{"id":37980,"date":"2017-09-25T21:55:05","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T03:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=37980"},"modified":"2018-09-20T21:57:43","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T03:57:43","slug":"scott-abbotts-immortal-for-quite-some-time-wins-book-award-for-creative-nonfiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/scott-abbotts-immortal-for-quite-some-time-wins-book-award-for-creative-nonfiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Scott Abbott\u2019s Immortal for Quite Some Time Wins Book Award for Creative Nonfiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>15 Bytes is pleased to announce the winner of the 2017 15 Bytes Book Award for Creative Nonfiction:\u00a0 Scott Abbott\u2019s\u00a0Immortal for Quite Some Time<\/em>, not a memoir but \u201ca fraternal meditation on the question, \u2018Are we friends, my brother?\u2019\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The book opens in 1991, as Abbott, his sisters, and their mother travel to Boise to retrieve the body of Abbot\u2019s younger brother, John, who has died of AIDS. Though the devout Mormon family disdained John\u2019s homosexuality, they have tried to keep him close, preferring to know less, hoping he\u2019d change.\u00a0Immortal\u00a0<\/em>opens with the terrible unearthing of John\u2019s immediate past, a landscape of suffering and isolation littered with evidence of John\u2019s illness. Beer cans, too. But the family also hears anecdotes about his generosity, all these details sketching an ambiguous map of John\u2019s drift toward independence from family, faith, and the institution that rejected him, yet considered him savable.<\/p>\n

15 Bytes\u2019 review of the book by Brooke Williams calls\u00a0Immortal<\/em>\u201cthe world\u2019s most perfect obituary\u201d in part because of the \u201cfrustrating communique full of carefully crafted clues to a much larger story, intended to help those still living,\u201d the part of an obituary that Williams calls \u201cthe treasure hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this haunting treasure hunt, the author and his brother\u2019s salvation would require obedience, the sublimation of sexual and intellectual questioning. What\u2019s unknown about John\u2019s pain and pleasures troubles Scott and his relations with his family, his colleagues at Brigham Young University, and the Mormon leadership.\u00a0Immortal\u00a0<\/em>patiently sifts through past and present conflicts\u2014some violent, others slow-burning\u2014intertwining the brothers\u2019 journals, Scott\u2019s memories, dreams, and speculation touching John\u2019s ephemeral sketches and poetry, his questions and recipes. To be John\u2019s friend, to recover (not rehabilitate) him, to find John in himself, Scott necessarily turns the question \u201care we friends?\u201d on those around him, setting up a deeply moving struggle toward peace and independence in the brutal light of honesty and love.<\/p>\n

You can read the full 15 Bytes review of the work\u00a0<\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Immortal for Quite Some Time (<\/em>University of Utah\u00a0Press, 2016)\u00a0is one of three books of\u00a0creative nonfiction that were finalists for the 5th<\/sup>\u00a0Annual 15 Bytes Book Award, the winner of which receives a modest cash prize. This is the first year that 15 Bytes has included creative nonfiction as a category. Finalists\u00a0Kevin Holdsworth<\/strong>\u00a0(Good Water<\/em>, University Press of Colorado) and\u00a0Patrick Madden<\/strong>\u00a0(Sublime Physick,\u00a0<\/em>University of Nebraska Press)\u00a0<\/strong>will appear in Salt Lake City with Abbott November 14, 2017, (7 p.m.) at an honorary reading and celebration at Weller Book Works in Trolley Square. You can read citations of the winning book and the two finalists\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Congratulations to Scott Abbott, winner of the 2017 15 Bytes Book Award in Creative Nonfiction for his\u00a0Immortal for Quite Some Time<\/em>!
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\nDirector of the Program in Integrated Studies and former chair of the department of Humanities and Philosophy at Utah Valley University, Orem, Scott Abbott\u00a0will lecture from his most recent book-in-progress,\u00a0Standing as Metaphor: Homo erectus in the Culture of Homo sapiens\u00a0<\/em>at\u00a0Weller Book Works\u2019\u00a0Book and Bridges Series today, Sept. 26, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. in Salt Lake City as part of the weeks-long, statewide\u00a0Utah Humanities Book Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n