent things for reasons we don't understand, that mostly evaporate on very close observation. What is truth? Perhaps, as Ursula K. Le Guin says, it's mainly a matter of the imagination.

[Marlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seven Conclusions I Drew from "the Scholar of Moab"
1) This is a well-conceived book. Pun intended
2) It as easy to say there are aliens as it is to say Jesus was resurrected and that Gods appeared to Joseph Smith. Proof doesn't come from "scholarship".
3) What you devoutly believe/know may kill you: Hyrum, Edward and William, Joan of Arc, a plethora of Christian prophets, Joseph Smith, to cite a few. I'd rather die on the side of truth if I can.
4) Our actions are never independent. They always affect something or someone.
5) Ignorance vs. ignorant scholarship--I'd rather be ignorant than an ignorant scholar, but I'm more likely to be an ignorant scholar than to stay ignorant. (Figure that one out).
6) James 3:5 The tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold how great a matter a little fire kindeleth! Consequences of dishonesty were the crux of this story: the whole gadianton myth, the conception, birth and disapperance of Bertha and Hyrum's baby, Sandra's concealed gossip, the manipulation of the town of Moab, Hyrum's death, to name a few.
7) Because of opposition in all things, truth can be exposed, but I am often blinded by it. O foolish scholar that I am. I should have finished this book yesterday. (April 1st:)

[David Redden · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s a kind of…I don’t know, let’s call it “craziness,” but it’s not quite that…that seems so pervasive in the desert southwest. Maybe it’s something about the desert, the mountains, the wide-open skies, or the type of people drawn to small towns in the middle of nowhere. Who knows. But if you grew up in the desert southwest, you probably know what I’m talking about. Steven L. Peck, the author of this funny, intelligent, and imaginative book The Scholar of Moab, knows what I’m talking about.

The Scholar of Moab follows Hyrum Thayne, an unlearned deep-thinking Moabite with a lot of time on his hands, who, after much study and contemplation to determine the meaning of “Dickensian life,” feels called to become a grand scholar. But Hyrum immediately runs into practical problems. He can’t quite keep up with the obscure sesquipedalian vocabulary of scholarly conversation, and he isn’t comfortable standing for as long as it takes to look up all the words he needs to learn from the library dictionary, which he is not allowed to remove from the pedestal and read on the couch. So, Hyrum concocts a flawless plan: break into the library early Sunday morning, steal the dictionary, and cover his tracks by burning half the library’s resource books and spray-painting communist graffiti on the wall.

This sets off a firestorm of rumor about town. Before church, the citizenry has already concluded that the communists have joined forces with the ghosts of the Gadianton Robbers--a gang of thieving and murdering baddies of Book of Mormon fame--to scourge their town. Not long after, the town folk also conclude through revelation that only Hyrum can save them from the inscrutable, bloodthirsty double-menace. This is the kind of “craziness” that I’m referring to—the arbiters of normalcy have a tremendous capacity for extreme certainty in facts and opinions that cut against all relevant probabilities, but at the same time possess an intense moral disapproval of people who are certain about facts and opinions that seem improbable to the arbiters of normalcy.

There’s a lot to enjoy about this book, including a diverse cast of interesting characters and philosophical discussion on faith and being. Several things are turned on their head. Instead of a two-headed cowboy, there are two cowboys conjoined from the shoulders down. While the seemingly sane townsfolk are caught up in believing Hyrum has been called by God to rid them of the phantom scourge, only the town poet who everybody thinks is nutters (she dances naked and wild in the desert and insists she was abducted by aliens) sees Hyrum for the shyster he is. Hyrum is an anti-hero who is fiercely loyal to his wife in all but some of the most important ways. Hyrum’s experiment to measure the faith of bumblebees starts with the premise that bumblebees’ wings are too small to allow them to fly, and that they therefore fly by faith.

It has a flavor of mystery similar to southwestern Native American fiction in that it doesn’t explore individual motivation too deeply, highlighting how little we really know about motives anyway. Hyrum speculates, “It seems that the stuff of life is like campfire Smoke. If you hang around it you start to smell like it & there is little you can do to get it off even if you want to.” In contrast, when one of the conjoined cowboys goes mad, his brother wonders, “Can the universe depend so thoroughly on who is on the right and who is on the left? Is it all chaos, and hung precariously on such tiny breaks in symmetry?”

Of course we have no answers now, but we want them, which dovetails very nicely into Peck’s extended exploration of faith, belief, and knowledge. The townspeople believe malevolent ghosts and communists in league to destroy their town. They believe that Hyrum can save them. Hyrum believes bumblebees can have faith. The town poet believes she was abducted by aliens. This kind of belief is employed to fill the holes in knowledge, to comfort, to smooth over the rough spots in our otherwise lucid-seeming reality. This type of belief, felt to a particular level of certainty, gives people license to stand before a congregation and profess that they “know” things; like that God and Jesus Christ live.

