Taken from an article in the Deseret News.
By Dennis Lythgoe
Deseret News book editor
Acknowledged as one of Utah's most profound novelists, most would find it hard to imagine that Levi Peterson's first ambition as a Brigham Young University student was to become a forest ranger.
But a summer of trying it out cured him.
Now, at the vintage age of 66, after 35 years as a professor of English at Weber State University, Peterson has retired from full-time teaching, and he and his wife, Althea, have moved from Ogden to Issaquah, Washington, 15 miles east of Seattle, to be near their daughter, her husband and their grandchildren.
In a sit-down interview with the Deseret News, Peterson spoke of his increasing motivation to write, even though he didn't really concentrate on fiction until he was 42 years old.
An Arizona native, Peterson graduated from BYU with a degree in English and served an LDS mission to France. Then, after he had conquered his insecurity, he went on for his doctorate at the University of Utah.
He began writing fiction in the mid-'70s, and in 1982, his first book, a collection of short stories titled "The Canyons of Grace," was well-received by critics.
In 1983, he compiled and edited another group of stories by 15 LDS authors, including his own work, "Greening Wheat." Then, in 1986, he finished his most renowned work, "The Backslider," the story of Frank Windham, an LDS sinner coming to grips with the atonement of Christ. This book established Peterson as a permanent presence in the Mormon literary community.
He diverted from fiction to history in 1988 to write a prize-winning biography of prominent Western historian Juanita Brooks. In 1990, he published another collection of short stories, "Nightsoil," and in 1995, a novel titled "Aspen Mulrooney," about a quiet, conflicted woman who confronts a 40-year-old secret.
The consistent theme of his writing, says Peterson, has been "Mormons and their friends in sin and turmoil. Some people say that's because I'm perverse. That may be true, but basically, if you're a fiction writer, sin and turmoil present the conflict -- and you can't write fiction without conflict."
Some of the conflict has been within his own family.
"After the publication of 'The Canyons of Grace,' the reaction from my family," says Peterson, "was alarm. I have letters from two brothers and a sister saying they wanted to keep my 91-year-old mother from getting a copy. My mother wrote me from Mesa and wanted one, so I sent it to her, even though I told her that it might offend her."
His sister told him that she intended to intercept the book when it came to their mother's mailbox -- and she did. Although Peterson didn't mind, his mother kept asking to read it. Finally, in the spring of 1985, shortly before she died, she cornered her son and obtained a copy of the book. Peterson says, "A miracle occurred. The only story in the collection she chose to read was the one about the Christianizing of Coburn Heights."
She picked the least controversial story in the book, she liked it and she never picked up the book again.
The rest of the family, however, continued to worry. "The gist of what they thought was, 'How do we reconcile the honorable, cheerful, Christian man we know you to be with the man who conceived and wrote these stories?' I couldn't say much in self-defense, except there is a certain graphic quality on sexual matters and spiritual turmoil, but compared to the rest of contemporary fiction, mine was pretty restrained."
Peterson has had many positive reactions from active LDS readers, especially about "The Backslider."
"I was stunned to realize that people who were very trouble in their religion were suddenly feeling very confirmed as Mormons because of that book. I've heard that over and over. I don't know why."
That's why Peterson likes to thinks of himself as "a builder of Mormonism." He considers himself "thoroughly Mormon and not ready to be put out by anybody."