Excerpt from Review of Let the Faggots Burn by Jesse Monteagudo (The Bilerico Project)
"In 'Let the Faggots Burn' author Johnny Townsend restores this tragic event [the UpStairs Lounge fire] to its proper place in LGBT history and reminds us that the victims of the blaze were not just 'statistics,' but real people with real lives, families, and friends."Link to Article
Zombies for Jesus is "eerie, erotic, and magical."
--Publishers WeeklyLink to full review
Review of The Abominable Gayman by Kirkus Reviews
Told from a believably conversational first-person perspective, [The Abominable Gayman's] novelistic focus on Anderson's journey to thoughtful self-acceptance allows for greater character development than often seen in short stories, which makes this well-paced work rich and satisfying, and one of Townsend's strongest. An extremely important contribution to the field of Mormon fiction.Link to Full Review
'Messages from the Outer Darkness' by Nick Cook
DNA Magazine #136, Australia (May 2011)
Weird undies and eternal damnation?
What’s life like for gays inside the Mormon Church?
Nick Cook spoke to one of those who tried to reconcile his faith with his sexuality.
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Excerpt from Review of The Abominable Gayman by Ben Christensen (A Motley Vision)
"There are moments that are painful to read, steeped as we become in Elder Anderson's self-hatred and the constant onslaught of homophobia from his fellow missionaries. In the second half of the book, though, Anderson slowly emerges from the muck of self-pity. He has a companion who genuinely loves him, and before long he begins to love himself. The final story, 'Transfer Cookies,' ends...on a sweet note. The sense of relief as Anderson comes to terms with himself and with God makes the tension of the earlier stories worth it. And if that isn't the pinnacle of Mormon literature, I don't know what is."Link to Full Review
Excerpt from Review of Mormon Fairy Tales by C.L.Hanson
"That's one of the reasons why I found Johnny Townsend's new book "Mormon Fairy Tales" so much fun!! Without fretting about what the theology is supposed to be if it were pinned down, Townsend takes you on a voyage to explore the rich-but-undertapped imagination of Mormonism. I loved his portrait of spirit prison! He really nailed it--not in an official doctrine sort of way, but in a sort of "if you know Mormonism, you know this is what it must be like" way--and what a prison it is! But flights of fairy-tale fantasy aren't the only strength of Townsend's work. He also captures the feelings and personalities of a variety of people on the fringes, fitting their lives into Mormonism and Mormonism into their lives. Johnny Townsend has written at least ten books of Mormon stories. So far, I've read only two ("Mormon Fairy Tales" and "The Circumcision of God"), but I'm planning to read the rest--and you should too, if you'd like a fun and interesting new perspective on Mormons in life and imagination!"Link to Full Review
Review of Mormon Fairy Tales by Kirkus Reviews
Townsend writes gorgeous, intimate tales from the edges of one of the fastest-growing religions in the world. The best thing you can say about Townsend's collection of short stories is that, after reading it, you can't tell if Townsend is a Mormon. While his many touching vignettes draw deeply from Mormon mythology, history, spirituality and culture, his book is neither a gaudy act of proselytism nor angry protest literature from an ex-believer. Like all good fiction, his stories are simply about the joys, the hopes and the sorrows of people—and here, many of those people just happen to be Mormons. Townsend's status as a Mormon could be best described as a gay ex-Mormon who still associates himself with the traditions of his youth. The author reflects on his complicated faith by creating characters that, like him, dwell on the borders of the Mormon community—a nonbeliever stuck in purgatory, a young Mormon ready to shirk his missionary responsibilities, a gay contemporary of Brigham Young uneasy about taking a fourth wife. Townsend's genre-bending tales span geography, space and time, taking us from 19th-century Salt Lake City to late-21st century Kansas City, or from "Spirit Prison" to the U.N. where an alien has just arrived to explain that God does really live on the planet Kolob. For a lesser writer, this challenging range would press fiction into absurdity. But for Townsend—who has a bit of Philip K. Dick's blood flowing through his veins—it only adds to the richness and variety of his developing oeuvre. This range notwithstanding, Townsend knows the value of mining the single moment, and many of his best stories feature lush descriptions of a simple meal or an intimate conversation. Further, he has a flair for writing believable dialogue that reveals, among other things, that the gay Mormon experience is simply another aspect of the human experience. Mormon literature with a universal appeal.Link to Article
An Essay Published by Q Review - "Freshman Biology for Mormon Leaders"