Contrast this belief with the faith one of the conjoined cowboys has in God: “[Edward’s] told me many times that ‘believe in God’ is not the right way to phrase it. He does not believe in God he claims, but he knows God. . . . He said, ‘God came to me. Not as a person, or a vision, or some manifestation of the senses.’ Rather, he explained, he became aware of His presence— an ‘other’ that he has formed a relationship with. A presence he has befriended in a mutual exchange of being-there-for-each-other.” Edward, like so many others, has certain knowledge of his relationship with a being he believes exists. Knowledge and belief are folded in on each other.

But don’t let me bore you out of reading this book. It was very enjoyable and will stay with me for a long time. And by the way, does it seem like there’s been a sudden influx of very well-written and intelligent Mormon-influenced literature of late? I hope it continues.

[Libbie Hawker (L.M. Ironside) · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I've encountered a book that takes such a hold of me that I feel tormented by not reading it. Once my weekend arrived, I read this book in the bathtub, at the gym on two different pieces of workout equipment (I had to stop for a few minutes while I worked on my arms...have you ever tried to operate a Kindle while lifting weights? Not easy) and while folding laundry. I literally could not stop reading it.

Thank goodness for small presses. Thank goodness for adventuresome souls willing to take a risk on books which are out-there, different, beyond the typical, and worthy of preservation. The Scholar of Moab is not the kind of book that would find its way into a Big Six imprint in this day and age. But that, of course, is not an indicator of quality. As the economy continues to flounder the usual publishers seem to grow more and more conservative in their acquisitions, and while perhaps ten or fifteen years ago a book like this one would have been grabbed immediately by a big publishing house, today there's just no way in hell. Not enough zombies, vampires, or tragic family sagas set on the Asian continent. I am so grateful that Torrey House and other discerning small presses are hunting down and acquiring and offering such under-represented voices and settings in fiction. Few authors are working with the contemporary American West, but Steven L. Peck proves it's a setting full of beauty, character, and mystery.

The Scholar of Moab concerns one Hyrum Thayne, a sincere and curious man who lacks education and worldliness but who manages to impact the lives of several interesting people in his small red-rocks world -- Dora Tanner, a poet who may or may not be unhinged; William and Edward Babcock, a pair of polyglot conjoined twins with a penchant for cowboying; the Babcocks' mysterious sibling Marcel; and the Redactor, the amateur historian who presents their stories in the form of recovered documents, letters, and transcripts of interviews. Bearing up the stories of these unforgettable people is a mystery that keeps the reader hooked until the end: who killed Dora's newborn baby? Or was the baby killed at all?

Interwoven throughout are bits and pieces of Mormon theology and mythology, and the text plays in intriguing, clever ways with the concept of a trinity, a theme that bears out to the poignant final lines of the book.

The writing itself is compelling and confident, and shows a good deal of impressive craft. Even without the Redactor's headings on each document, it's obvious from the distinctive voices which characters are "speaking." Peck is a writer with impressive chops, one to watch and one to follow.

The Scholar of Moab is literary fiction at its finest: evocative, haunting, gorgeous, and more than a little strange. In its weirdness and humanity it reminds me of Geek Love, and fans of that book will certainly love this one. Those who found Geek Love too overwhelming will find The Scholar of Moab to be a softer, more accessible, more lovable version -- but still bizarre and still unforgettable.

Read this book.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm finding it impossible to write a cohesive review of this wonderful book. Really, it's just so odd (and I mean that as a compliment) that I can't even begin to describe it. So instead, I give you...random thoughts!

1. This book is funny! The characters are especially hilarious, particularly if you are familiar with rural Utah. I know these people, just by different names. Also, bombus. I'm giggling as I type that. Bombus. Teehee.

2. I have no idea what happened to Dora's baby. Normally, this would bother me, but...okay, it still sort of does. But as I ponder all the possibilities, each one has its own unique appeal. (But if you have your own pet hypothesis of what happened, please tell me. Thanks.)

3. Favorite characters: William, Edward and Marcel Babcock. It was a delight becoming acquainted with them and their complex relationship. At various times while reading about them, I contemplated nurture vs. nature, good and evil, the Godhead, individuality, belief and unbelief, chance and fate, science and religion, and so much more. Now that's good, clean fun.

4. Oh, Hyrum. You're a mess. I still don't really know you, do I?

5. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I suck at symbolism. Sigh. My poor brain is too linear and literal to fully grasp a book like this, but I sure enjoyed trying to wrap my head around it.

Conclusion: When I read the last word, I immediately wanted to flip back to page one and start all over again. I would have, too, if I didn't have other reading to do (the price you pay for belonging to multiple book clubs). Is there any higher praise?

