"Recognized as a Mormon classic twenty years after its release, The Backslider features longstanding Christian conflicts played out in a scenic, sparsely populated area of southern Utah. A young ranch hand, Frank Windham, conceives of God as an implacable enemy of human appetite. He is a dedicated sinner until family tragedy catapults him into an arcane form of penitence preached among frontier Mormons. He is saved by an epiphany that has proven controversial among readers, who interpret it either as an extreme impiety or as a moving and entirely plausible rendering of a biblical theme in a western setting."--