Link to Essay
Interview on Blogtalkradio with Robert Jaquay - November 6, 2010
Link to Interview
Review of Sex among the Saints
Mormon spirits are willing but the flesh is weak, wayward and kinky in these edgy stories. The bans on alcohol, coffee and swearing are hard enough, but it’s the Latter-Day Saints’ strait-laced sexual strictures that have Townsend’s Mormon characters tied up in knots. Their supreme commandment is to enter a sanctified marriage that will last through eternity and perhaps make them rulers of their own planet, but any pleasure taken outside or before wedlock can get them “dis-fellowshipped” from their close-knit, nosy congregations. From this crucible of inflamed but repressed desire flows a riot of furtive evasion and exuberant transgression…. Townsend writes with a deadpan wit and a supple, realistic prose that’s full of psychological empathy…he takes his protagonists’ moral struggles seriously and invests them with real emotional resonance.Link to Article
Review of Zombies for Jesus
At face value, there is something willfully subversive about Townsend’s short fiction; even a brief perusal of the table of contents provides the reader with brilliantly memorable story titles such as “Noseless Lesbian Murderers,” “Hairdresser to the Gods,” and, of course, “Zombies for Jesus.”… But Townsend’s fiction is not an all-out assault on Mormonism, nor is it satire…. These are stories about trying to reconcile, on the one side, the Mormon tenets of Church duty, familial responsibility and conformity, and on the other, individual will, the thirst for knowledge and freedom. Such conflicts are not unique to Mormonism. They will be familiar to many communities and religions throughout the world today. And by tackling such weighty subject matter, Townsend’s writing becomes more than just Mormon writing; it becomes simply good writing…. Townsend’s lively writing style and engaging characters make for stories which force us to wake up, smell the (prohibited) coffee, and review our attitudes with regard to reading dogma so doggedly. These are tales which revel in the individual tics and quirks which make us human, Mormon or not…(A.J. Kirby, The Short Review)
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Reviews for Mormon Underwear
Faith is not chosen by birth, and neither is sexual orientation. "Mormon Underwear" is a collection of short stories focusing around Mormon men who are coping with their own sexual identity in a faith that condemns them as abominations. From the power of temptation to undermining the oppressors, facing homosexuality in the family, "Mormon Underwear" is a fascinating collection with plenty to think about for gay studies and literature collections.
Midwest Book Review
September 2010The thirteen stories in "Mormon Underwear" capture this struggle [between Mormonism and homosexuality] with humor, sadness, insight, and sometimes shocking details...."Mormon Underwear" provides compelling stories, literally from the inside-out.
Niki D'Andrea, Phoenix New Times
September 16, 2010Link to Article
Reviews for Sex Among the Saints / Zombies for Jesus
Suite101.com article
August 18, 2010"In his peculiar short stories that are humorously melodramatic, Townsend underscores the challenges of living an authentic life within an institutionalized religious framework..."
(Aimee Larsen Stoddard, Suite101.com)
Link to Article
Article for The Story Prize - "The Abominable Gayman" July 1, 2010
Link to Article
'I Know That They Know'
An Interview with Jeremy Richards on 94.9 KUOW (NPR)
June 12, 2010Link to KUOW with audio files
Review of Zombies for Jesus
Kel Munger ~ Sacramento News and Review,
25 March 2010Link to Article
Johnny Townsend writes short stories about the inner lives of Mormons and ex-Mormons with a great deal of compassion. He doesn’t belittle them, but instead reveals what makes them tick, and as an insider, Townsend isn’t writing satire, but deeply emotional and revealing portraits of people who are, with a few exceptions, quite lovable. They’ve made choices based on what they believe is the word of God, and when those choices don’t work out well, they naturally become confused. It is the humanity of these struggles that Townsend portrays so well. For instance, in "The Bishop’s Confession," we discover that even small sins have the power to disrupt—the bishop can’t very well instruct people to stop masturbating when he can’t stay away from the coffee, can he? And does God really care about these things so much? Large theological questions and small lives make Townsend’s characters fully human.
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Johnny Townsend
In "Dual Diagnosis," one of my gay Mormon characters has to attend AA meetings designed for those having trouble with mental illness in addition to alcoholism. In "Healing the Sick," I have my married gay couple bickering about universal healthcare. In "The Mark of Abel," my gay main character tries to overcome his racial prejudices. I don’t think every gay Mormon story has to be about homosexuality.
