{"id":45559,"date":"2019-06-13T23:36:57","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T05:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=45559"},"modified":"2023-11-23T09:50:06","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T15:50:06","slug":"karin-andersons-before-us-like-a-land-of-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/karin-andersons-before-us-like-a-land-of-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"Karin Anderson\u2019s \u201cBefore Us Like a Land of Dreams\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

If you\u2019ve ever said to yourself, \u201cI wish Faulkner\u00a0had lived and anxiously dreamed and feverously wrote his visions from the Utah\/Mountain\/Desert \/\u00a0Mormon\/West\u201d (instead of the South) then Before Us Like a Land of Dreams<\/em> (Torrey House Press) by Karin Anderson is what you\u2019ve been waiting for.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trailing a mother challenged and dispirited by life, the story moves through the Wes<\/span>t<\/span> to which she is tethered through experience and ancestry<\/span>, culture and faith. As <\/span>Forward Reviews<\/span><\/a>\u00a0put it, a central question that drives the <\/span>novel<\/span> is \u201c<\/span>what portion of our lives do we direct, and what portion rests upon the ‘dark hazards’ of ancestral preordination?”<\/span><\/p>\n

The style of Land of Dreams <\/i>can, as with the baroque Faulkner, make it <\/i>feel <\/span>massive,\u00a0even though it only <\/span>weighs<\/span>\u00a0in at just over three-hundred pages.\u00a0Reading it<\/span>\u00a0feels at times like making a trek through the Mountain-Desert West, with voices from both the dead and the alive. What makes\u00a0this\u00a0novel, the author\u2019s first,<\/span>\u00a0particularly recommendable\u00a0are<\/span>\u00a0its regional meditations and critiques through\u00a0myriad characters.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

At\u00a0the risk of over-stating a comparison with one of America\u2019s \u2014 indeed, one of the world\u2019s\u00a0 \u2014literary \u201cheavies,” in a way<\/span> Anderson has given us something comparable to Faulkner and his\u00a0writings.<\/span>\u00a0In many ways the\u00a0<\/span>Mountain-Desert West and Mormondom<\/span>\u00a0are better subject material for the\u00a0forms and teasings-out of genealogical anxieties re-embodied and invigorated by odd clippings of visions\u00a0and cracked fringe existentialisms, something Faulkner has provided us with for years.<\/p>\n

At least this is what Anderson has stirred, cooked and delivered: a volume that would have to be placed next to Faulkner in classes on American <\/span>r<\/span>egional <\/span>f<\/span>iction. If this\u00a0work is necessary (and I think it is), then it is because it is just as representative to the peculiar Mountain-Desert\u00a0West as Faulkner was to his South.\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Overall, the book feels like a compendium, artfully arranged, of the discarded clippings of Mormon and Mountain-Desert West history. The book <\/span>bravely <\/span>wrestles\u00a0abandoned\u00a0and underrepresented histories onto the page. What we are given is a recovered and organized, poeticized and\u00a0presented drama of th<\/span>is unique region of the <\/span>West that is only recently<\/span>,<\/span> really being visited to the degree it needs to be<\/span> and arguably deserves<\/span>. What <\/span>is<\/span> most refreshing <\/span>i<\/span>s to get <\/span>a veritable <\/span>index of abandoned history, almost like the\u00a0second telling of what should have been included with the first.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As someone who hails from the West, I found myself not only rethinking my cultural heritage and the identity of the Mountain-Desert West as a whole but my <\/span>own <\/span>identity and role in\u00a0that whole. Everything that didn\u2019t make it into earlier renderings of <\/span>th<\/span>is<\/span> history and culture has been given\u00a0second life <\/span>here<\/span>: something as important as the fact that many of the cities throughout this region continue to experience the growing pains of transforming from hyper-suburbs to metropol<\/span>es<\/span>. A book like <\/span>Land of Dreams<\/em><\/span> makes sure\u00a0to bring the severed roots back to the potato, the bones back to the chicken, and it even brings the West\u00a0back to the Mountain-Desert West<\/span>.<\/span> I<\/span>t brought me back to my senses.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>In <\/span>Land of Dreams<\/em><\/span> Anderson has created what seems a sort of anti-apologetic. Not that it works against\u00a0the apologetics of what’s been called the Mormon Corridor and its environs, but that it works as a diptych to the histories and\u00a0cultural identities we\u2019ve already committed to. Those history-identities\u00a0we have and have carried for years\u00a0won\u2019t go away, and so this book serves as a tempering to that history. <\/span><\/p>\n

What the author adds to the tapestry of\u00a0<\/span>this <\/span>region\u2019s history-identity is a greater range of shades and colors, the expanded colors brought by offering\u00a0a more diverse set of characters, and the expanded shades brought by a more diverse explanation of <\/span>their<\/span> motivations and morals. <\/span>The romantic sheen <\/span>that has been applied to our history is, by\u00a0this book, made to stand next to the textures of a more modern reminder: our past isn\u2019t as homogenous as\u00a0some of us would like to believe.\u00a0<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Moreover, I could also suggest how reading this book is likely to get the reader to rethink the body-politic into a genealogical-politic<\/span>.<\/span> The story <\/span>illuminates <\/span>how family and relationships (given <\/span>the <\/span>region\u2019s history with polygamy and <\/span>the institutional and theological<\/span>\u00a0commitment to family) can impact how the political sphere has and will continue to develop. Or I might\u00a0mention how the form of the novel (i.e. multiple voices from multiple perspectives all witnessing and\u00a0commenting from their relative viewpoint <\/span>[<\/span>relative both morally and physically<\/span>]<\/span>) potentially serves as a\u00a0sociological critique of the cultural norm of gossip networks\u00a0throughout\u00a0the Mountain West.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But overall, I think\u00a0the book is rich enough to provide many different readings for many different years, and I would encourage\u00a0anyone hungry for a regional wake-up call to pick up this book, settle into the couch, and not let that high-desert sun unsettle you until you see it differently.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Karin Anderson will be at <\/span><\/span>Dolly\u2019s Bookstore in Park City <\/span><\/span>on <\/span><\/span>Saturday, <\/span><\/span><\/a>June 15 @ 2 p.m. for an author signing and meet and greet.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before Us Like a Land of Dreams<\/em>
\nKarin Anderson<\/span>
\nTorrey House Press<\/span><\/a>
\n320 pp<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>
\n$18.95\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve ever said to yourself, \u201cI wish Faulkner\u00a0had lived and anxiously dreamed and feverously wrote his visions from the Utah\/Mountain\/Desert \/\u00a0Mormon\/West\u201d (instead of the South) then Before Us Like a Land of Dreams (Torrey House Press) by Karin Anderson is what you\u2019ve been waiting for.\u00a0 Trailing a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1586,"featured_media":45561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2589,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews-literary-arts","category-literary-arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/C7131C61-591C-4ECB-AADA-0D54DEF8C3CC.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 21:04:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45559"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72228,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45559\/revisions\/72228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}