Review
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Title: Wasatch: Mormon Stories and a Novella
Author: Douglas Thayer
Publisher: Zarahemla Books(http://zarahemlabooks.com/)
Genre: Fiction
Year Published: 2012
Number of Pages: 235
Binding: Trade Paperback
ISBN 978-0-9843603-4-5
Price: $15.95

Reviewed by Reed Russell for the Association for Mormon Letters

No stranger to fans of Mormon fiction, Douglas Thayer, now in his 83rd year, has long taught English at Brigham Young University where he has also been Director of Creative Writing, Associate Chair in the English Department and Associate Dean of the College of Humanities. He is the author of the novels "Summer Fire" and "The Conversion of Jeff Williams" and two collections of short stories, "Mr. Wahlquist in Yellowstone" and the much loved "Under the Cottonwoods and Other Mormon Stories." Thayer has been published in Colorado Quarterly, Dialogue, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.

This new collection, "Wasatch," features 12 stories which highlight some of his very best work. The book features many stories which have never before appeared in print. Five of the stories previously appeared in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought. "Wasatch" includes the masterful "The Locker Room" and the classic "The Red-Tailed Hawk."

Thayer, whose early experience of growing up in the outdoors of Provo when the population was only 16,000 and as a Park Ranger in Yellowstone helped develop the backdrop for many of the stories - the wild solitudes of Utah where boys become men. In this rustic environment, Thayer is allowed to skillfully develop the themes of life’s challenges, courage, faith, doubt, atonement and redemption.

In the powerful novella, "Dolf," the setting is the Old West – filled with Indians, trappers, scalps, vengeance and blood. Two colorful New Englanders come out to the Rocky Mountains to experience the Wild West and find far more than they bargained for.

The unique voice of Douglas Thayer in this wonderful new collection is LDS literary fiction at its very best.