Reception
Jane Lampman, reviewing the book for the Christian Science Monitor, called the book a fascinating, definitive biography, saying it explored the controversy surrounding Smith without attempting to resolve it, and lauded the book as "an honest yet sympathetic portrayal...rich in its depiction of developing Mormonism.". Walter Kirn of the New York Times Book Review says that when reading Bushman's biography, "once the reader despairs of ever finding out whether Smith was God's own spokesman or the L. Ron Hubbard of his day, it's possible to enjoy a tale that's as colorful, suspenseful and unlikely as any in American history." Larry McMurtry says that in reading Bushman, it is difficult to determine "where biography ends and apologetics begins." In a long academic review, Jan Shipps calls the book "the crowning achievement of the new Mormon history," that is likely to "serve as the standard work on Mormonism's coming in to being" for the foreseeable future. Retired BYU professor Marvin S. Hill, writing in Dialogue, says that Bushman "comes up markedly short at times and he does not always examine controversial issues carefully" but that "his book suggests that thought about the Prophet has matured among some faithful Latter-day Saints."
In 2007, Bushman published a brief but revealing memoir about the publication of Rough Stone Rolling, which outlines both the genesis of the book and the reaction of audiences and reviewers during his yearlong book tour.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)