I can't help being a Dean Hughes fan. The more snobbish side of me screams out that the dialogue isn't perfect, the characters are somewhat typecast, and the dialogue is sometimes hokey. Still, when I pick up one of these books it reminds me of that old pair of sweats that you just don't part with because they're so comfortable. I often find myself willing to overlook its faults and just enjoy the story. That's not to say that the issues this book deals with are light, but merely that it fits my experiences.

How Many Roads? is the third book of a planned five in the Hearts of the Children series, and follows four "grandchildren" (one is an in-law) of Alexander and Bea Thomas beginning in the turbulent year of 1968. Gene, 23 and newly married, struggles with his wife's frustration over being pregnant, and his imminent departure to Vietnam. Kathy, 22, finishes her schooling at Smith College "back east" and becomes involved in the Democratic convention riots in Chicago in 1968 while working for the McCarthy presidential campaign. She also tries on new philosophical beliefs and receives romantic advances from one of her Smith professors. Diane, 20, has dropped out of BYU to get married and follow her husband to law school at the University of Washington. This is Dean Hughes' chance to deal with many women's issues as Diane's husband, Greg, wants her not to work, to look pretty, and be at his beck and call. Finally, Hans Stoltz, cousin to Gene, has been locked in a prison in East Germany for attempting to escape East Germany to America. Having become frustrated with the church and God prior to his attempted escape, he finds God in prison. His only possession is the Bible, and when that is taken away he relies on his remembrance of the scriptures to keep him sane.

This series and the Children of the Promise series before it fortunately doesn't suffer from some of the most glaring problems of other Deseret Book "historical fiction" authors - such as presenting too many characters, and lacking earned conflict. While other series proudly proclaim to tell the history of the Latter-Day Saints, I found myself feeling that this series and the previous Hughes series much more closely approximates my experiences and feelings as a Latter-Day Saint. One possible explanation for this is the fact that the character Gene Thomas shares such a similar background to my own father. Both Gene and my father were born the same year, graduated in 1962 from East High School in Salt Lake City, played High School sports, attended the University of Utah, served German speaking missions, and were married in 1968. Fortunately, my father went to medical school instead of being sent to Vietnam, so the similarities are not perfect between Gene and my father. Still, although my father has different feelings and attitudes than I see in Gene, I often wonder how close an approximation Gene's attitudes are to perhaps one of my father's high school friends or classmates.

Although the other characters don't match in such a personal way with my life, I find myself empathizing with their thoughts and feelings much more than in other LDS fiction I've read. Without question, because of these personal feelings I judge this fiction differently, both positively and negatively, than I do any other fiction, because I feel like I "own" this story in my own way.

One of my frustrations with this book, and the rest of the series, is its guise of being marketed as "historical" fiction. Dean Hughes would likely be the first to tell you that he's not writing a history book, and I've never had occasion or reason to doubt his research. But, whether it be personal preference or a requirement by the publisher, extraneous "historical" facts end up in these books which have nothing to do with the plot. In previous books in this series it was a score of a high school football game that was accurate, or names and addresses of movie theaters or ice cream parlors in Salt Lake, or a church branch address in West Germany. In How Many Roads? most of the extraneous facts came in following Diane to the University of Washington. Not coincidently, Dean Hughes did his own graduate work at the University of Washington, and goes to great lengths to describe the campus, the trip to Vancouver Island, and the like. While the dialogue in these parts kept the plot moving, albeit slowly, these descriptions seem out of place when they are found nowhere else in the book. After reading 8 of these books, I'm still conflicted about whether it's the publisher who's insisting on these being "historical" fiction for marketing purposes, or whether it's Dean Hughes personal preference. Regardless, in my view the book would work better if these parts were taken out and the book was marketed as plain ol' "fiction," and not "historical" fiction.

My other complaint with this book and the series in general is that each book, in particular How Many Roads?, cannot stand on its own. If you haven't read the first two books of the series, you won't understand the background of this book well enough to enjoy it. Furthermore, the book doesn't resolve in any way. The plot lines grow and develop, but it's obvious that the stories are far from being finished - and that is frustrating to a reader. It's like being handed chapters 13-22 in a 40 chapter book. In other words, the series, rather than being five books, is really one big book split into five parts. I can't help but wonder if this is also a marketing technique as well to maximize profits for the publisher.

Those frustrations aside, I like Dean Hughes' characters, particularly those with faults like my own. I've found that this fiction, light though it may be, affects me more than most fiction because it's my story, my struggles, my feelings as a Latter-Day Saint. Dean Hughes doesn't tiptoe around the more difficult issues. I second what Jeff Needle said regarding the first book of this series The Writing on the Wall, "this book will make you think. It will make you take a personal inventory of the essence of who you are; you may not be pleased with the result." I certainly would like to see more of that in LDS fiction. I would highly recommend this book, but . . . start at the beginning of the series.

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Dave Hansen
October 21, 2003