{"id":13,"date":"2008-06-08T16:53:15","date_gmt":"2008-06-08T21:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mjblog\/?p=34"},"modified":"2025-07-25T15:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T20:17:13","slug":"book-review-angel-falling-softly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/book-review-angel-falling-softly\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Angel Falling Softly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Angel Falling Softly<\/em><\/a>
\nby Eugene Woodbury
\npublished by Zarahemla Books<\/a><\/p>\n

Perhaps I should admit upfront that I consider myself an undemanding reader. I\u2019ll happily go wherever the author wants to take me as long as it\u2019s logical, consistent, and interesting. Let me add that I don\u2019t even particularly care whether a story is plot-driven or character-driven; give me something to chaw on intellectually and I\u2019m good to go. Make me laugh and I\u2019ll forgive almost anything.<\/p>\n

This is one reason why, when I read Stephenie Meyer\u2019s Twilight<\/em>, I was highly annoyed<\/a> [private link]. I like vampires. I\u2019ve studied vampire myths since I fell in love with Vlad the Impaler somewhere in the early \u201990s, so her inconsistent worldbuilding, her habit of telling rather than showing, and her mostly flat characterizations grated.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Eugene Woodbury\u2019s take is haunting. Poignant, even.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rachel Forsythe is an LDS bishop\u2019s wife who is drowning under the weight of the responsibilities tearing at her: a dying daughter and the latent grief of one daughter\u2019s inevitable death, the need to give the other daughter the attention she needs, the burden of carrying on mostly alone while her husband tends to the needs of his congregation, not to mention the regular everyday duties of a mother and wife. Then she gets a new neighbor.<\/p>\n

Milada is a vampire temporarily out of her element in a very sunny Salt Lake City to explore an investment opportunity. She lands herself in a cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood in a split-level ranch, surrounded by people she views as a bit odd, but nice. When Milada is invited to a barbecue at the bishop\u2019s house and ends up saving a little boy\u2019s life, her secret starts to unravel.<\/p>\n

Once Rachel realizes and accepts what Milada is and understands the unique properties of her dining habits, she must decide how far she would go to save her daughter\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a vampire story. It\u2019s a character study of the things we, as Latter-day Saints, might do when pushed into a corner with no apparent way out. It also asks if we have faith in what we say we believe.<\/p>\n

The theme of the entire book can be summed up in one line. When Rachel presents her idea to Milada, Milada says: \u201cChristians claim to believe in eternal life. So why are you so afraid of death, Rachel?\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if Mr. Woodbury intended for the reader to believe Rachel\u2019s answer, but I didn\u2019t believe her. It doesn\u2019t make any substantive difference, though; the effect would have been the same. At the end of the day, no matter how much faith we have, we do not know<\/em> what happens to us when we die.<\/p>\n

Rachel herself seems somewhat scattered and toward the middle of the book, it seemed I hadn\u2019t heard much more about her dying daughter and I almost forgot she had one. Though that was corrected posthaste, I would have liked to see more distress at her daughter\u2019s situation more consistently, and though I (as a mother) could appreciate that she was probably emotionally numb, I felt the daughter actually didn\u2019t exist for a few chapters. I just don\u2019t feel Rachel\u2019s distress very deeply until she starts connecting Milada\u2019s dots. That said, I do<\/em> like Rachel and find her sympathetic.<\/p>\n

With regard to this vampire\u2019s world, I believed it. Mr. Woodbury gave me a different physiological and anatomical (i.e., plausible<\/em>) reasons to believe that these creatures exist and how. Mr. Woodbury doesn\u2019t shy away from the innate vampire-sex connection. He does not use the act of biting and drinking as a metaphor for sex, accidentally or otherwise; he makes a clear case that sex is necessary<\/em> for the vampire to get her nutrients.<\/p>\n

Mr. Woodbury also displays a sly humor that abuts worldly sensibilities to Mormon culture and deftly captures the irony. For instance, when Milada checks out the art her interior decorator chose, she muses: \u201cConsidering the milieu, Milada would have recommended O\u2019Keeffe.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say that the end was a surprise because there were only three logical ways it could have gone and any one of them would have been perfectly workable; two of them would have been relatively comfortable. He took the uncomfortable path. What I\u2019d like now is a sequel to explore the fallout of that ending.<\/p>\n

Mr. Woodbury does nothing the easy or expected way in this story. There are no Relief Society and Elder\u2019s Quorum platitudes. She doesn\u2019t consult her husband either as priesthood leader of the home or as bishop. Rachel makes a unilateral decision that has no precedent in LDS history or culture or doctrine; she doesn\u2019t know if it\u2019s wrong or right and she clearly doesn\u2019t care, she doesn\u2019t spend a lot of time dithering over the details of what could happen, and she doesn\u2019t even pray<\/em> about her decision. She acts quickly and on pure instinct, as any vampire ever did. There are a lot of questions in this book and almost no answers\u2014and I liked that.<\/p>\n

Moral ambiguity amongst faithful Mormons: More, please.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Angel Falling Softly by Eugene Woodbury published by Zarahemla Books Perhaps I should admit upfront that I consider myself an undemanding reader. I\u2019ll happily go wherever the author wants to take me as long as it\u2019s logical, consistent, and interesting. Let me add that I don\u2019t even particularly care whether a story is plot-driven or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[521,531,543,549,94,95,547,554],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-books-2","category-molit","category-mormon","category-religion","category-sex","category-theology","category-vampires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15050,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/15050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}