Dear Jodi–

First, let me say that I like you. I really do. You’re one of the few authors that I feel actually does belong on the Best Seller’s List. Your writing is uncluttered, your stories are interesting, your characters compelling. But Jodi, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.

I recently picked up one of your novels in the airport, The Songs of the Humpback Whale. It’s an interesting little book with a complicated narrative structure. Not everybody can pull off something this gimmicky, so kudos to you for trying something tricky.

But is it too much to ask that if you’re writing about a cross country trip that you actually VISIT the places your characters go to? That is, if you’re going to describe them in detail, you might actually want to consider that there are people who are from the West who might realize that, um, wow, you have no idea what the heck you’re writing about.

Your characters, for example, head to the Grand Canyon. They are also supposed to go the “northernmost point” of the Canyon. Sorry, lady, but the Grand Canyon stretches East to West, and while it meanders northward, sort of, in some places, one would be hard pressed to find the “northernmost” point. It would require intensive and serious study of a topographic map, and since your character is map challenged, it’s a bit difficult to think she would have ever found such a place. Also, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon runs near the Kaibab Plateau and the Kaibab forest. If your characters are going from the Grand Canyon to Salt Lake, they would have certainly had to cross this forest, which is not, incidentally, dusty and barren, as you describe.

Which brings me to my biggest beef. When your characters get to Salt Lake City, you describe the city as “dwarfed” by the Mormon Church. Okay, fine, Mormons abound in Salt Lake. But you describe a different architecture, too. Um, sorry, but besides the temple, Salt Lake looks like most other modern cities. Also, nobody frolics in the Great Salt Lake, and certainly nobody has to slide down a “steep embankment” to get to the shore. And you can also be pretty certain that you’re not at the ocean because, well, yes there’s the salty smell, but there is also the small matter of the giant mountain range that frames the lake that sort of ruins the “at sea” illusion. The Great Salt Lake is essentially a big, flat, stinky, salty puddle in the middle of a valley. (And this is coming from a woman who loves the Great Salt Lake. Truly.)

All of this I could forgive, actually, if you hadn’t gotten the Mormons so wrong. And when I say so wrong, I mean SO WRONG. Your character passes out at a post office because she’s hot (although clothes don’t “stick” to you in Utah, fyi, unless you are exercising hard. Your sweat evaporates too quickly.). She’s brought to by a pediatric polygamist and his eldest nurse wife, who is one of three women attending to the main character. I suppose that you want to be considered edgy for making the polygamists smart, that you’re not buying into stereotypes, or was it that you supposed with a state full of polygamists, SOME of them had to be educated?

I’m here to tell you, however, that you are far less likely to run into polygamists in a downtown SLC post office than you are to dive like an otter in the Great Salt Lake. I’ve spent half my life in Salt Lake City, and never once ran into a polygamist.

Mormons don’t practice polygamy. If you do, you get excommunicated. There are people who do practice polygamy, but they are not mainstream mormons. They are not mainstream anything, as far as I know. The only time I came into contact with polygamists was when I was working at a diner at the foot of the aforementioned Kaibab Plateau, which leads me to believe that most polygamy communities are found in the southernmost parts of Utah and northern Arizona.

Perhaps you should look for them at the northernmost point of the Grand Canyon?

I don’t mean to be snide. Okay, maybe I do, but that’s just because in the middle of your very interesting and engrossing book I was smacked in the face with an awful and awfully inaccurate portrayal of, for lack of a better word, my people. It makes me wonder what else you’ve gotten wrong, and if this book indeed is worth my time.

Your research into humpback whales I’m sure is impeccable, and, as a BU graduate, I recognized the Massachusetts apple farm you’ve woven into the story from your accurate description of it. So I’m assuming research is a serious and careful part of your storybuilding.

I just wish your research had stretched past the original 13 colonies, and that you could see that, despite what Cantabridgians believe, the world does not revolve around New England.

Sincerely yours,
A Mormon fan who’d like you to know that we’re not all freaks.