1000 words from
The Courtship of Elder Cannon
I. A Conversation with Charles
Tuesday. White shirt. Charcoal suit. The green and gray striped silk tie. Black captoes.
A text from Charles:
< Drop by my office after the Public Affairs committee meets. >
“Thanks for dropping by, Bruce.”
“No problem. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“It’s been, what, fourteen months?”
14 months, one week, and four days
“Yes, about that.”
“I’m sure you miss her.”
“I do. Very much.”
“It’s a hard thing even though we have the hope of the resurrection and eternal life. Hard, I’m sure, for the person on the other side. Perhaps even harder for the person left back here in mortality.”
“Perhaps.”
“When Edith died I was a wreck for months.”
“Were you? You certainly didn’t show it.”
“Ah, well—the work of the kingdom rolls on, but I assure you. I didn’t have an easy time of it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. If Rachel and I had known—“
“—You had your own worries. And I certainly had plenty of support, which was wonderful even if it didn’t change the hurt of loss. The worst of it was actually after my grief lessened, and I realized how lonely I was.”
“Yes, that part is not much fun.”
“No, it’s not… Meeting Judy was such a blessing.”
“She is pretty great. I admit we were a bit surprised. But delighted.”
“I was quite surprised myself. So have you thought about it?”
“Thought about what?”
“Remarriage.”
“No, not really.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t consider it.”
“It’s not something I want to think about right now.”
“Rachel talked to Judy about this, you know. Before she passed.”
“Did she?”
“She didn’t say anything to you?”
“She did.”
“And?”
“I assume it’s the same thing she told Judy. That she wanted me to if I found the right person.”
“And have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Found the right person?”
“I haven’t been looking.”
“Hmmmm.”
“It’s only been fourteen months.”
“I know, I know. But let’s say Judy and I have found… Well, I’ll put it this way: what if I said Judy and I have someone we’d like you to meet. Would you be open to that?”
No.
“I’m not sure if the timing is right. I’d have to pray about it.”
“Yes. Of course. But if you pray and feel good about it?”
Is there any chance I won’t feel good about something an Apostle of the Lord asks me to pray about?
“I will consider it.”
“Good. Good. She’s quite the woman, Bruce. But, no, I shouldn’t say more. I don’t want to prejudice you for or against her.”
II. Rachel and Silence
He pours a glass of chocolate milk. He pops London Flat, London Sharp into the CD player. He opens his journal. The pages are thick, creamy, unlined. He writes:
What was I going to say? That I know that Rachel is waiting for me on the other side, but I miss her in this existence. I wanted more time with her in mortality. I have no doubts about the glory of the resurrection, but it was her imperfect body and unrefined spirit that I fell in love with. That is the Rachel I know and love, and the promise of the coming day, while comforting, is also foreign, just like she, though she will be the same, will be foreign, with a foreign body. No, of course I can’t say that. I don’t want to say that. But I also don’t want to give up this burden, this silence, this isolation. It is only in being alone that I can keep her presence, her absence near. Close enough to actually feel.
The CD stops playing. He finishes his chocolate milk. He goes to bed. He does not pray about what Elder R— had asked him to pray about.
V. Few Chosen
Many are called.
Few are chosen.
Even fewer understand why they were chosen.
To be chosen is to be given a stone that one worries at so much the cloudy doubt is polished away and what’s left is an awful trust that can easily be mistaken for pride.
Most of all by you yourself.
Don’t aspire for the honors of men.
But if you don’t have some honor among men, a certain amount of the things of the world you will likely not be called or chosen.
Whenever he tallied up his vain ambitions.
Whenever he updated his CV.
He was never sure why he had done it.
Or what he would have done instead.
If he had been more ambitious or more vain.
Of course, there are no pettier tyrants than academics.
His early marriage to Rachel.
Their many children.
The spiraling uncomfortably upward series of church callings.
Had tempered, mellowed, bridled him.
