A Little Lower than the Angels

by Virginia Sorensen

When A Little Lower than the Angels appeared in 1942, its author and recent Brigham Young University graduate Virginia Sorensen was overwhelmed by the positive national attention. Clifton Fadiman, writing for The New Yorker, noted how “convincingly [she] explores . . . the tragic, comic, and grotesque problems of plural marriage.”

Set in Nauvoo, Illinois, she tells the story of a single family, a woman and her Mormon husband, loosely based on her in-laws’ family history from the period and augmented by on-site research. The novel preceded the first scholarly treatment of Nauvoo by three years.

As an outsider, Sorensen’s protagonist is puzzled by the city’s mysteries. Gradually, however, she discovers that a neighbor’s obsession with the LDS prophet is due to her polygamous marriage to him. Even so, Mercy Baker cannot foresee the complications that her own baptism will bring.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Religion, Lds, Mormonism

Paperback

First published January 1, 1942

About the author

Virginia Louise Sorensen (February 17, 1912-1991) was an American writer. Her role in Utah and Mormon literature places her within the "lost generation" of Mormon writers. She was awarded the 1957 Newbery Medal for her children's novel, Miracles on Maple Hill.

Sorensen was born in Provo, Utah in 1912, and it was her family's own stories that influenced her early novels of the American West.

Reviews

[Andrew Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic novel about a Mormon family in Nauvoo, published in 1942. Sorensen excels at empathetically bringing her characters to life.
The main story is about Mercy Baker and her family, and how she is nearly destroyed by the introduction of polygamy. Mercy's love of her family and home, and then her mental and physical decline when she finds out her husband has married again, is achingly tragic.
But the novel is also populated with a great number of fascinating characters. I loved all of the little side stories, especially featuring her children. Menzo and the canoe, Becky and the kittens, Jarvis and Vic, etc.
This novel published right after The Giant Joshua, what a great one-two punch of Mormon literature.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading and studying a lot of LDS Church History lately, especially concerning polygamy, and I appreciated this novel so much as I feel it is a realistic portrayal of the difficulties of the years in which church members worked to build Nauvoo and then were forced to leave it. While there is no doubt in my mind that the saints were endeavoring with their full hearts to do what they felt God was asking them to do, I can't help but see the humanness of the experience, and that is what Virginia Sorenson presents here. If you are looking for a 100 % positive, "all is well" portrayal of church history, you will not find it here. But if you are willing to allow for some nuance in the experience, then this is a fulfilling read.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really important Mormon read for those unafraid of polygamy debates. I was worried that the tone would be too anti, since the publishing of the novel stirred up up a bit of a controversy in Utah (back in the 60s? I think?).

My experience ended up being more spiritual and open than I expected. While Virginia's depictions of Joseph Smith, Eliza Snow, and Brigham Young made me nervous and scared a bit (she really humanizes them, which I haven't made up my mind yet about whether that is a realistic or a dangerous exercise), but I fell in love with the main character and her two oldest sons.

There is a bitter honesty and hope in this novel and I think Sorensen is fair about her approaches with Nauvoo polygamy. She gives face to all the positive reasons for multiple wives and gives us a genuine, real woman who braves her way through what easily could be interpreted as secrecy and betrayal, and impressivly maintains a faith and spirituality in nature and family. While I won't be quoting from this novel in testimony meeting, I feel like I was edified by the sincere conversation this novel elicits, and the love and peace apparent in the stitchings of the sons devotion to their mother and Mercy's frequent yet subtle recognitions of miracles, despite her borderline skepticism and fear of herd poisoning.

In other words, this book made me feel more comfortable talking about polygamy. I don't understand all of it, but I feel happy that Sorensen approached it with open eyes and made something beautiful with her characters and their real, human, wanting-to-be-good hearts. I would say, only read this book if you know your testimony is strong enough for a wind blast. It'll surprise you how careful Sorensen was, despite the controversies of the past that associated Sorensen with other "lost generation" Mormon authors.