[Therese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the rural, heavily Mormon town of Moab, Utah, this is the story of Hyrum Thayne, a semi-literate Jack Mormon* who, though he didn't quite manage to graduate from high school, falls in love with the works of Dickens and decides he wants to become a scholar. With a collection of quirky characters to beat every prior notion of quirkiness you may ever have had, the cast includes an Oxford-educated two-headed cowboy, a mad poetess who believes she was abducted by aliens, a mysterious narrator who tries to piece together Hyrum's story, and a bunch of townspeople who believe the Communists have teamed up with the ghosts of ancient Indian robbers to deface their library.

Well-written, fun, and disturbing. Recommended especially if you're interested in literary Westerns and black humor.

Full disclosure: I am involved with publishing another book by this author.

*The term "Jack Mormon" refers to someone who was raised a Mormon but no longer actively attends Church or follows all the practices of Mormonism.

[Walt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel to Peck at. Peckishly, perhaps. To cluck at, to cock a doodle do to.

Compiled by a Redactor, who is in a way, its Nick Carraway or Scout Finch, THE SCHOLAR OF MOAB is not the type of fiction that you want to wolf down. Savoring it is certainly the preferred method of consumption. In fact, as you try to digest it, you may want to eat gravel for your gizzard to make sure everything you've pecked up comes out ground down to a movable mass. You don't want it to get stuck in there. I suggest you consume yourself some redrock for that.

The place to get your redrock is at Arches National Park, known for its multitude of natural sandstone arches --- something like 2,000 of them. It's a beautiful place. Arches is also, as I understand it, the home of Suelo, a guy who advocates living without money. Google Suelo and see what I mean. How can you beat that? The Arches National Park is located just outside of Moab, Utah, a quirky place on its own, which general area is the fitting general setting of THE SCHOLAR OF MOAB. Visit or vacation there, preferably, in the spring time or the late fall.

That area's where protagonist, Hyrum Thayne, the scholar of Moab, lives with his devout, sometimes clueless, practicing Mormon wife, Sarah. In the surrounding vicinity resides the very capable --- Is she cagey or crazy or both? --- poet, Dora Tanner. Tanner's poetic verse has been apparently quite enticing, you might say, to Hyrum. Read the book and you'll find out how. You'll also find out what makes Hyrum so enticing, not necessarily in the way Dora has been enticed. Let me just say this: Hyrum was hilarious. Dora describes Hyrum as "affectionate, passionate, caring, independent, brave, lovely, cunning, honest, blind, confused, visionary, thoughtful, ardent, worried, gentle, god-fearing, genteel, bright, exuberant, shrewd, Mormon, handsome, puppyish, deceptive, thankful, fresh, naïve, pagan, scholarly." That pretty much sums him up pretty well. Dora says of herself that she is a Wiccan, has agnostic leanings, might be considered by Hyrum as a "Jack Mormon." She says they never talk about religion but "it seems to haunt" their "conversation beneath the surface of things in telling ways."

The Moab and the La Sal Mountains area are also where the conjoined Babcock twins, William and Edward --- moderated by Marcel --- cowboyed in their younger years. The narrative sketches out their history, including their education, their exploits and professions, and the difficulties of living with a brother slipping into dementia.

The comedian, George Carlin, as I recall, became discouraged and depressed from the unequal treatment given UFO believers compared to religious believers by the media. He observed that media moguls termed UFO believers "buffs" to relegate them to mere hobbyists and enthusiasts. He thought their disparaging characterization by the media, given a universe comprised of trillions and trillions of stars and multitudes of possible planets suitable for habitation, was untenable when compared to the deference given to believers in supreme beings. This novel made me wonder if its BYU-evolutionary-ecologist-professor author didn't read him some Carlin, too. Maybe gain some inspiration there? It's just a thought.

This book is a pastiche of fun, pain, and entertainment. There is plenty of seed on the ground to Peck up and digest. Most of all, I found it unique and compelling. I recommend you read it and see for yourself and let me know.

[Isaac Bourgeois · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear Dr. Peck,

I am writing you because I have just arisen from a most strange dream (yes, I am aware the time stamp on this will read close to 1 pm). Explaining the dream requires some of my background, and I hope you will indulge some minor biographical detail.

I was born into an extremely observant Mormon family in the 1980's. You will recall this was a time when the leaders of the Church (I presume you will be familiar with the somewhat arrogant use of the definitive article and Capital Noun pairing used to reference the Mormon church?) were strongly encouraging their membership to increase missionary efforts in all areas of their lives, including the bedroom. As a result, I am the 6th of 7 children. (My wife is looking over my shoulder and instructing me to Get To The Point.) As I'm sure you can imagine, I lived a mostly ordinary Mormon life, including seminary, Boy Scouts, missionary service (in Spain - more on that in a future letter), and BYU. The point to all this is that after leaving the church (again, more to tell on that front), graduating from BYU (in that order), and moving away to study medicine, I only recently came upon your fascinating account of the life of Hyrum Thayne, The Scholar of Moab.

