Presented to: Linda Sillitoe
For: Sideways to the Sun
The citation for this award states, "This is the first fully contemporary Mormon novel: the first novel of substantial fictive skill and moral weight to deal, in the immediate present, with a substantial contemporary problem, abandonment and single parenthood, that afflicts Mormons in unique as well as universal ways. It confronts, in anguished and anguishing detail, the central paradox, the fundamental opposition, that we are forever separate individuals but forever dependent on relationships and commitments for individual fulfillment and joy. Women who read this novel say they cannot stop reading until they have lived through Megan's pilgrimage with her. Perhaps more men will be saying the same thing."