[Danielle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sorensen is such a gifted author, and it makes me a little sad that she is not more widely recognized and read. Her greatest talent, I think, is the way she captures small, beautiful details in each scene. I love the way she portrays 19th century domesticity while grappling with the problems and tensions regarding the secret practice of polygamy inherent in the Nauvoo period in church history.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprised that it took me this long in my life to discover this book. A good companion in the corpus of Mormon literature to Whipple's The Giant Joshua

Impressive to me was the depth of this book's characters, considering that it is Sorensen's first novel and written when she was relatively young. She had a strong grasp of Nauvoo history, with details that I didn't think were widely known in the 1940s. I'd like to know more about her research methods.

[Helynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Virginia Sorensen's 1943 novelA Little Lower than the Angels is a colorful, straightforward look at the Mormon experience during the four to five years in Nauvoo, Illinois, before the Mormons' exodus West. The better part of the novel deals with the Nauvoo wives' reactions to and personal difficulties over the new institution of polygamy, which is thrust upon them first by the Prophet Joseph Smith, then even more forcefully by his successor Brigham Young. Although the narration is shared from the point of view of numerous characters, fictional and non-fictional, male and female, including Joseph Smith, the most touching and passionate narrative views are from the women characters, notably Mercy Baker, a first wife who adjusts unsuccessfully to polygamy, and the poetess Eliza R. Snow, one of numerous polygamous wives of Joseph Smith, who tries to understand the new institution, but cannot help wishing she could have her husband all to herself. When Smith first tells Eliza of his plan to make her one among several wives, she is elated, but has difficulty explaining the big picture to Mercy. "'I wish I could tell you just the way he told it to me. The most beautiful --' She spoke with unsteady lips and a shaking chin" (104). Eliza fumbles to recreate Joseph's exalted explanation for a higher (polygamous) order. "He tells you how it is and you see it differently, you forget about this world, and all you think about is the spiritual thing--about heaven"" (107). Mercy, however, can only see the worldly (the male) aspects of polygamy. "' You give me an idea like that and they'll all start looking around'" (106). As polygamy takes an increasingly strong hold on the commuunity, male efforts to justify the practice and the difficulties that inevitably surround it are intensified. Trauma and tragedy result for the women. Sorenson is to be commended for her courage in depicting a bizarre aspect of Mormon history that too often is either swept under the rug or weakly defended in a age when such an idea is ridiculously indefensible.

[Callie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess you'd call this historical fiction (which isn't normally my favorite genre) since it deals with the Latter Day Saints during the Nauvoo period. There is a little love story between Joseph Smith and Eliza R Snow. There's another story about polygamy too. Mercy and Simon are married for many years, Mercy gets sick and Simon marries Charlot without even asking Mercy! This is all going on against the backdrop of broader happenings in Nauvoo itself. What I love about Ms. Sorensen is that she mixes it up. There are characters who are skeptics when it comes to religion, the prophet, and his motives, and then there are the true believers plus several characters who find themselves somewhere in between. She also includes children's points of view.
I'm just happy I have found one Mormon in the world who can write good fiction.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good historical novel about Nauvoo period. It was written in 1942 before Fawn Brodie's biography so it had no chance of being published in Utah at that time. If it had come out after Brodie's book it would have seemed very tame in comparison.

Quite poetic with good insights of what polygamy might have been like as well as good thought on Indian displacement and other matters.

I would recommend it. I plan on reading more of her books.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the fifth Virginia Sorensen novel I've read and the only one I have thought was just OK. My grandfather on my father's side was a polygamist with 3 wives, my grandmother being the second. To be sure there were some tensions as a consequence of Grandpa George's taking a second and third wife, but the manner in which it was carried out was much more sensible than that portrayed in this novel. Grandpa's first wife was consulted and her permission received before he took my future grandmother as his second wife and his first wife's sister as his third wife. I know there were instances in polygamy where a second wife was taken without the knowledge of the first wife, but those cases were mistakes that more often than not led to serious consequences as in Simon's case. In most instances (not all) where the first wife was consulted and agreed to the arrangement, the wives were more able to live as sisters rather than enemies. However my personal opinion is that the abandonment of polygamy was an exceedingly good thing. I've been married to one good woman for over 50 years and wouldn't want it any other way.