Talk at the Sunstone symposium in Salt Lake on August 15, 2009
Writing Literature, Not Tracts
Johnny Townsend
Most of my published gay Mormon stories deal with my two years as a missionary in Italy. I actually wrote many of the stories before I came out, with a straight main character. My writing professor and workshop classmates were mildly interested, but the stories didn’t really gain whatever power they have until I came out and rewrote them as gay stories.
The problem with a lot of Mormon writing is that the writers are trying to prove some doctrinal point. The stories are vehicles for proselytizing in one form or another. In that sense, they are very much like former Soviet "art" that is really just propaganda. Mormon literature can never be a mature art form till we focus on the humanity of our position, not on our "chosen" status.
Most of my gay characters, certainly the gay missionaries, are completely dedicated to the Church. But I’m not trying to prove that the Church is true, despite our terrible doubts and failings. Conversely, I’m not trying to prove that the Church isn’t true, or that it is an evil organization. The truthfulness of the Church or lack thereof can’t be a relevant topic if our literature is going to be valuable. What I’m trying to do is show the horrible plight that even good people with the best of intentions can find themselves in if they don’t fit the cookie cutter mold they’re supposed to fill.
I don’t believe only mainstream Mormons are worth writing about, which is what I heard one prominent LDS writer say once. I find that attitude thoroughly appalling. I am not mainstream, and I believe I am still a full human being completely worthy of notice. My father is a high priest, on the stake high council for years, and he is married to his fourth wife. Not mainstream of him. My aunt was Relief Society president for her ward, all the while married to a gay man. My cousin is married to a returned missionary in the temple, and she adopted because she couldn’t bear children. We are all non-mainstream, and all of us have stories worth telling, and just as importantly, worth hearing.
The strength of Mormonism is its sameness everywhere, but this is also its weakness. We need to embrace diversity within our own walls, and writing of gay and lesbian Mormons is one way to do this.
People have read some of my stories and said, "Mormons wouldn’t do that." I’m not writing about MORMONS as a whole. I’m writing about this individual Mormon, or that one. Individual people might do anything, and those possibilities should be explored. We can’t only write about generic Mormons. We have to write about the complex characters that really exist, without having the agenda that we need to put on a good appearance.
Mormonism needs to be the background, something that informs the story, not the point of the story. We can’t worry about whether this is a "faith-promoting" story or one that might shake someone’s faith. People’s belief systems have to be strong enough to read about people who do or think things that are unorthodox. If their faith isn’t strong enough to take it, that is their problem, not mine. I can’t tailor my stories so that only weak people can handle them.
A Mormon editor once told me he liked a particular story of mine, a straight story, by the way, but he couldn’t publish it because it contained the word "penis." Vulgarity is one thing, but maturity is another. We need to be able to deal with mature topics if we ever want to have a mature literature.
We can’t be worried if something is challenging or offensive or argumentative, as long as it is relevant and relates to the LDS experience. There are Jewish books and magazines with stories critical of Israeli policies or Jewish practices. There are gay magazines with writing critical of gay attitudes and behaviors. Until we as Mormons can handle opposition in our own discussions amongst ourselves, we will be relegated to articles and stories that are nothing more meaningful than the preacher preaching to the choir.
In the same manner, it can’t be my goal as a gay Mormon writer to go out and convince Mormon readers that gays are really all right and the Church should change its policies and doctrines to accommodate us. That then becomes proselytizing, too. I certainly try to move my readers, and if moving them means the readers feel favorably toward gays, I think that is a good thing. But I have gay characters make unwise choices, do wrong things that aren’t necessarily praiseworthy. Some of my characters are admirable, and some make big mistakes. But with all of the stories, I try to bring some small illumination to the human condition, as trite as that sounds.
I would say one thing I do try to show is that oppression of gays is misguided, that torturing us is not a good or righteous act. In my story, "The 9:20 Express Train to Hell," I show how the Church drives good people to suicide, and how creating this misery can’t possibly be acceptable to God. In "The Sneakover Prince," I use the analogy of doing proxy work in the temple to show how gays are forced by the Church to live their entire lives by proxy, by never being allowed to marry the people they love. In my story "Pissing in Peace," I show how the Church can be invasive to unnatural extremes, exemplified by its choosing even our underwear, but also by its audacity in telling us who we can allow ourselves to love. In "Bus Surfing," I demonstrate that same-sex affection in other cultures can be perfectly acceptable, even among Mormons, and throw into question the predominant American attitude which currently directs the Church. In "Mormon Underwear," I discuss the possibility of polyandry among gay men. Basically, I try to raise particularly Mormon issues in my stories, or just universal human themes using Mormonism as a foundation.
