Document Type
Book
Publication Date
1978
Abstract
“If you burrow for roots, it was the fault of my grandmother,” the protagonist of Virginia Sorensen’s novel The Man with the Key remarks. And although we must ignore the half-ironic reference to a fault—and remind ourselves that an author’s characters are not the author—this metaphor is an exact image of Virginia Sorensen’s world and of her works. Sorensen has published eight novels, most of them about the American West, as well as a number of short stories and a group of children’s books. Her roots are the very essence of almost all, and certainly of the best, of her writing—roots that stirred her creative imagination. They are roots deep in a richly complex and yet somehow simple and clear childhood as a believing member of "a peculiar people,” to use their own phrase. Her people are the Mormons or, more formally, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—and the center of their world is Utah.
Recommended Citation
Lee, L.L. and Lee, Sylvia B. Virginia Sorensen. Boise, ID: Boise State University, 1978. Digital. Western Writers Series, 31.