I devoured the novel (history?) very quickly, reading late into the night. Now a week later, I find myself awakening from the fog of (admittedly, zolpidem-induced) sleep to enter the haze of fresh consciousness, and amazed to find the insight your history has offered me about my own experience. In the dream, I was living in a small mountain town. A simple but sincere fellow lived down the road. We became friends and I discovered he was something of a lapsed Mormon (very apologetic). However, any guilt he felt for being less that perfectly observant didn't seem to affect his daily life. It wasn't until my very observant family came to visit (in the dream) that I saw how perfectly his innocently half-aware Mormonism played into my family hopes to reactivate a "lost lamb." Although their efforts came to be targeted directly at Hyrum (err... I mean, 'my neighbor'), I could tell they were hoping his return to the fold would impact me through some sort of lateral transference of their interaction.

The details of the dream are less important: we ended up on a road trip, there was a baseball game involved, etc. Now that I'm writing it down, it seems irrelevant. What I wanted to share with you was how well your story captured the feverish hope of Mormons (and indeed, all humans) to understand the world around them in terms of their stories, and to convince other people of the urgency of their own metaphors. The Mormons in your story have a particular knack for rapidly adapting their stories to account for changing outside information. Hyrum is just discovering the way stories, and even words, can alter the access we have to reality and whether we can share that reality with anyone around us. Dora, a master of words and stories, endlessly seeks anyone who will understand the urgency of her metaphor. And then there are Edward and William. I think they are a pair to be given special consideration - consideration I do not feel equipped to provide. I find a great deal of myself in them, by which I mean that there is a tremendous overlap of our metaphors. I suspect you may, as well.

It is a shame our paths never crossed at Brigham Young. I was studying physiology, and could have so easily enrolled in your courses. In another life, maybe. For now, I am grateful for your offerings in fiction.

Best Wishes,
Isaac

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

March 2024: I think it is about the magic we make in the universe by trying to explain things to ourselves and other people. And how sometimes it's beautiful and sometimes naive and sometimes plain stupid.

Dec 2011 review: I love magical realism, and I have high hopes for the potential of LDS-written fiction, and this novel combines both this love and this hope. I reviewed this book for Deseret Connect, but I feel like I couldn't really describe how much this book impressed me (professional reviewers are supposed to be balanced right? Also I am plagued by my AP style incompetence). This is the kind of book I could have liked without being LDS, and I think we need more LDS fiction like that.

The unreliable narrators and editor is kind Nabokovian, and the alien abduction storyline reminds me a little of Vonnegut (but I guess a little toned down). I was laughing out loud at the part where Hyrum's home teacher comes over and says that evolution is evil, it's even in the name! "evil-lution." Golden (I'm so irked when fake etymologies like this wind up in someone's talk)! Hyrum's wife also has some truly terrible love poetry. But it's not all humor! There is thinking in it too--discussions about consciousness and God and the significance of strange coincidences. I liked it way better than Refuge (sorry Terry Tempest Williams! You are a good writer but maybe not my favorite).

It's been a while since I've liked a book this much! I recommend it!

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having just finished Steven Peck's excellent novel, The Scholar of Moab, I must recommend it once again, this time with a reader's full authority. (Based on the bits I'd read, I've been telling friends to pick it up for weeks.) I have found, though, that any time I tell anyone about it, I sound like the Stefon character from SNL who is always recommending freaky nightclubs: "This book has EVERYTHING. Alien abductions, library arson, insect torture, Wiccans, communists, Gadianton robbers, art forgery, coyote bounty hunting, a woman giving birth in the back of a pickup truck, the word "dingo" used as a verb, and a pair of conjoined twin cowboys."

[David Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deserves lots of points for creativity and sheer inventiveness. Mormon fiction has rarely seen such an abundance of colorful and eccentric characters, the least interesting of which are the protagonist, Hyrum Thayne, and his acolytes from the church community of Moab.

Scattered here and there throughout the book are passages filled with philosophy and ruminations on the red-rock landscape surrounding Moab that make for enjoyable reading. These passages make me interested in reading more of this author’s fiction and a couple of his works on theology of which I am aware.

While reading this book, I couldn't help but draw parallels to _A Confederacy of Dunces_. This book would seem in many ways to be a rural Mormon retelling of that story. I loved that book, but it seems to me that it's a little too easy to invent humor based on poorly educated and superstitious personalities. And, after a while, that gets a bit tedious.

I found the Babcock twins/triplets and poetess Dora Daphne Tanner much more interesting than I did Hyrum, and I probably would have preferred to have the focus be more on them than on him. Still, there are aspects of his relationship to those characters which continue to interest me and which I will continue to ruminate on. I plan to look through some of the other reviews of this book on Goodreads to see if anyone else has insights which will better inform my understanding of their role in the story.

I recommend the book to those who are looking for more from Mormon fiction than what’s currently out there. And I would add that you don’t have to be a Mormon to enjoy it. If you’re interested in experiencing the flavor of Southern Utah, you’ll get that here. And you may want to mix it with a healthy dose of Levi Peterson’s short stories, as well, to get a clearer picture of what life is like in the small towns south of the Wasatch Front.

