Mormon environmentalist conveys ecological message through fiction
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As a professor of interdisciplinary humanities at Mormonism’s flagship school, Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, Handley has long penned nonfiction that has addressed the impact that human beings are having on the planet. But now he’s channeling his creative energies in a new direction, through fiction. His debut novel American Fork has just been released from indy press Roundfire Books.
Set in 2001, American Fork tells the story of a reclusive botanist, Zacharias Harker, who enlists the help of a young artist, Alba, in chronicling the damage climate change is wreaking in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains.
“Alba is someone, as an artist, who is just discovering her love of the natural environment,” says Handley. “And Mr. Harker has a deep connection to the natural world that’s not a function of an academic or political interest, but something deeper. He’s wrestling with deep existential questions that emerge from the suffering he’s had in his own life, which unfolds as the novel moves forward.”
Alba’s interest in the environment is strongly influenced by her Mormon faith, which is also true of the author, who says his approach is “strongly influenced by literature and art and spirituality. I certainly am interested in the politics surrounding environmentalism, but I tend to think of those issues as less of an activist and more of a humanist and a believing Mormon.”
Not all Mormons would agree. In the Next Mormons Survey, a nationally representative sample of Latter-day Saints conducted in 2016, only 41% of Mormons agreed with a statement that “the earth’s climate is getting warmer because of human activity.”
The results were even lower among Mormons in Utah, the setting of Handley’s novel: just over a third of Utah Latter-day Saints say the climate is changing because of human activity. more at: https://religionnews.com/2018/04/30/mormon-environmentalist-conveys-ecological-message-through-fiction/
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