Kirtland By Susan Evans McCloud Bookcraft, 2000. Hardcover: 266 pages. ISBN: 1-57345-850-3 Suggested retail price: $21.95 (US)
Reviewed by: Katie Parker

Summary

Kirtland follows the story of Esther Parke Thorne and her family and friends as they arrive and try to make a home in Kirtland, following the leadership of the prophet Joseph Smith. Esther is in her early twenties, with a young daughter. She and her husband Eugene are baptized in the opening pages, after moving with the Saints from Palmyra. (Their Palmyra years are covered in the previous book, Palmyra.)

Critique

The prose is beautiful. It is filled with lovely poetic images and interesting insights into the human condition. For those who enjoy such work, this book is a treasure.

For those readers looking for plot, however, it is difficult to catch hold of. And the dialogue is as flowery as the text. Here is a passage from pages 44 and 45. Background information is not necessary.

     As we sat I glanced toward the house entrance a few times. To my astonishment I watched Eden, the eldest Frey girl, mince out with her arm tucked through the arm of a male companion. The sight of them made me go cold.
     "Eugene!" I tugged at his sleeve. "That is Jedediah Comstock that Eden is stepping out with. Why did (her father) not throw him out of here on his ear?" I demanded hotly. "He is not only a Gentile, but a man with no scruples. I have heard very unpleasant things about him."
     "Eden came below stairs and informed him with as much coy smugness as a cat who is licking the last of cream from her whiskers that he would allow her to keep company with the gentleman, else she would pack her belongings on the instant and go stay with Bertha Walker, who has already offered her the use of a cozy little room above the millinery shop."
     I felt sick inside. "Eugene, why? What has attracted her to him?"
     "Who can tell, love, who can tell?"
     "Does she do it for spite?"
     "For adventure, more likely. Some women become enamored of their own charms and find it is thrilling to test them, to see how far they can go on them."
     "All the way to destruction and despair," I cried.
     "Esther, Esther!" Eugene kissed my forehead, my lips. Then, savoring the pleasure of it, he kissed me again. "There is no one like you, Esther, when it comes to fretting yourself about the ways and woes of another."
     "I cannot help it," I moaned. "It seems I can feel their pain, Eugene, as if it were mine. Their pain, and the pain they inflict so thoughtlessly upon others. Injustice fires up the very depths of me, and I want to put everything right."
     "Yes, I know."

I chose this selection for several reasons. First, it shows the use of flowery prose. Second, it is one of many passages that contains insights and wisdom. I consider both of these to be strengths of the book, but in this passage they become weaknesses. This is one of many instances in which we are given a potentially interesting conflict, but we are not allowed to actually see it and feel it. Instead, it is explained to us, along with the personality of the main character. Not all of the conflicts are told through dialogue, but far too many of them are simply told by Esther in her poetic way. The conflict is presented, allowed to stew for a page or two, and then ended or left alone for later. And unfortunately, Esther's poetic philosophizing creates a distance between the reader and the action. Esther may feel their pain, but, for the most part, I don't.

There are just too many small plots going on. Instead of weaving a few strong storylines into the narrative, the author presents us with one crisis after another. Each crisis has a fairly simple solution. For example, early on we are introduced to Emmeline, a timid child who lives with an abusive father. After Esther and her friend Georgeanna ("Georgie") weep over her situation for a few pages, they have a bright idea to have her board with a family who needs extra help. The family agrees to it, Emmeline's father agrees to it, and everything is fixed in the next few pages. Then, when Esther and Georgie discover that Emmeline's father is still beating her when she comes home on weekends, they arrange to have her work for them during that time instead. Problem solved. Then a new crisis is introduced.

Emmeline's story does resurface at times throughout the book, but again it is easily dealt with. The clincher for me comes near the end when, after she has been working for Georgie and Esther for a few years, they ask how old she is and she says she is seventeen. Seventeen! They hadn't realized it, either; they had supposed that she was only twelve or thirteen. Esther attributes it to time passing too quickly. I don't know what to attribute it to, except perhaps that McCloud didn't know how to resolve a particular storyline so she suddenly made Emmeline seventeen so she could fall in love and get married. At any rate, this maneuver left me feeling violated as a reader. Approximately three years before, she had been described as a shy child, not as a blossoming adolescent. I had pictured a scraggly girl of about twelve, not seventeen!

Church history is not a huge presence. Rather, it is a story of Esther and her friends and their lives as the Church is beginning. Occasionally things going on in the Church are mentioned, such as the announcement of the Kirtland temple. Occasionally Esther reflects on her testimony. But it's not a rewriting of The Work and the Glory with new characters, and they are not best friends with all the important people from Church history. Events in the Church are usually in the background, or not present at all.

Some of the other storylines in the book include a mission (which lasts for all of two pages), sacrifice for the temple, matchmaking for friends, death of loved ones, Esther taking in her own young brother after the death of her mother, helping a crippled man, coping with extra people staying in their home, earning money for postage to send mail to family in Palmyra, and so on. One storyline that does persist to the end of the book involves two close friends of theirs who are meant for each other, but only the girl realizes it, and she's finally about to marry someone else when� well, you get the idea. Also near the end, they are persecuted along with the other Saints, and some of that is interesting. There's lots of potentially good material here, and it's beautifully presented. It's just not presented in a manner that worked for me.