I show monogamous gays in my stories and promiscuous ones, gays who are good, decent people, and gays who are not. All my gay characters can’t be model citizens. They have to be real to have any meaning. Gays complained about the villain in the movie Silence of the Lambs, saying it showed gays in a bad light. But did you see any heterosexuals boycotting the movie because Hannibal Lector was straight? We don’t want to only be villains or wacky neighbors or any other single thing. We have to show gays as heroes, as villains, and as everything in between, just the way heterosexuals are portrayed.
I don’t claim to be Isaac Bashevis Singer, but I do think he is a good model for us. He writes Jewish stories that don’t proclaim Judaism is the true religion. He simply tells human stories from a Jewish perspective, well enough to win a Nobel Prize for literature. We can write great literature, too, by using our Mormonism to give color to our stories, to give specificity to our stories. We need to tell the universal through the particular. Telling a gay Mormon story vs. simply a Mormon story is just one more step toward the particular.
In "Dual Diagnosis," one of my gay Mormon characters has to attend AA meetings designed for those having trouble with mental illness in addition to alcoholism. In "Healing the Sick," I have my married gay couple bickering about universal healthcare. In "The Mark of Abel," my gay main character tries to overcome his racial prejudices. I don’t think every gay Mormon story has to be about homosexuality.
But I think homosexuality unfortunately can’t help but be a major issue in most of our stories, and that’s too bad. The rest of gay literature has moved onto a "post-gay" phase, where it is simply a given that the character is gay and is not at all the focus of the story. We need more of that in our literature, too. But I still write stories like "Splitting with Elder Tanner," where my gay returned missionary decides to serve a second full-time mission, because having a missionary companion is the closest he can morally get to marrying another man.
As gays and lesbians with some understanding of the craft of storytelling, we need to make ourselves seen and heard and understood. Mainstream Mormons wish we didn’t exist. They wish we would just go away and leave them alone. We need to write gay stories so that we make ourselves visible, make ourselves noticed, so that no one can forget we are here and that we must be acknowledged.
I would say, though, that I write more non-gay Mormon stories than gay ones. In all of my stories, however, my main goal has to be simply to tell a good story, something that makes the reader feel more alive, more human, more compassionate for having read it. I think there are millions of Mormon stories to tell. Unfortunately, however, as writers of gay stories, what we too often find lacking is room for our stories in the world of Mormon publishing.
When I submit a story to Sunstone or Dialogue or Irreantum, I have to worry not only about my writing skill but also if I’m being too brazen and shocking. If a heterosexual couple kisses, it’s "sweet." But if a gay couple does it, it’s seen as a militant action of shoving their perverted lifestyle in other people’s faces.
I’ve had three gay Mormon stories turned down by Mormon editors, which were then all published by non-Mormon publishers. I can’t help but believe my stories were rejected by Mormon editors solely for containing gay characters and not for any literary considerations. Hopefully, that is changing a little, but we have to publish wherever we can, even if that limits our Mormon audience.
A lot of my stories are based on real experiences. As most writers do, I take real incidents and adapt them to the story I’m trying to tell. But only one of my stories is based on a historical event outside of my own experience.
On Gay Pride day in 1973, an arsonist set fire to a gay bar in New Orleans. A gay Mormon was one of the survivors, but his partner was one of 32 people who died that terrible day. My research on the event is in the Historic New Orleans Collection in the French Quarter and is being used by a historian to write a much-overdue book on the subject. But I decided to try to use my fiction skills to make a dramatic approach to the fire. Here is an excerpt now from my story, "Burning Love."
I didn’t drink, of course. That would have been a sin. But I liked the crowd on Sundays. A large group from the Metropolitan Community Church came. I talked to the minister, Bill Larson, every Sunday. He always assured me that God loved gays ardently, but I was never quite convinced.
Mormons didn’t believe in a literal furnace for Hell. No hellfire, just damnation. Pastor Bill was irritated that I wouldn’t join his congregation, "where people loved each other rather than just judged each other." “The religious used to burn gays alive in the Middle Ages," he said. "It’s not so terribly different even now. You need to escape before your spirit itself is burned to a crisp."
