Books: Mock-Bucolic Western

PAPA MARRIED A MORMON (298 pp.) -John D. Fitzgerald -Prentice-Hall ($3.95).

Papa was no king of the wild frontier, but for Utah Territory of the 1880s he was quick on the verbal draw. Mama was going on 18, with braided blond pigtails, when he fired these lines at her: “I love you, Tena Nielsen. I love you with the intensity of the desert sun. I love you with the sweep and grandeur of the mountain peaks. I love you with the humility of a peasant for a princess . . . Don’t be afraid of the wrath of your people. My love for you will shield and protect you.” Papa was a Roman Catholic and a journalist, and Mama was a Mormon, but they soon eloped to Salt Lake City. It was the first of four marriages to each other (two civil, one Mormon, one Catholic), which is as close as anybody in this book gets to polygamy.

Papa Married a Mormon is a mock bucolic western in the vein of an Agnes de Mille ballet scored for six guns. It is rarely convincing, but frequently amusing, and few readers will want to revoke the “poetic license” Author Fitzgerald claims in salting the tales of his kith and kin. Take his Uncle Will, for instance -that’s his gamblin’ and killin’ uncle. In a 15-hour poker session Uncle Will won the Whitehorse Saloon and helped the former owner forget his troubles by plugging him with his pearl-handled revolver. The Whitehorse was the hottest honky-tonk in Silverlode. a raffish overnight boom town. Across the way lay Adenville, the Godfearing Mormon settlement. Caught between conflicting loyalties. Mama and Papa stayed true to each other, their children, and the best in each other’s faith.

The pranks and scrapes of the four little Fitzgeralds could be cut up into two-reelers for Our Gang comedies. One of the funniest has the brothers hooking their grandmother’s wig with a fishing line to prove to the neighborhood small fry that she has been scalped by the Indians. The final episode in the book is funny, pathetic and brave. On his dying day Papa put on his boots and Mama would not let the attending doctor take them off because Papa always “wanted to die with his boots on.” It’s things like that that give the old West a good name.