Looking back, author marks progress
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Having commenced his now-famous series of historical novels, The Work and the Glory, in 1990, Gerald N. Lund has reached the 15-year milepost and, like the Mormon pioneers whose lives he chronicled, can look back, mark his progress and celebrate his achievements.
Elder Lund, of course, is now a member of the Second Quorum of the Seventy, stationed in Solihull, England, where he helps oversee the work of the Church in the Europe West Area. In Salt Lake City for general conference earlier this month, he took some time for a Church News interview about the immensely successful series which, he acknowledges, seems to have taken on a life of its own.
As millions of readers know, the nine-volume series follows the life of the fictional Steed family who join the Church at various stages beginning with its infancy in Palmyra, N.Y., endure the Missouri persecutions, suffer with the Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, Ill., through the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and cross the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. Through this panorama, they experience well-known and lesser-known events in Church history and interact with some prominent figures.
Through exposure to the successive volumes, Church members and friends of other faiths have become acquainted with Church history in a way that might not have occurred otherwise.
"Obviously, the primary market is the Latter-day Saints, but we've had quite a few people tell us that it's a non-threatening way to introduce their friends, relatives or their associates in business to the Church," Elder Lund reflected.
He said he has not kept a formal record, but at one point he began to keep an unofficial count when readers would share stories with him about people who were introduced to the Church through his books. "We're up over a hundred baptisms, now, that we know about," he said.
His favorite story happened in Oregon. Two Latter-day Saint families agreed to cooperate on their purchases of volumes I and II, each acquiring one of the volumes and then trading when they were finished. One of the families befriended their next-door neighbors, members of another faith, by bringing them treats periodically. After finishing Volume II, the family sent it back to the other family via their 6-year-old son. "And he missed it by one house and put it on the doorstep of this neighbor, who, when he saw it, just assumed it was another gesture on the part of his neighbors," Elder Lund recounted. The neighbor reportedly said, "I couldn't figure out why they would start us out with Volume II of something."
But the neighbor decided to read it, and when he was finished, returned it to the home from whence it came. The mystery of what had happened to the volume was thus solved, and the LDS family then took Volume I to the neighbor. "He eventually read them all, and I got to meet him just before he went for a sealing in the temple," Elder Lund recalled.
Other rewarding experiences involve those who never did join the Church, he said. "In an autograph signing over at the (ZCMI Center) mall here, I was seated at the table, just signing books, and a lady came up to me," he recalled. "She evidently looked at the sign that said 'Gerald N. Lund.' So she just came over and slapped the table, and she said, 'Love your books. Read every one of them. Not a Mormon. Never will be. But now I understand why you believe what you believe. Thanks.' Whoosh! She's gone.
"And that was one of the things we had in mind to say to people: This is our heritage, this is what it means to us, and we think you can better understand us if you understand that heritage."
The message is not wasted on Latter-day Saint readers. In Europe, where Elder Lund is now fulfilling his ecclesiastical assignment, Church members occasionally tell him it has meant a great deal to them to begin to sense through his books the heritage of the Church and to understand it is their heritage, even though they do not have Mormon pioneer ancestors.
Did he have any sense in the beginning the project would become what it has?
"No," he said. "Every writer hopes to be a success, but that it has taken off in the hearts of people like it did" was something unanticipated. "One of the things I often remind people of when they tell me the influence it's had and how much it means to them is that I'm only the storyteller. The story is what gives the whole series its power, to know that this is how God worked His work, that these were real people who went through these terrible sacrifices and demonstrated such incredible faith. If I had created the story out of whole cloth, I'd be really proud. But the story of the Restoration has all of the elements of a great drama."
As such, the series seems to have its own "legs," as a writer might put it, independent of its creator. When he and his benefactor, Kenneth Ingalls Moe, first discussed it, they envisioned one large volume, never dreaming the project would have so much life. "For example," Elder Lund said, "before I wrote Volume IV, I had decided to cover the Missouri persecutions in about three chapters. I felt it was such a dark, terrible time in our history that the readers would not want to dwell on it." As he got into it, however, it seemed so tragic yet inspiring that it developed into a volume in and of itself."
"Characters have done the same thing," he noted. "Originally, Jessica, who is Joshua's first wife, was this little character I was going to move in on the stage for just a moment and then just write her out of the book. It was like she said, 'Oh no, I'm in this family now; you can't write me out.' She took on a life of her own and became a real person."
The project itself has been made into a theatrical motion picture, which is enjoying success now in its own right and will soon be available on DVD. "It really has reached a different audience in some ways, or reached the same audiences in a different way," Elder Lund reflected.
E-mail to: rscott@desnews.com
