Papa Married A Mormon, by John D. FitzGerald, is a fascinating book on a number of counts. Those who have read The Great Brain series as a kid (or to their kids) will recognize the author’s name; but rather than fictionalized version of his childhood, here FitzGerald is writing a book of family history: the story of where his grandparents and parents came from, and how they ended up in the town of Adenville in Utah. Many of the characters are familiar from the The Great Brain, but many are not—John and Tom had an older sister (who knew?), and their Uncle Will owned the biggest saloon in the vicinity.

But though John and his siblings appear, it’s really about John’s parents, Tom and Tena. Tom was a Catholic, a journalist from Pennsylvania, who followed his black sheep brother Will to Utah to fulfill his dying mother’s last request. Tena was a Mormon, the daughter of the owner of the general store in the neighboring town of Enoch. It was love at first sight on Tom’s part, evidently, and it led to no end of incident. It’s also the story of Silverlode, a mining town that grew up next door to the prosperous Mormon town of Adenville, a rambunctious dangerous place whose denizens were forbidden to enter Adenville without permission.

So the book is a treat on several levels. First, it’s a neat piece of history; second, I was fascinated to see how Tom and Tena and their families worked out their mixed marriage; third, the FitzGeralds are genuinely interesting people; and fourth, it’s often laugh-out-loud funny, one of those books that you can’t help reading passages out of to anyone who’s in the room. And fifth, there’s a goodness about the whole thing that’s truly compelling. There are also some surprises; the Great Brain books are more highly fictionalized than I had realized.

Highly recommended.