BCC Press Grows a Foot or Two

The Legend of Hermana Plunge, by Angela Liscom Clayton. (Paperback: $12.95) (Kindle: $7.99)
Bruder, by Roger Terry (Paperback $12.95) (Kindle: $7.99)

When the Universe talks, we try to listen. And the Universe has been trying to get us to publish an MMM (Mormon Mission Memoir) for quite some time. The conversation usually goes something like this:

THE UNIVERSE: PUBLISH A MISSIONARY MEMOIR!

BCC PRESS: Ah, Universe, we’d like to, but, well it’s complicated.

THE UNIVERSE: WHAT DO YOU MEAN?

BCC PRESS: Well, we don’t want to publish just one. We would need to publish one from a sister and one from an elder. Male and female, you know. All missions matter.

THE UNIVERSE: OK, PUBLISH TWO MISSION MEMOIRS!

BCC PRESS: Yeah, but its not that simple. Mission memoirs are tricky. We have a really specific market niche–we are thoughtful and willing to ask all kinds of questions, but we are also faithful Mormons (er, members of the, you know. . . .). That’s a tricky balance in something like a mission memoir. We don’t want to publish a rah-rah-isn’t-being-a-missionary-of-the-Lord-great memoir. But we also don’t want to publish an I-got-disillusioned-by-my-missionary-experiences-and-now-I-listen-to-Mormon-Stories-and-drink-beer memoir. And, between the two of them, that’s, like, 99% of the genre. So we’ve got to get two mission memoirs, one from a man and one from a woman, that present the mission experience honestly and acknowledge both the wonderful and the awful things that happen on a mission. And what are the chances of that?

THE UNIVERSE: ANYTHING ELSE?

BCC PRESS: Well, it would be cool if they were both foreign missions and if one of them went to someplace cold and snowy where they speak German, and the other one went to a tropical paradise where they speak Spanish.

THE UNIVERSE: AND. . . .

BCC PRESS: Well, we’d also need awesome art and design to stand out from all the other memoirs. So you would have to talk Christian into designing the best covers ever.

THE UNIVERSE: HOLD MY POSTUM!

So, what the Universe wants, the Universe finds a way to make happen, and BCC Press is beyond proud to present the two best mission memoirs ever published or likely to be published in the future. This is peak mission, and we are thrilled to be a part of it.

First, we present The Legend of Hermana Plunge by BCCs own Angela Liscom Clayton. Hermana Liscom served in the beautiful and sunny Canary Islands in 1989-1990. In a frank and forthright narrative, and with the benefit of almost 30 intervening years, she gives us a peek under the hood of missionary work in a tropical paradise. (Spoiler alert: it isn’t always a paradise). We read about her relationships with her companions, her struggles with other missionaries, her more colorful investigators, and her attempts to manage her love life back home. But we also see examples of the way that faith changes people’s lives, and we watch the naive, rule-governed Sister Liscom transform before our eyes into the teaching-preaching-baptizing machine that her fellow missionaries christened Hermana Plunge.

Our second book, Bruder, is by Roger Terry. (Notice how it uses the German word for Elder in the same way that the other book uses the Spanish name for Sister. That’s the Universe telling us that it made this match itself.) Bruder Terry served in the Hamburg, Germany mission from 1975-77. Forty years later, Roger Terry reflects on the experience and how it created the person that he became. Bruder takes a hard look at what spiritual experiences look like, how the Church is true, and what it means to receive personal revelation. Part novel, part memoir, and part philosophical treatise, all heart. BYU English professor Steven Walker says, “the before-and-after portraits of the mature narrator looking back on Bruder Terry struggling through his missionary traumas and triumphs illuminate profound insights into the practical workings as well as the wonders of the missionary world.” Listen to the man; English professors know things.

So trust the Universe. The Legend of Hermana Plunge and Bruder are the real deal: profound, intelligent, well-written memoirs that put you right on a mission with the authors. You will feel the sun on your face and shudder in the cold Hamburg winter. You will get tired of walking everywhere, and your knuckles will hurt because you are tracting so much. And you will experience, in palpable ways, both the frustrations and the spiritual highs of being on a mission.

So, go buy them, read them, and love them. And, while you are reading and loving them (and we are going to play a whole symphony on our own horns) make sure to check out BCC Press’s other books too–especially our two AML-Award nominees this year: Revolver, by Heidi Naylor, which has been nominated for the Award for Short Fiction collection; and Keira Shae’s How the Light Gets In, which was nominated for the Award in Creative Nonfiction. Just more evidence that BCC Press is awesome and our authors are incredible.