[Natalie Cardon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her writing is the most beautiful narrative prose I have ever read. I could almost close my eyes and pick any random paragraph on any page and you would be like “Wow. That sounds like a poem.” I thought the story was perfect. The history it’s based on merits all the drama and anguish. It is really heart-wrenching and difficult. Much more accurate than the Work and the Glory garbage.

[Jacob Dayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A profoundly important and somehow forgotten piece of Mormon literature. Although the plot flags a little towards the back third, Sorensen’s masterful prose and sympathetic characters provide an important literary exploration into the world of early Mormon polygamy.

[Bri Zabriskie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very well written. This book has its place among Mormon literature, but I was deeply distressed by quite a few factors in it. You becomes so wrapped up in the characters that you forget how very human they are. The book is more about the failings of people than the failings of the practice of polygamy in the early church, but because you're so attached to those people, you could easily be trapped into thinking that it was the fault of the practice that so many things went wrong.

I'm not endorsing polygamy here, though I certainly believe that at the time, it was what God wanted for his people, and He revoked that practice when it was no longer what He wanted. I liked being able to explore polygamy from a fictional point of view, but I feel that, like most novels that address this issue, the book was very one-sided, portraying negative examples. It would have been refreshing to see the contrast of a positive example, but perhaps that was beyond the scope or objective of the author.

Has anyone read anything that does portray polygamy in the early church as a positive thing? I honestly think it would make for a much more fascinating read, especially if it was an original document, like someone's journal. Yes, I realize accepting the practice would've taken a majorly difficult change of heart for most women (and would definitely be the same for myself), but I'd like to read something that helps you understand more fully why the Lord would've put something like that in place and how someone could come to accept something that flies so hard in the face of our monogamous beliefs about marriage.

This book is not for light-hearted reading and definitely takes a clear-sighted understanding of its fiction elements. I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone. I have a hard time thinking of someone I would recommend it to. But my husband and I had some very deep discussions following, conversations I'm glad we did have. It's difficult to understand the values and culture of the day and I think more research could've been put into that for this novel in particular; it very much reflected how someone today might feel about it, but perhaps we're that similar to our forebearers... I would like to study more from first-hand accounts before I could say more about it. But for now I got a negative feeling from the novel in general and eventually put it down without finishing the final 50 pages.

I'd love to hear what others have said if they've read it before.

[Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given the other reviews, I was actually surprised how little of the novel was focused on polygamy, though there was much about the adjustment of the Mormon settlers to the local area (and vice versa) from the beginning. Polygamy was touched on about half-way in, when one of the supporting leads (Eliza Snow) entered a secret marriage with the already-married Joseph Smith. (Somewhat later it came out he'd secretly married a fair number of other women too, apparently unknown to each other.). To me (a non-Mormon) Joseph Smith came across as deeply charismatic, but .. well .. smarmy.

Brigham Young came across better, I think. He made the arguments for polygamy more coherent, and not as obviously self-benefiting. (I don't think his marital status was even mentioned). The principal benefit to polygamy was that it addressed the fact that they were bringing in far more women than men, which left a very large number of women single. From that perspective in that time, it made perfect sense. Even so it would be hard on the "first wives". (Less sensible as long-term strategy, once new members were mostly born, not converted.)

Overall I found this to be a gentle novel about an interesting time, set in an interesting place, among interesting people. The characters were well developed and often endearing. The interactions due to the emerging custom of polygamy were thoughtful, well-handled, and not overwhelming to the rest of the novel.

And I learned a few things: I had no idea that they'd been evangelizing in Europe so early in the history of the Church.