[Kate Savage · Rating 4 out of 5]

1970s Moab, Utah! Pagan poets, UFOs, Mormons fearing the End of Days (brought upon us by Gadianton Robbers and Communists), and all of it amid the cows and bumblebees, the red rock and La Sals of this glorious place.

The book's stance is suspicious of its characters and also at least a little in love with them. I laughed and laughed, but I'm uncertain how the humor translates to those of you who weren't brought up on Mormon Gadianton Robber Fantasy (Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites, anyone?). But I also love that the book doesn't allow itself to be small. This is about God and science, about theology and theodicy. And on all of these counts it doesn't offer much reassurance.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly charming book that examines the complexities of "beingness." Why surprising? Because one could easily dismiss the novel as merely a "regional" text or a "Mormon" text; however, to do so would be to miss the smart ways in which Peck uses these particular settings and people to examine challenging existential questions. Yes, bits of the Mormon culture satire may be lost to those outside of the culture, but the larger philosophical questions will be accessible to any reader. Indeed, the text could be set elsewhere with another cast of characters and still query what constitutes a "self" -- consciousness? community? creation? Yet, at the same time, the wildness found in this southern Utah landscape allows Peck to map out a parallel psychological wildness and openness for his characters and readers. In lesser hands, this unique cast of characters -- a would-be-scholar, a two headed cowboy, a romantic poet, townspeople looking for Communist conspirators -- could easily slip into a gimmicky "look how quirky these small town folk are" farce. What makes Peck's novel and these characters resonate are Peck's gift for voice (never do the characters ring false, flat, or forced) and the ways in which these various characters represent different avenues into the concept of "beingness" without becoming representative or "stock." Furthermore, the structure of the text -- it is a redactor's collection of documents compiled in order to comprehend the "scholar of Moab" and one particular event he experiences -- also mimics the ways in which beingness is comprised of different narratives and modes of interpreting such. Epistemological, ontological, aesthetic, and material questions of beingness arise in this text, but not because they are explicitly posed or blatantly obvious. No, these questions arise because the characters, landscape, and structure of the text make the reader more conscious of her own understanding of beingness, or lack thereof.

My only criticism is that the redactor's voice is less convincing at the novel's start; however, as the novel progresses, that too matures.

Finally, the novel's language is lovely, alternately wistful, tragic, ethereal, and hilarious. I highly recommend this text.

[Shelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Steven Peck paints an entertaining picture of life in Moab, Utah (not unexpected since he lived there part of his growing up years) with a cast of unusual fictional characters and several unique events. At first glance of the summary, I wondered if this story would really appeal to me. Aliens? Gadianton Robbers? Disappearance of an infant? Not my usual cup of tea, but amazingly, the story drew me in and held me while I read the entire book in almost one sitting. If you like thinking about consciousness, theology, what defines a scholar, and other such topics, you'll enjoy this book. And if you just like very thoughtful, engaging and laugh-out-loud stories, you'll likely enjoy this one!

Slight disclaimer: Steve is a friend of mine, and I couldn't be more thrilled to see him publishing his work! He's a gifted poet, too!

[Todd Hansink · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this book while planning our family vacation to Moab, Utah. Coincidentally, I found a review of this book on a blog that I read and so I decided to buy it.

http://bycommonconsent.com/2011/11/22...

I would recommend this book to anyone who is familiar with Utah culture, Mormonism, Charles Dickens, philosophy, consciousness studies (especially related to conjoined twins), synchronicity, emergence, alien abduction, and one of the most beautiful places on earth--Moab. If the reader is not familiar with several of the above topics then many subtleties may go unappreciated. The charm of this book lies in its improbable coalescence of all these topics into one simple story.

[Devin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly absurd. There is so much crazy in this book it defies description. The characters in this book are sympathetically nuts and each is given their own voice in a tale that ties together alien abduction, a scientific study of the faith of honey bees, an alliance between the KGB and the Gadianton Robbers of Book of Mormon lore and siamese twins. The real feat of this novel is that Steven L. Peck manages to tie it all up without resorting to gimmick or disturbing the consistency of this tale of crazy.

[Barbara Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scholar is a butterball of a book! Rich, tasty, savory, silly and stuffed with oddball characters: an alien abductee poet, a two-headed Oxford-educated cowboy, and the irrepressible Hyrum LeRoy Thayne, screwy innocent, small-town prankster, strayed Mormon and willing servant of the Lord.

I highly recommend this book, so many voices and so much power of mind.

[Lungstrum Smalls · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wildly inventive and often times very beautiful little story. It's almost a 'big' story. It edges into metaphysics and morality in a way that made me nervous at times. Is this going to make claims too large? But it skirts these edges carefully, and I found the ambiguity in its answers to be very satisfying. This is especially true with issues of faith surrounding the Mormon church (an institution that is readily panned in the book, but not in a reckless way).

