Utah Lit for November: ‘The Lost Book of Mormon’

Writer Avi Steinberg calls himself a "fascinated nonbeliever" in The Book of Mormon. He was an Ohio-bred former Orthodox Jew living in Jerusalem, the city where he was born, procrastinating the completion of his first book when he realized Joseph Smith was once a guy like him with a stack of manuscript pages sitting on a dining room table.

That let to an obsessive hunt to find a copy of The Book of Mormon, but in the very city that birthed Nephi, Steinberg writes in "The Lost Book of Mormon," a copy of the book itself is absent. That set Steinberg off on a bigger literary pilgrimage through the jungles of the Land of Zarahelma. And then he went on to lie his way into the drama of the Hill Cumorah Pageant, before visiting the Midwestern land that Mormons consider the Garden of Eden.

Along the way, Steinberg comically and earnestly ponders his relationship to the book, which he considers a story about storytelling. It "can be read as a story within a story: the ancient saga of the Nephite people framed by the modern drama of Joseph becoming that saga's author and proprietor," he writes. "I read those two narratives ­— Joseph's and the Nephites' — as one interlinked story, which together form a modern American novel."

In the way the book underscores the power of story, Steinberg considers it part of the American literary tradition, deserving of more attention. "To be fan of The Book of Mormon is to walk a lonesome road," Steinberg writes. "You have almost no one to talk to. None of your friends have read the book. None have had it assigned in school. There are many people who don't realize, or have forgotten, that it is in fact a book, not just a hit musical. It isn't merely socially acceptable to mock and dismiss it, it's a prequisite for being taken seriously. When the mood to talk about the book strikes you, you end up chatting with missionaries, which is satisfying for a while, until it becomes panic-inducing. Out of necessity, then, you end up describing the book to people who haven't read it."

Steinberg's book, published in October by Doubleday's Nan A. Talese imprint, will be the focus on the Tribune's November Utah Lit book club conversation at 12:15 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 21 at sltrib.com. Read our interview with Steinberg in the paper and on the website on Sunday, Nov. 16. You can join the conversation by sending email to ellenf@sltrib.com or jnpearce@sltrib.com. Or text 801-609-8059 or send Tweets to #TribTalk.

On SFGate.com, reviewer Peter Manseau calls the book "amiable," saying another writer might have used the opportunity for a debunking mission. "Steinberg, though, is less interested in whether or not stories are true than in why they move us and where they can be found," Manseau writes.

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Utah Lit: November

Join The Salt Lake Tribune in talking about Avi Steinberg's nonfiction book-length comic and earnest exploration of "The Lost Book of Mormon: A journey through the mythic lands of Nephi, Zarahemla, and Kansas City, Missouri."

When • Friday, Nov. 21, 12:15 p.m.

Join us • Send comments or questions to ellenf@sltrib.com or jnpearce@sltrib.com; text 801-609-8059; or use the Twitter hashtag #TribTalk.