2003  AML Award: Marilyn Brown Novel Award

Presented to:
Janean Justham

For:
House Dreams

Every two years, Marilyn Brown author and Co-Founder of Springville's Villa Playhouse offers this award through the Association of Mormon Letters to encourage quality in fiction by, for, and about Mormons. In the stiff competition for this year, the five anonymous AML judges felt gratified to discover a new writer, a woman who has never published before, but has come to the core of some of the problems that seem to be inherent in "Mormondom."

One critic called the winning manuscript "exactly the kind of LDS literature I had hoped the contest would uncover and encourage in our culture. We are just beginning to tell the real truth about our LDS experiences. Here is the riveting voice of an active LDS woman caught inside of what seems to be, unfortunately, a somewhat familiar-looking patriarchal family relationship. And it's a knock-out book. Describing step by step what happens inside this progressively suffocating marriage and its potential destruction to the children, the author is so honest and so graphic that the reader is hypnotically caught up in the struggle."

The other anonymous judges were also impressed with her work. "It's an amazing achievement. I don't know when I've felt so immersed in a character's mind, her thoughts, her feelings . . . I couldn't get this book out of my head. I found myself reevaluating my own life . . . ."

Another judge stated: "I found it more profound and thought-provoking than any of the others and more to the core of the experience of Mormon women. A fascinating book for me. It portrays compellingly the life and trials of Laurel, the main character. . . . The narrative enters so much into her head, that you almost feel the book is being written in first person rather than third. The author is an excellent writer. . . ."