Special Living Lessons for Relief Society Sisters by Sister Fonda Alamode By Laurie Mecham Johnson Signature Books (Salt lake City), 1996. Softcover: 60 pages. ISBN: 1-56085-090-6 Suggested retail price: $10.95 (US) Audience: Mormon Adults
Reviewed by: Kent S. Larsen II

Plot Summary
Ten newsletters, purportedly issued by Sister Fonda Alamode as President of the Parley P. Pratt Park South Fourth Ward Relief Society. The newsletters contain the announcements and exhortations of Sister Fonda Alamode.

While I have heard a little hear and there on the net about Laurie Mecham Johnson's character Sister Fonda Alamode. I've never seen her perform and I had only read a handful of her sayings. What I had read made the character seem appealing. I therefore looked forward to reading this book and was very pleased to be assigned this review.

The thing that surprised me the most when I received the book was its length. Special Living Lessons is just 60 pages long and can easily be finished in an hour or so. In my opinion, this is not unusual for humor oriented books, however, it does seem out of proportion to the price.

The newsletters themselves seem to be similar to what I know of Johnson's performances. The humor generally originates when Johnson has Alamode extensively attempt to use words and grammar that she is not familiar with, or is incapable of using. Because of the context, its easy to se that Alamode means one word or one idea, but the word choice or the grammar actually conveys a different meaning.

For example, Alamode at one point exhorts the 'Sistern' in her Relief Society:

Gals, we must teach our daughters chastity. Premarital intimacy outside of the bondage of holy matrimony is foul, filthy, and disgusting. And it should be saved for the one we love most.

At another point she reminds her Relief Society:

Sisters, we would that you would remember in your prayers all those who are sick of our Ward and Stake.

Like many newsletters, these have sections like "Visitors," "Thought of the Week," Announcements," etc. Some of these sections are typical Fonda Alamode creations such as "Excuses," "Special Womanly Values," "Weekly Warning from the Brethren," and "Births, Callings, Deaths & other Tragedies"

The newsletters progress during the course of the book from being produced on a donated mimeograph machine, to electric typewriter to being desktop published (obviously by an amateur). This leads to one of the weaknesses of the book. Its hard to believe that the photos that accompany the text were actually part of the newsletter (produced on a mimeograph!). However, the book seems to be trying to mimic the orignial newsletters through its formatting -- the font used in the early newsletters looks like it might have been done on a mimeograph machine, and the later newsletters have the crazy mixture of fonts typicall of novice desktop publishers. The discord between text that looks like it came out of a mimeograph machine and photos that were not is, in my opinion, rather annoying.

Like much satire, this book is critical of both intermountain mormon popular culture and of the Church itself. Fonda Alamode is constructed with a fairly low level of education (or at least education that actually worked), so that the humor works. Add this to the prevalence in Utah of some of the ideas that she promotes in the newsletter, and the satire hits home. For example, she mimics the all-too-often used technique of attaching candy to a card as follows: %A Fonda Alamode

If you will just take of the candy and make a little card for each of your teacheese and affix to it the candy and write a little message saying, "Be a Tootsie-Roll with the puches!" we do believe that this will help to soften the very terrible message in which we have been called to deliver.

The criticisms of the Church are for the most part mild and have certainly been heard before. For example, she announces a lesson as follows:

Sister Dixie Decree, Little League Coach and mother of 12, will be teaching us a new parenting method called, "Hang Your Head and Learn." And this is the new shame-based parenting technique in which has been developed by church and military leaders.

Of course, these criticisms are well blended into the humor of the book. The book is well done (well written I don't think I can say because it specifically tries to imitate poor writing) and I enjoyed laughing at Fonda's unique phrasings.

My biggest criticism, however, is that its just not long enough! I would have liked to read another 10 issues of the newsletter, or more, and I would then feel like the book was worth $10.95.

I enjoyed Special Living Lessons; I just wanted more!

Kent Larsen

Kent S. "Kip" Larsen II; KLarsen@panix.com or KLarsen@NorthSouth.com (work).
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