Irreantum presents our first special, non-numbered issue offered exclusively as a standalone book in both electronic and print formats. The ebook is currently available on Apple Books, Baker & Taylor, Barnes and Noble, Borrow Box, cloudLibrary, Fable, Gardners, Libby, Odilo, OverDrive, Palace Marketplace, Rabuten Kobo, Smashwords, Thalia, and Vivlio. Options for Amazon Kindle and Hoopla will arrive soon. The print version is not quite live yet, but will be soon. (If this delay makes you sad, keep in mind that the ebook costs only $3.21 yet delivers $1.91 to Irreantum, 90% of which will be delivered to the authors. The print version costs $13.20 and brings us only $1.26 to share.)
Eternities of Cats consists of two novellas and a play. The play is Melissa Leilani Larson’s AML Award–winning Pilot Program about a professional couple called upon by Salt Lake to pilot a reintroduction of polygamy. Filled with Larson’s signature awkward pauses and deep emotions, this is not a work that has already haunted a generation of readers and playgoers. Michael Fillerup’s The Year They Gave Women the Priesthood, part of his AML Award–winning collection of the same name, gender swaps the polygamy thought experiment. Andrew Hall describes it as “so very chilling” to the male reader which, frankly, it’s the male reader’s turn. The final piece of this collection is Jenny Rebecca Rytting’s Sister Wives, which takes on this same topic from a new angle, ultimately prioritizing these new and strange relationships in a new order. Irreantum is proud to showcase her work alongside two classics. We’re sure you’ll agree is belongs in this lofty company.
We’d be amiss not to point out that those who help us pay all our writers in our regular issues via Irreantum‘s Patreon have already received the ebook of Eternities of Cats as a bonus to their subscription. You can buy the ebook directly there or subscribe yourself today. (You can also gift a membership to any deserving party!)
I won’t explain the title here (that is, I believe, worth $3.21 all on its own), but here is the introduction by Theric Jepson:
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I asked a friend of mine, the classicist who helped me spell its alternate title, to read The Prophetess of Mars –or– the Modern Prometheia prior to its publication. He told me that about ten pages in he almost set it down in anger, certain it was about to become another polygamy story. I was startled to hear this, but as I thought about it, I realized that he was right—even though no one marries anyone else’s spouse in that novella, it’s still (kind of) a polygamy story.
That’s how deeply Latter-day Saints are haunted by our polygamous legacy. We write polygamy stories even when we don’t know were writing polygamy stories.
Writer and nonwriter alike has to grapple with this aspect of our past, eventually, but we don’t all land on the same conclusions. Some people are certain it is the higher law and we will live it yet again. Some people believe it never actually happened save for maybe a few weird friends of Brigham Young’s. Some people believe it was a sinful misappropriation of prophetic power. Some people believe we’ll live it in heaven. Others say that would be no heaven at all.
Me, I don’t agree with my own opinions of years past. And, presumably, future me will have his own thoughts. But even if I think I’m ignoring the topic, I’ll still be grappling with polygamy.
In one of my favorite literary anecdotes, Isaac Bashevis Singer visited a Midwestern university and was asked by a precocious undergrad, What, dear sir, is the purpose of literature? Singer knew the answer and spoke it with confidence: The purpose of literature, he said, is to entertain and instruct. The assembled scholars continued to ask and re-ask the question, but Singer refused to dive into theory or any other such nonsense. The purpose of literature? To entertain. And to instruct. In that order. (See Richard Russo’s introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2010 for his memory of this conversation.)
This is what great fiction writers give us.
First, fabulous entertainments. The two novellas and one play in this volume will delight you. You’ll gasp, you’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, you’ll sigh. But each of these modern tales of reinstituted polygamy will stick with you long after you read their final words (respectively: t-shirt, play, both). You want grappling? They’ll give you grappling. But you’ll be having so much fun you won’t realize how much exercise you’re getting until you arise sore the next day.
I’m not sorry.
And neither will you be.
Thus, and without further ado, Eternities of Cats:
[at this point, you would turn the page and have the title explained to you]