Barber (How I Got Cultured), a lyrical writer who taught for many years

in the Vermont College of Fine Arts M.F.A. program, followed the rules
of her Latter-day Saint childhood: attended Sunday School,
matriculated at Brigham Young, married a nice boy there, and raised
four sons with him. But the marriage ends when the kids are grown,
largely because of differing opinions about religion. Thus Barber, in
middle age, is launched on a quest to discover what it means to be
spiritual, to be connected. She visits a mosque, hangs out with a
Peruvian shaman, and investigates Buddhism, but after a decade away
from the LDS church, she discovers that she is held to Mormonism by
memory, by faith, by childhood formation, and concludes that she can
live with Mormonisms flaws and prejudices. Along the way she has
a disastrous love affair, remarries, divorces again, and then reconciles
with her second husband, a Jewish man who tells her she is happier
when attending Mormon services. Throughout, the prose is lovely;
Barber speaks of falling off the precipice of knowing and of her faith
changing shape like a moon. Spiritual pilgrims of many stripes will find
this book good company. (July)
Reviewed on: 05/12/2014
Release date: 07/01/2014
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To the Mountain: One Mormon Womans Search for
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Phyllis Barber. Quest Books, $18.95 trade paper (312p) ISBN 978-0-8356-0924-1
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