Not that he was unfamiliar with unrighteous dominion.
One should never a trust a man who claims he isn’t.
But mostly persuasion, as gentle and meek as he could make it, and sometimes a little knowledge that was pure enough.
A little authority is a temptation.
A lot is more terrifying than the gaping jaws of hell.
And he never could bring himself to say amen to whatever authority was thrust upon him.
A flaw perhaps. A sign that he was too chicken to refuse. An inevitable selling out to the patriarchy because he is too used to what is offered to a man born a Mormon.
What can he do but endure it well?
The Courtship of Elder Cannon is a short literary novel about a recently widowed member of the Seventy and a University of Utah literature professor who are set up on a blind date in 2009 in the wake of scrutiny over the Church’s involvement in California’s Proposition 8. The novel explores how Mormon conceptions of grief, eternal marriage, and personal revelation impact Elder Cannon’s relationships with the woman he courts, his family, her family, and his identity as a husband, father, and church leader.
The Courtship of Elder Cannon is a project that took a while to come together. I first tried to write it in 2007 or 2008. Then I re-envisioned it on a plane to Denver (on my way to visit Utah) in 2011. Shortly after that trip, I wrote a couple of scenes, character list, and full outline, and then ignored it until reviving it in a different form in 2020.
What kept me from completing it was finding the right structure. In its initial form it was written in tight third person like a standard, contemporary literary novel. This was fine, but couldn’t easily bring in as many discourse styles as I wanted to deploy without bogging down. Then it was just going to be a series of journal entries. This was closer, but also too limiting, as I wanted more dialogue and interior thought than what would believably be recorded in a journal. The final form it took was a rotation of chapters featuring dialogue (with very little description), journal entries, internal monologues, scriptural commentaries, email/text conversations, and talks/training sessions. Each of the entries that involve interaction with other people contains a record of what Elder Cannon is wearing. Each of the journal entries begins with the music he is listening to and what he is drinking while he writes.
I outlined the main story beats early on, which was made not necessarily easy but fairly straightforward by the fact that it is a courtship narrative.
With the various components, I brainstormed ideas—whether that was the topic of a journal entry or an internal monologue or who is involved in a conversation or a tie pattern or a CD Elder Cannon might listen to—as I went, always working a few sections ahead so I knew where I was going, but rarely coming up with something too far ahead because I needed the various chapter styles to rotate in a way that wasn’t rigid but wasn’t too heavily dominated by one style. Having the variety of potential components helped more than it hindered because ideas could generate off of each other. What he decides to drink while writing a particular journal entry could affect what the topic of it would be, or the mood of the entry could affect what he drinks or listens to, and so on. A conversation he had previously could impact what he writes or monologues to himself in a later chapter, etc.
Coming up with a process that was so contained and strict and yet modular, made it a lot of fun to write—not quite easy, but it developed a certain momentum that doesn’t always happen for me. As I got towards the end, I occasionally had to go back and change the order of (or even delete) chapters that didn’t quite fit the flow, but overall the chapters would spring from (or over) each other.
Most of it was written in one- to two-hour sessions on Saturday mornings. The first draft was written from November 2020 to June 2021 and came in at 49,162 words. During the time I was writing it, I submitted it and it was accepted as part of the Mormon Lit Lab’s book mentoring project. I revised it October 29–30, 2022, and it ended up at 49,761 words. I still need to do one more pass on it, and then I hope to publish it in late 2024 or early 2025. I’ll publish it myself (via A Motley Vision) unless someone out there wants to make me on offer on it.
I hope it will find a broad Mormon readership. Yes, it’s about a General Authority, and, yes, it’s a courtship narrative, but I hope it does that thing that I often aim at, where it’s funny and thought-provoking, sentimental and satirical, sympathetic and critical, light and also heavy, playing with literary discourse and also easy to read—a page turner that also has layers that can continue to unfold in memory and with rereading. 🕮