One of the frequent laments about Mormon literature is that so much of the Mormon experience is tied to spiritual experience, which is very difficult to describe in prose. Mormon authors facing that problem could learn a trick or two from Stephen King.<\/p>\n
Quick, name a book from a non-religious, mainstream publisher that includes literal and miraculous answers to a child\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prayers. Well, there’s…Desperation<\/em>, by Stephen King (Viking, 1996). The scenes of supplication and revelation are believable in the context of the book, handled with dignity, and are integral to the plot. King himself has observed that horror is the only fiction genre that admits the possibility of supernatural interference in the mundane world, rather than projecting the miraculous onto technological utopias or ahistorical fantasies. Horror is perhaps the only genre that regularly sets aside the quaintly modern notion that human weakness is the ultimate source of all evil, and the only genre with a toolset prepared to address everyday people and their uncommon gods and demons. <\/p>\n In some important ways, Mormon readers are prepared to read horror, if not by that name and without the black dust jacket. Mormonism, like the horror genre, rests on the thinness of the veil between natural and supernatural, between living and dead. In our active belief, Mormons suspend disbelief in ways that might make us receptive readers of horror fiction. Martians and elves are no more real for us than the tooth fairy, but some of our grandest architectural works and most important spiritual experiences come in the service of what might be called, with little exaggeration and less disrespect, ghosts. Temple worship is not supposed to be about names on a slip of paper, but about real people who once lived, about people who notice what we’re doing, about people who are one day coming back.<\/p>\n