Greening Wheat: Fifteen Mormon Short Stories ed. by Levi S. Peterson (review)

366 Western American Literature “History and Literary Criticism” appears in this division as well. Under “Juveniles,” on the other hand, a representative but lengthy bibliography of juvenile fiction titles is compiled. Listings of the works of more than 500 individual authors in Part III offsets this inconsistency. Included in each list are identification of genres each author has produced, titles of their works in chronological order, and works about the author. Each individual author’s bibliography identifies the compiler of the list as well. Scanning this final section, one who has already made an acquaintance with authors of southwestern American literature will find some of the better writers missing. For example, Texas novelists Elmer Kelton and Elithe Hamilton Kirkland and gifted short story writer Mary Gray Hughes, all of whom had produced works of note at the time entries in this bibliography were collected, do not appear in its listings. Part III, neverthe­ less, does live up to the editors’claim that it “presents the most comprehensive listing to date” of southwestern writers and their works. Particularly helpful to all scholars of southwestern regional literature are such sections as Ernestine Sewell’s lengthy compilation of books and articles by and about the French in the Southwest and an excellent list of early-day magazines and newspapers categorized by state, including a bibliographical guide to other checklists of periodicals and newspapers in each state. If supplemented by Mabel Major’s and T. M. Pearce’s classic literary history, Southwest Heritage (1972), this volume deserves prominent shelf space in the scholar’s reference library. LOU RODENBERGER McMurry College Greening Wheat: Fifteen Mormon Short Stories. Edited by Levi S. Peterson. (Midvale, Utah: Orion Books, 1983. 205 pages, $5.95.) Editor Levi S. Peterson, who is himself gaining a literary reputation out­ side of Mormondom, has selected stories for the most part written by Mormon writers who are not widely known outside the faith. The anthology is not, however, a collection of amateurish stories by timid first-time authors. Wayne Carver, Bruce W. Jorgensen, Karen Rosenbaum, Linda Sillitoe and the others represented are serious, and for the most part, published writers. Peterson has achieved a rare trait in anthologies: balance. The stories of faith and stories of doubt, stories by men and stories by women, stories of anger and stories of laughter, can all be enjoyed by Mormon and non-Mormon alike. They all ring true to experience; even the inspirational ones are not the trite, heavy-handed stories one reads in official Mormon church publications. The emphasis of this collection is not the Mormon religion. It is the struggle of intelligent individuals to achieve harmony and a sense of moral integrity in an environment that all too often opposes such goals.. CHARLOTTE MEGAN WRIGHT Utah State University ...