LDS authors receive awards for Smith and McKay biographies
Richard Bushman, author of “Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling” said believing LDS members had a lot of difficulty talking honesty about the founder of their faith.
Bushman was presented with the $10,000 Evans Biography award Friday in the Eccles Conference Center before a group of Evans’ family members and students. Receiving $1,000 Handcart Awards were Gregory Prince and William Robert Wright, authors of “David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism.”
Bushman said his book had been in the works since he was in graduate school.
“I was in a ward with business and law majors,” Bushman said, “but I was attracted to history. I always had to explain myself and the value of history.”
The book began in the mid-1990s when a member of the Brigham Young University faculty wanted a new biography of Joseph Smith, Bushman said, and approached him with the idea.
Bushman said he felt current writings had not done justice to Joseph Smith’s religious thought and his religion. After working solidly on the book for seven years, “Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling” was published in 2005.
He said reviews began coming quickly after publication and many members of the LDS church had a hard time accepting the book.
“The problem was a problem of audience-strong passions on both sides. How do you write to be received by both?” Bushman asked.
The original draft of the book was not concerned with LDS readers at all, but Bushman, a believing Mormon, said he revised it because he said he felt excluded and made to feel incompetent.
“I didn’t want to err on the other side,” Bushman said. “That was hard-keeping all these people in view.”
During the Handcart Awards part of the ceremony, Rob Wright, son of one of the authors, said through memory people create a strong cultural story.
The book on David O. McKay was based in large part on the notes of his secretary Claire, who donated them to the author William Robert Wright. The documents were then donated to the University of Utah library.
-dilewis@cc.usu.edu