He really said this, around 7:00 that Sunday night. I remember stupidly joking in reply, "Well, I feel a burning now when I pee." Those words have haunted me ever since.
I was excommunicated a week later, while I was still in the hospital. Bill’s family wouldn’t even claim his body. A lot of those killed at the UpStairs were never claimed, their families too embarrassed to admit they were related to gays, and many churches adamantly refused to bury the dead. Three victims were never even identified. But even those the survivors of the MCC weren’t allowed to bury, because they had no legal claim to the bodies. They were buried in a potter’s field at the end of Canal Street.
It all began innocently enough. I was near the piano. We were all holding hands and singing, "United We Stand.” Buddy was working the bar, and despite the noise all around us, we could still hear the door buzzer ringing over and over. It was becoming annoying. Sometimes, cab drivers would buzz, but this was clearly someone just trying to be a pest. I saw Buddy motion for Luther to go answer the door at the top of the stairs.
I was only casually watching Luther, still singing along, but was distracted when I felt a hand on my ass. I turned to look at the guy singing next to me, and he gave me an impish smile. Pastor Bill was just a few feet away, singing along with Mitch and Horace, a couple of his congregants. Almost half the church group came to the UpStairs on Sundays after services. They were in fact pretty decent people, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the Mormons just yet. I was irritated that we didn’t allow blacks to hold the priesthood, but I was sure it was only a matter of time. The Church would clearly accept gays one day, too. It was the true Church, after all. I loved it. So they had to.
I heard a scream, and the piano stopped. I looked over to the entrance of the bar and saw Luther, his shirt on fire, flames pushing through the door at the top of the stairs. We all watched in shock as he shoved a woman right into the door leading to the fire escape, shattering the glass with her face. Then we all realized at the same moment that even now, that one lone fire escape was completely blocked by flames.
Everyone started screaming and yelling and fumbling for the windows behind the piano. There were three floor-to-ceiling windows, but the weighted ropes had rotted. Every time we pulled a window up, it would slide back down like a guillotine.
And oh, my god, there were bars on the windows. Just three, and maybe a foot apart, but bars. Some people in front of me stared at them for the longest time as everyone pushed and screamed, but they finally started squeezing out and jumping to the street below.
I heard more screams, pain not terror, and looked behind me. Two people coming out of the bathroom near the fire escape were burning. The carpet on the floor leading to our area lifted right off the floor as the flames spread across the room in seconds. The Burt Reynolds poster was burning. The Mark Spitz poster was gone. The ceiling tiles were on fire. It was all so quick.
"Hurry, dammit!" I shouted, pushing the man in front of me. He fell to the street on top of someone already lying there. "Oh, my god!" The heat was unbearable.
I clawed at the window frame. People were pushing me ahead and pulling me back to take my place. The crowd behind me were screaming and yelling. I crouched down and put one leg over the ledge and heard more screams, more screams, more screams.
I was the last person to make it out of my window. When I hit the street, I twisted my ankle, and some passersby ran over to help beat out the flames on my shirt. Lying in the street, I could see Bill Larson trying to get out his window. It kept sliding down on him. He finally stopped trying to lift it. He punched one hole through the glass with one hand and another hole with the other. He struggled to pull himself through the broken window. His cut arms were bleeding. His back was on fire. His hair was on fire. "Oh, god, no!" he screamed.
He twisted and turned as he lay burning halfway out the window. The men behind him were still screaming, all being burned alive. I saw Buddy on the street next to me, looking up in horror. I could see his lover, Adam, still sitting on his stool at the end of the bar, his arms waving in the air as he burned.
There are people even now who would like to see us burn, who would gladly wipe us completely out of existence. We have to be witnesses of the oppression we still face, oppression that comes mostly from so-called righteous people.
But we have to write about the joy and love we experience as well. I’m a gay Mormon, I’m married to a gay Mormon, and despite what the rest of the Mormons think about us, we still lead very happy lives. You need conflict to have a strong story, but we can include good things in our writing, too.
Every writing teacher says, "Write what you know." What we know is the Mormon experience. And more specifically, the gay Mormon experience. We can move beyond our individual history, of course, and write anything we want, but we are most likely to write something truly worth reading if we focus on what we know best. There will always be gay Mormons, so there will always be worthwhile gay Mormon stories to tell