[To be fair, I should say up front that I believe this book is out of print, though I have seen copies of it in various used bookstores.]

This year my reading project is going through my shelves and reading all the books I've collected over the years and never gotten around to reading. I still have a long way to go, and I suspect the project will carry over into next year (especially since I keep buying new books).

I acquired Zinnie Stokes, Zinnie Stokes last year on one of my final trips to Pioneer Book in Provo before we moved to Texas -- "stocking up," you might call it. I remember seeing the book when it first came out, and one of my freshman English students at BYU wrote a paper about one of Marshall's short stories; so when I saw this book I decided to buy it. I'm always spouting off about Mormon literature, I remember thinking; I ought to actually read some.

I must admit that I haven't read anything else by Donald Marshall, so I don't know how this book compares to his other work. I know that he is known mostly for his short idn't linger over the narrative.

This does, however, bring me to a couple of quibbles with the book. The story begins wistories, and I haven't heard of anything new coming out from him for awhile. Does anyone know why? The dust jacket says that he was a professor at BYU when the book was published, but I don't remember hearing anything about him when I was there in 96-98.

Zinnie Stokes is about a young (thirty-ish) man, Gavin Terry, and his journey back to his childhood home in Cedar City, Utah. This trip is an attempt to "clear the slate" of his life and make amends for some of the things in his past he has regretted. Gavin is recently widowed, and his companion on the trip is his young son, Shawn.

Almost as soon as he gets into town he runs into Zinnie (actually Zinnia) Stokes, a girl he had known but almost forgotten. She had been something of an outcast, a backward, misfit-type who was teased mercilessly by the other kids in town. They would chant things like "Zinnie Stokes chews and smokes/ gets her kicks from old cowpokes." Hence, the name of the title. As they become reacquainted, however, Gavin remembers some long-buried memories of Zinnie, and he discovers some new and unexpected things about her that force him to face his own past.

I really liked this book, and I have to admit that I was surprised to enjoy it so much. The theme of going back home again and finding closure to some of the painful and poignant events of the past is one that resonates for me, as I'm sure it does for many readers. Marshall handles the going home again plot well. Just as in real life, there are people who remember Gavin and people who don't. Some people are the same as ever, and some have changed a lot. The town is familiar, but it has changed considerably. I have had the experience of going back to places that are profoundly a part of me and finding that I am no longer a part of them. Marshall evokes this feeling in a way that rings true for me. At the same time, I recognize that there is an element of fantasy to such a story. Most of us would like to go back and find closure to various phases or events in our lives, but most of us never get (or take) the chance. Maybe because it is such an appealing fantasy, I was willing to overlook some of the weaker elements in the novel.

Another reason I liked the book was for what it did not do. When I read the jacket blurb, knowing my past experience with Mormon fiction, I was worried that it would turn out to be another starry- eyed Mormon romance with everything tied up neatly at the end. It doesn't. The story does end on an optimistic note, but the romance isn't even carried through to completion. We're left knowing more or less what will probably happen, but we're spared the heart palpitations and cliches about soft lips and husky voices that generally accompany such scenes. Things are far from resolved with the romance, but we've seen the growth in Gavin that is the real theme of the story.

In general, Marshall's style is pretty spare, and this really shows up on subsequent readings. Going back through the book to find some passages to quote for this review, I found that a large proportion of the text is actually dialogue, which is Marshall's primary method of characterization.

For example, when Gavin meets up with his former best friend, J.D. Sargent, we catch the essence of his character through the conversation he has with Gavin about the changes in their lives since high school. Gavin tells him about his wife's death:

&nbps;    'My wife -- my wife Lois, passed away last winter.'
&nbps;    'No kidding! Hey, that's tough. Sorry to hear that. Accident or something?'
&nbps;    He shook his head. 'Cancer.'
&nbps;    'Oh no,' J.D. said, giving his head a little tilt, as if surveying Gavin in this new light. 'Bad news, man. I mean, it really is.' (131)

A bit later J.D. brings Gavin up to speed on his family.

&nbps;    'Only one kid, huh?' Sargent started in questioning, seating himself on the edge of a desk, his stomach and thighs bulging inside his clothes. 'Man, I've got six already. Oldest one's going to be in junior high in a couple of years.'
&nbps;    'Who did you marry, by the way? Anyone I know?'
&nbps;    'Probably not. RaeLynn Heaps from Fillmore. I didn't start dating her until I was student-body president. Here she is,' he said, turning a framed eight-by-ten colored photograph around on his desk. 'Not bad, huh?' A young girl, eyes sparkling and bare shoulders rising from a swath of tulle and taffeta, beamed brightly from a painted blue background. 'She still looks pretty much like that,' J.D. went on proudly. 'She was a cheerleader, Harvest Ball Queen -- you know the type I always liked . . .' (131-32)

I had to laugh at this passage because it captured so well the many people I have known who still consider high school their frame of reference for life.

In looking at the passages of reflective narration, I found I was less impressed with Marshall's style when taken out of context. Gavin often feels "like someone has knocked the wind out of him," or he "aches" inside, or thinks "longingly" of something. The result is that his emotion frequently sounds overstated in comparison to the sparing style of the rest of the story. In context, however, I didn't notice this as much because I was interested enough in the plot that I didn't linger over the narrative.

This does, however, bring me to a couple of quibbles with the book. The story begins with the death of Gavin's wife, in a nice scene that shows the depth of his and his son's grief. By the time they get to Utah, however -- which is only a few months later -- she is a distant memory and is hardly mentioned anymore. I didn't quite buy that a guy who had gone through such a traumatic loss would be so willing to take up with someone new as quickly as he does. On the other hand, to be fair, the "taking up" is quite tentative and nicely underplayed. Gavin's wife's death is the impetus behind the quest for renewal that his journey represents, and the feeling of loss and introspection that Marshall develops in the first part of the book hung on enough to keep me from becoming disgusted with the second half. In the back of my mind, though, I kept expecting Marshall to at least say something about how this man would reconcile his feelings for his wife with the new romance.

The character of Gavin's son, Shawn, was another minor flaw. It seemed that he was there for convenience in some scenes without really being integral to Gavin's experiences. And he was pretty one dimensional, a perfect little Mormon boy. At one point, for example, Gavin tells Shawn about a time when he kept too much change that the neighborhood grocer had given him by mistake. Shawn is "incredulous" that his dad hadn't returned the money immediately and keeps assuming that Gavin had eventually returned it. Gavin tries to explain that it was a long time ago and he has forgotten some of the details:

&nbps;    'All I do remember is that I started feeling not so good about that money. In fact, I started feeling awful.'
&nbps;    'So you took it back?' [This is the fourth time we've seen Shawn's assumption that taking the money back is the only thing his dad would have done.]
&nbps;    Another groan from inside. Oh, please, he wanted to say, stop being so grown-up about all this. Who's teaching who?"

The thing that saves this scene, and many others, is that Marshall knows when to end it rather than dragging it out in order to allow someone to voice the moral explicitly over and over again. In fact, I would say that this is what saves the entire book. Marshall knows when to stop. By ending the story before the expected emotional romantic scene, he enables the book to be about renewal and redemption instead of romance, and this is greatly to his credit.

Zinnie Stokes is a quick read. I picked it up on a Sunday evening at about 9:00 and finished it in two hours or less of reading time. It was time well spent, and I recommend this book to all LDS readers. In fact, except for some cultural references that might get in the way, this story could also appeal to a more general audience. It's not a perfect book, and it might not make anyone's "ten best" list. But it is a nice story, quite nicely written, and well worth reading.