I would have given it four stars but for its lack of multi-dimensional female characters and its inability to take a slightly more critical stance on its own characters racial attitudes. I don't demand that every book be perfect in these realms, and I certainly don't want politically correct characters, especially in a book about Southern Utah. But I think alternative characters/points of view could have been presented.

In all, I would highly recommend this to all my ex-mo and Utah friends!

[David Pace]

The Scholar of Moab by Steven L. Peck

by David G. Pace

Hyrum Thayne, the protagonist of Steven L. Peck’s riotously original novel The Scholar of Moab, writes, “I think this story is interesting cause my other friend had strange things happen too. There are weird things in the world. Strange even for a Scientist & Scholar like me.” The story Hyrum is speaking of is his friend Rick’s story, though Hyrum’s story, told in the novel by the anonymous “Redactor” who, a generation later, is trying to get to the bottom of Hyrum’s mysterious death in the ‘70s, is no less strange.

The “other friend” Hyrum refers to is another important player in the book, Dora, a poet and resident of Moab—yes, that Moab, the red rock town nestled near Utah’s La Sal mountains. Peck’s epistolary work involves space aliens (maybe), a missing baby whose paternity is in question, and conjoined twins with PhDs who, for five critical years on horseback, wrangled cattle–all in a town and its environs whose characters, including Hyrum, mix uneasily and phantasmagoric-ally with geologists, communists and imaginary Book of Mormon-era robbers.

Peck’s wild and whimsical—some might say undisciplined—scheme is to weight everything equally: philosophy, public TV revelations, evolution, the scientific method (classic and quasi), small-town hysterics, the poetic imagination—and yes, religion.

A cross between Jude the Obscure (referenced, clumsily in my view, at one point in the novel) and Huck Finn, Hyrum is a simple man who is not so simple. He is on a quest to be a scholar, and his notion of a scholar has more to do with appearances and the “right” vocabulary than innate brains or long hours in academic discourse. (“I glanced up at the mountains rising before me,” he writes in his journal at one point, “& saw my own climb into Scholardomhood.”) But he is sincere, and therefore both hilarious and touching. In his adventures as a sensing station technician for the United States Geological Survey, he works up in the mountains all week before returning on the weekend to his adoring simpleton (truly) of a wife who is nesting in a trailer park.

At one point we find our (anti)hero torching the entire reference section of the Grand County Library, ostensibly to divert suspicion from himself as he steals its non-portable dictionary, in which he hopes to look up the flurry of words he’s heard from his new scholarly associate in the field, words such as “X a Jesus,” “doggrowl,” and “Lazy fair.” “I began to feel more & more Adjudicated in what I was doing,” he says, equating himself with Leonardo Da Vinci’s robbing graves to study anatomy. “[A] whole bunch of such things that are pretty darned hard and time consummating…” (The malapropisms throughout are worth the price of admission.)

In another scenario we find Hyrum in company with the suspicious poet, Dora, in those same mountains, a kind of liminal space for all strange things that happen to Moabites. Crazies abound in this story, but Peck is sincere in positioning them as auguring questions about the nexus of consciousness, faith, desire and the natural landscape.

Many of The Redactor’s documents are taken from Dora’s diary, filled with free-association and conflations between first and third person. Here is one such passage:

Will cryptogramic soil evolve to become some intelligent thing as its components specialize, differentiate, and explore new spaces in the topology of life? This she wonders. And she wonders, because she wonders what will become of her son’s children. In to what creature will her line transmogrify? What possibilities will arise? None. Unless I can find him. Unless I can take back what is mine.

These rants from a woman who ends up, we learn early on, in the state mental hospital in Provo, simply punctuate the overall arc of the story, which is more coherent and, regularly, fall-off-the-bed funny. But their inclusion attests to the author’s respect for his wide cast of characters and for the wonder that emerges out of not only the mind but the unfathomable universe and its products. They are products as varied as the brilliant Milky Way high above the La Sal on a dark night, “the silence voiced by a plateau canyon wind,” and that moment when one feels “both immeasurably small and immeasurably important in the same instant.”

Hyrum Thayne is a part of the growing line of memorable Mormon literary characters that extends back through Levi Peterson’s Frank Windham in his The Backslider, Samuel Taylor’s Jackson Skinner Whitetop in his Heaven Knows Why and Maureen Whipple’s Clorinda in her The Giant Joshua, among others. There have already been a handful of breakout or crossover Mormon novels over the years. I think this is the most imaginative to date, perhaps corroborated by the Association for Mormon Letters which awarded it Best Novel for 2011. And if the book doesn’t find an audience outside of Utah, it won’t be because of its local religious content and references. In Scholar one can easily skate over at will the arcane references to home teachers, Lamanites and the LDS lifestyle even while picking up on the essential (and delightful) atmospherics.

