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After D. Michael Quinn’s death in April 2021, his children found his remarkable, unpublished memoir in his home and entrusted Signature Books with its publication. Relying on his journals, primary research, and reminiscences, Quinn shares his life story as few have heard it–from his father’s hiding of his true name and Mexican identity, to his upbringing by his abusive grandmother, to his choice to closet his homosexuality, to his undying commitment to his faith and its history. 

From the age of nine, Quinn felt convicted he would one day serve as an apostle of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He chose the path he believed would take him there, eventually living as a straight LDS family man in a mixed-orientation marriage. In the 1970s and 1980s he became a BYU professor and one of Mormonism’s most promising, prolific, and respected historians. But his uncompromising commitment to total honesty about his religion’s history, along with his homosexuality, set him on a collision course with church leaders and the end of his seemingly idyllic Mormon life. Throughout his telling, Quinn unflinchingly opens up about his feelings and experiences that shaped his enigmatic life.

D. Michael Quinn (1944–2021) was one of Mormonism’s greatest historians, though his books have profound relevance to Utah and western history as well. After completing his doctorate in history at Yale University in three years, he taught at Brigham Young University from 1976 to 1988. His treatment of difficult themes in Mormon history drew controversy, which led to resignation from his academic position and to his eventual excommunication from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His large, elaborately documented books, such as his three volumes on the Mormon hierarchy and his Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, set a new standard for Mormon historical scholarship.

The story of queer Mormons is one that some might not expect to be joyful. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has traditionally asserted that queerness is counter to God’s plan and that gender as determined at birth is eternal. Any marriage other than a monogamous pairing of male and female is “counterfeit.” So called “wickedness,” we are told, “never was happiness.”

But queer Mormons tell different stories—stories filled with joy. This collection includes essays by queer Mormons across the LGBTQ spectrum who, when they looked inside themselves, found divinity rather than sin. Stories by people who are made exactly as they are meant to be, and live accordingly.

Queer Mormons who feel forced out of the institutional church don’t typically find despair on the outside or abandonment by the divine. Instead, their lives are rich and beautiful—made all the more so by the struggle. The Book of Mormon tells us, “Men are that they might have joy.” The Book of Queer Mormon Joy affirms that trans, nonbinary, intersex, asexual, bisexual, polyamorous, and gay people have joy. Joy is for everyone.

As a child, AJ Romriell strove to obey his Mormon leaders’ every rule. If he was faithful enough, he was taught, God would remove temptations. But at nineteen, returning home early from his mission after admitting his attraction to men, he was forced to make a decision: either stay the course or work to accept himself fully and risk losing family, community, and the Church he’d devoted his life to. His decision to pursue radical acceptance would turn out to be just one step toward reclaiming his life. 

Through linked personal essays crafted in lyric, fabulist, and fragmented forms, Wolf Act charts a young man’s transformation. Weaving together wolfish fairy tales and mythology, Mormon theology and practice, piercings and tattoos, cave explorations, ghost stories, and more, Romriell explores a childhood of hiding, a familial reckoning, a religious exodus, and an effort to understand one’s life as worth saving—even when the meaning of the word “saving” must be reimagined.