Difference between revisions of "Vardis Fisher"
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Revision as of 19:49, 12 September 2020
Vardis Fisher was a writer once identified by Latter-day Saint historians Leonard Arrington and Davis Bitton as “perhaps the most important writer of Mormon background” in the history of American letters. Although his family foundation and upbringing was in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Fisher could not be categorized as a Latter-day Saint writer. As Michael Austin wrote,
- Fisher’s books became more and more obscure, and the books that he was most famous for (Mountain Man, City of Illusion) were not the books that once formed the basis of his critical reputation. And his widow, Opel Laurel Holmes, so vehemently objected to Arrington and Bitton’s characterization of Fisher as a “Mormon writer,” that she wrote a letter to then LDS-church president Spencer W. Kimball demanding that he direct the scholars to retract the libel.
- Perhaps the great irony of Fisher’s literary afterlife, then, is that Mormon scholars are just about the only people still paying attention to him. And if there is ever a revival of scholarly interest in Vardis Fisher, it will be the Mormons who bring it about—not because he was Mormon in any kind of religious sense, but because he was a major Western writer who grappled with his Mormon heritage in much of his published work. As I once wrote in another context, “Vardis Fisher was a religious unbeliever; of this there can be little doubt. But Mormonism was the religion that he didn’t believe in.”[1]
Fisher was born on March 31, 1895, in Annis, Idaho, and grew up in rural Idaho. Austin wrote in Mormons and Popular Culture, Mormon that Fisher was raised by "strict Mormon parents," though the remoteness of the Fisher home prevented any contact with a Mormon community. He was baptized at the age of 19, but soon rejected all religion. He studied at the University of Utah and the University of Chicago. He held a PhD from the University of Chicago and graduated magna dum laude. He taught at the University of Utah until he accepted a position at Washington Square College of New York. He taught for two summers at the University of Montana. He worked with the Federal Writer’s Project, part of the Works Progress Administration, and wrote most of The Idaho Guide.
Fisher married three times and fathered three sons. He died in Hagerman, Idaho, on July 9, 1968.
He wrote thirty-seven books and various short stories and newspaper articles. His novel, Mountain Man, was among his bestsellers and was made into the movie Jeremiah Johnson by Robert Redford and Sydney Pollack. His book Children of God portrayed Joseph Smith]] and Brigham Young in a way that, according to Austin, managed to “offend both Mormons and anti-Mormons.” Terryl Givens called the book an “immense success’’ and sees Fisher as presenting Joseph Smith as a simple but likable man, and Brigham Young as “pragmatic and decisive”; a successful portrayal of the way adversity solidified bonds between early Saints.[2]