As it is, The Scholar of Moab tumbles forth, pell-mell, with generosity and a wry eye for the exquisite frailty of our desire to find not only meaning in the universe, but a purpose for our existence. Any answers that are given easily—whether in philosophy, in science or in religion—never seem to be completely satisfying— are often vastly unsatisfying. Only a narrative that is as big-hearted and deftly-written as Peck’s can suggest the whole of the world and our stubborn longing for a unifying theory of truth that will always, thankfully for the purposes of literature, elude us.

THE SCHOLAR OF MOAB
Steven L. Peck
Torrey House Press
302 pages

[PJ Swanwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unforgettable characters and quirky story elevate Mormon literary mystery

(Rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars) One of the pleasures of reading spiritual fiction is slipping into a new belief system and wearing it for a while. Steven L. Peck's Mormon literary mystery settles you in Moab, Utah, where you can experience small-town Mormon culture even if you disagree with the cosmology. Peck's amazing cast of characters and mind-bending plot infuse this dark comedy with unexpected insight and laugh-out-loud surprises.

Story: Young Hyrum Thayne, an unrefined geological surveyor, steals a massive dictionary out of the Grand County library in a midnight raid, startling the good people of Moab into believing a nefarious band of Book of Mormon thugs, the Gadianton Robbers, has arisen again. To make matters worse, Hyrum’s illicit affair with Dora Tanner, a local poet thought to be mad, results in the delivery of a bouncing baby boy who vanishes the night of his birth. Righteous Moabites accuse Dora of the murder, but who really killed their child? Did a coyote dingo the baby? Was it an alien abduction as Dora claims? Was it Hyrum? Or could it have been the only witness to the crime, one of a pair of Oxford-educated conjoined twins who cowboy in the La Sals on sabbatical? (From amazon.com)

The story reflects philosophies that range from Navajo lore, Wiccans, Mormon folklore, and Jewish mystical thought to Jungian synchronicity, Kant's categorical imperative, and the neuroscience of "god modules" in the brain. However, none are explored in any depth. Peck does not endorse any particular belief system, including Mormonism; he uses the dynamics and influences of the many conflicting beliefs to explore the workings of a small Mormon community.

My take: The Scholar of Moab is a dark and delicious literary puzzle, rich with quirky details that reveal how small-town prejudice, the power of gossip, mass hysteria, and Mormon mysticism can play out in startling and yet familiar ways. Peck's masterful use of language produces four distinct perspectives--four unforgettable characters who search for the same truths in different ways only to fail themselves and others.

Hyrum, the self-identified Scholar of Moab, is unforgettable: plodding and quotidian and yet utterly extraordinary, an odd mix of mystic and pragmatist. His journal reads like Mormon prophesy, and the way he misuses words is at once excruciating and delightful. He is determined to educate himself because a scholar is "the closest man could attain in becoming like God." A clear and noble goal, but one that leads to tragic consequences.

Dora represents beauty and mystery. Through her, Peck revels in his passion for lyrical language and imagery. He slowly exposes Dora's character through poetry, letters, and short stories, which are by turns lovely and haunting, fascinating and disturbing. Both Hyram and Dora adore "two-dollar words," as if the grandness of their vocabularies could compensate for the smallness of their world.

The conjoined twins embody higher knowledge, both rational and philosophical. Their intertwined spirits balance uneasily between Christianity and scientific reason; perhaps their body contains a third spirit that possesses the wisdom to encompass them both.

The story's unidentified narrator (who calls himself the Redactor) is introduced as an objective observer, but by the end of the novel he is as embroiled in the mystery as the others. And then there's the La Sals, which encompasses Utah's Canyonlands and Arches national parks. This setting is a stark and strange character in its own right, and a fitting backdrop for a plot studded with alien abductions and Old West shoot-outs.

Peck's masterful literary mystery reveals its secrets in fractions, planting clues like arrowheads in Moab's dusty hills and propelling the story faster and faster as you race to discover who murdered the new-born child. But can you trust any of the characters' revelations? The story ultimately resolves into a deeply troubling murder mystery in which only the reader can determine the real story of the Scholar of Moab.

For more reviews of spiritual/metaphysical novels, see Fiction For A New Age.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re looking for a book full of conundrums, you’ll find in The Scholar of Moab by Steven L Peck. Through “letters” and “diaries” and conversations with the characters, Peck creates the world of Hyrum Thayne and his circle of friends. The setting is Moab, Utah, a beautiful part of the world if you haven’t been there and a bit of a town of revolution if you have.
Hyrum isn’t a scholar buy any means but sure would like to be. If we read his diaries that is the one thing that shines thorugh – Hyrum is working hard at scholarly things. He “borrows” books form the local library. Oh, he does bring them back – eventually. But since they leave under his coat most of the time they aren’t really missed.
Then there is Dora Daphne Tanner, possibly Hyrum’s lover (which would make him the father of her baby – which she lost in the brush {maybe}). His friends the conjoined Babcock twins witnessed the birth and rode looking for the mother and child when Dora took off. The twins are scholars in their own right and the letters they send the “Redactor” of the tale are quite interesting. The thought of them riding the range is as well.
This is one odd story but it catches you up in 1970’s Moab and you want to give it up once on a while but you can’t because – well, because you HAVE to know the end.

[Mindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best books I've read this year. Full of layers - I'm sure I've only skimmed the top in my first read-through. I'll need to read this at least 2-3 more times to "get" everything that is in the book.

Very well written! I loved the style, and the author is amazing at creating individual characters with very real voices. I also loved the relationships between characters - very involved and well conceived.

The story itself - where do I start? It includes everything from religion to mystery to "scholarship" to prejudice to murder to traditions to authority to love to lies to etc., etc., etc. It also makes you "think and re-think" about every one of these subjects and question how you perceive things and if your perceptions are correct.

Fantastic book - strange and wonderful - I'll be reading it again in the future.

(Trigger Warning: Although written by an LDS author, this book does satirically critique religion (specifically Mormonism) and the sometimes crazy traditions/mis-interpretations that are embraced. It is not malicious, but if this is offensive to you, then you probably won't like the book.)

[Mark Maynard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peck's novel -- part Rashomon story, part epistolary -- is told from multiple points of view, including the summary narrative of the mysterious "Redactor," and the poems of the deeply affected Moab writer and free spirit Dora Daphne Tanner.

All of the characters revolve in the strange, almost mystical orbit of the titular and self-appointed Scholar of Moab, Hyrum Thayne.

The dark satire of the novel is not solely accomplished in the amusing and twisted plot, but also relies on the dramatic irony of self-deluded characters, and Peck's clever use of vocabulary and word play to both approximate and poke fun at the artificial jargon of scholarship and the heady weight of religious dogmas.

"The Scholar of Moab" is modern mythology -- a strongly character-driven novel that successfully plays with form, making sure the none of the subjects (Mormon religious beliefs, scholarly publishing, the environmental movement, conspiracy theories and the nature of art and heroism) are safe from Peck's scathing satirical focus.

[Austin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really cleverly written book. It's the story of a lot of curious events that happened in the late 70s in Moab, Utah beautifully told from multiple points of view. The book is put together by a Redactor (one of the many not-overt-but-pleasant aspects that contribute to the Mormon-ness of it) who stitches together a number of source fragments, some written contemporaneously, some later on. There are wonderfully explored themes such as faith/skepticism, consciousness, rationality, portrayals of country bumpkins/salt of the earth people, and trust, to name a few. For most of the book I was primarily entertained by both the humor with which many parts are infused and the weaving together of multiple points of view and voices, but as the plot got thicker the characters seemed to suddenly take on a lot more depth and by the end I was really moved by how they changed and grew together. If you like magical realism and/or religion, I highly recommend this book.

[Otter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just after I read part of the book, I heard the same thing on my mother-in-law's stereo being read. Now if you had read the book you'd know why this make it True.

I bought the book because my son worked at a Scout camp near Moab last summer and my wife knew one of the reviewers. So after the book sat on the shelf for a month and neither one had started to read it, I started reading it in the car taking my son back to school. When I came to the Journal entry, I had to share, and started reading out loud. The next two hours went by in a flash. We laughed, we thought, we talked.

Just when you think this is just a weird story with some great lines, the book ends. With questions. And maybe there was some more meaning and significance than what I noticed the first time. I will read it again and maybe pay attention.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first book of the year! Wahoo! Moab, Utah and the areas surrounding it are probably some of my most favorite places in the world. So colorful, so inviting, so hot and sweaty. I'm getting warm just thinking about it now in this Siberia of a place I currently live, brr.. So, truth be told I probably wouldn't have cared what the book entailed as long as it took me back to that beautiful place. And it did. The fact that the book happened to be quirky and fun, well that was just rust colored gravy on my heaping pile of fungi colored earth that plants grow on in the desert.

My only complaint would be the end. I still don't know what the hell happened. Does anyone know? If you do, please tell me. It's keeping me up at night..

[Larry · Rating 3 out of 5]

First I want to thank Steven Peck for sending me this great book. As a lucky Goodreads winner this ended up being a true prize to read. Mr Peck has a strange and colorful way of telling a story. Sort of a fictional biography of a man from the small Mormon Utah town of Moab. This one is chucked full of strange abstract wondrous characters you will love and and others you will love to hate. At first I was put off with the original documents pages thinking this is not going to be fun to read but Mr Peck has a unique style that grows on you so hang in there it is worth it.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a beautifully strange (and coincidental?) hot mess of many of my favorite topics including southeast Utah, philosophy, theology, rural Mormon culture, humor, aliens, science, Moab, the La Sal mountains, consciousness, and coincident. The author, an evolutionary biologist at BYU, somehow managed to weave these topics into a funny and hypnotic narrative.