A Complex, Unreserved Metafiction of Mormon Life and Ethnicity

From R.B. Scott, author of Mitt Romney: An Inside Look at the Man and His Politics, comes a rollicking, brutally candid novel of a young Mormon journalist's attempt to liberate himself from a failed marriage and the confounding influences of his religious culture and family.

In Closing Circles, we find New York journalist Jedediah Pratt Russell is the victim of an inexplicable divorce. A loving father, a dutiful breadwinner, a sensitive lover--he'd given Sarah everything. Except himself. When Sarah stuns him with divorce papers after a night on the town, Jed finally abides Sarah's insistence on psychiatric help, hoping it will mend whatever's broken between them.

Instead, his experience with Dr. "Quack Quack" Rosenbaum prompts Jed to seriously pursue the autobiographical novel that's been gnawing at him for years, and through it to confront all the simmering issues that plague his life: his relationship with his father-in-law Old ROT, a serial polygamist in ill health due to a mysterious disease; Jed's record-setting missionary work and love-hate relationship with Church doctrine; a secret tryst with an old flame right up to her marriage to Jed's distant cousin; and his fascination with marriage and polygamy both in his ancestral line and the present.

With the confidence of Rebe, the "way, way too young" assistant to Quack Quack, Jed finds himself spinning back into the Mormon heritage he'd left behind decades ago, and into the heart of Utah, where the many open circles in Jed's life converge in startling ways.

Unabashed and revealing, Jed's story in Closing Circles is a Rothian exploration of obsessions, family history, religion, and unfinished business--an exploration that will make Jed reconsider everything he's ever believed about marriage, divorce, faith, and himself.