MUD LAKE: A LATTER-DAY MEMOIR

MUD LAKE: A LATTER-DAY MEMOIR, is a original work of nonfiction that chronicles K. Tyler Christensen's journey toward reconciling his sexuality with his Mormon heritage. At seven years old his father announced the families move to Mud Lake, Idaho, a farming community resting in a southeastern basin. Christensen writes, "In Mud Lake my difference was clearer to others than it was to me." Christensen weaves hair and sex into a narrative that is as much about his own identity as Mud Lake's. At nine Christensen began to lose his hair, and then altogether at sixteen, to an autoimmune skin disease called, Alopecia. Christensen's resilience sees him into adulthood, and in a new setting, Salt Lake City, Utah, the place where the book ends. The parallel narrative excerpted from Christensen's own adolescent journals is crucial to the deeper message of the memoir: forgiveness and love are the inlets of reconciliation.