I also learned a new (to me) word that I have embraced wholeheartedly. At one point, they go to destroy the printing press of a newspaper, and they say they threw the press into the river an "pied the type". To "pi" (or "pie") means to jumble together (printer's type) and reduce to chaos. This is just too useful a word to let slip.

[Deja Bertucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure how to talk about this one, although it's such an important book to me. It's a novel, set in Nauvoo, and organized around the Mormon Church's final days there. Sorensen turns Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Eliza Snow and other big names into characters, and they are complicated and real characters, so if you think that would disturb you, I can't recommend you read this book. (It stirred up controversy when it was first published, apparently.)

This book made me realize I have a particular reaction to finding out that figures in church history and church history itself was/is more complicated than we traditionally state. Somehow, I find it comforting. It breaks down the separation between human nature in and out of the church--we may be "saints" but we're oh so human, and that means maybe I, as a human, can figure out how to be a "saint" too. Maybe that's too much to get into in a Goodreads review ...

Anyway, this book was a wonderful read. I think she did an outstanding job of capturing our heritage, especially Eliza R Snow's composition of hymns. I felt the stirrings of pride in my Mormon Pioneer stock--a pride that felt more complicated and thus real than it ever has before.

[Larsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the First Edition published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1942. Virginia Sorensen is an excellent writer capturing strong emotions of all kinds in comfortable words -- including in the relationships between the sexes and even between children and their pets. In many chapters the in-depth description of the setting is captured in what my 5th grade teacher taught us to call "sparklets" -- passages which almost magically move one literally into the setting. The book is the story of the fictional Baker family who lived the total Nauvoo experience. It makes very clear the difficulties of polygamy, while at the same time plural marriage and it's sanctity -- quite different from polygamy -- was not even suggested. I particularly enjoyed the book, having visited Nauvoo three times, living there once for a full year as a site missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[Terry Earley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful writer. Glad I am getting to know her.

When this novel was first published, it was criticized for not being historically accurate. Of course it is not. That is why is was published as a novel. Though surprisingly thorough and accurate, the focus is really on family dynamics and other interpersonal relationships, where novels reveal their greatest value. What happens to a family when a second wife is added? That was a terrible stress on not only faith, but also on familial love and trust. Sorensen examines these issues with a gentle and perceptive hand. We learned that despite these challenges, these characters retained and strengthened faith. They followed their new prophet into the great, unsettled West.

For me, there were important insights. Glad I read it.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of this book is set in Nauvoo, Illinois. It was extremely controversial when it was first published decades ago because of its portrayal of polygamy. I always struggle a bit reading narratives about polygamy, even if they are fiction (my husband would prefer I not read them at all!), but this one is especially poignant.

[Liz Busby · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting take on the foundations of polygamy in Nauvoo, but if you can see past that, it's also a good discussion of obedience, how much we trust our Church leaders, and the importance of belief. Good stuff, though you'll probably be a little disturbed by the portrayal of Joseph Smith.

[Emily]

I read this about 10 years ago and it is one of the best books I have ever read. Ok, well, it was one of the best I had read at that point in my life. Also, I was a dumb young kid. So maybe it is stupid. I'll reread it and let you know for sure.

[Betsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting early Mormon novel about Mercy Baker and her family, who spend several years in Nauvoo, Illinois and experience polygamy first hard before heading west yet again. Mercy's story is a sad one, yet the novel explores important themes of faith, doubt, love, and family.

[Gerrit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Language is quite beautiful in parts but it is not enough to lift this book. Halfway through the book I found myself wondering what the plot was. It was just not engaging enough to keep my attention I guess.

[Megan Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't finish it. Not exactly what I was expecting, and wasn't that into the writing style. An interesting portrayal of polygamy, but I really wasn't up for it, so I stopped and skimmed.

[Jen Bracken-Hull · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bravo, Sister Sorensen. Bravo.