I check MeFi pretty regularly, even if I somehow manage to always miss the incredibly sporadic sign-up period, so I can never post. But somehow I managed to completely overlook this thread about a series of children’s books I loved when I was a kid. Luckily for me, Sean pointed them out.
The books are collectively referred to as The Great Brain books, and the author is John D. Fitzgerald. I actually avoided these books like the plague for several years, after reading the back cover description and figuring that there was no way on Earth that a series of books set in 1890s Mormon Utah could possibly be interesting.
Well, as was my wont as a kid, eventually I committed a blunder serious enough to warrant the immediate revocation of my television privileges. And as in nearly all such cases, the time period set for the return of TV wasn’t days or weeks, but simply that my mother handed me the first two Great Brain books and said, “No TV until you’ve read both of these. And I know these books, and I’ll quiz you.” (Yup. The problem with having a sharp tack for a mother is that in the event you actually do manage to put one over on her, not only does it work only once, but she makes you regret it greatly when she finally finds out.)
Anyway, the books are indeed set in Mormon Utah (I don’t recall if it was just before Utah achieved statehood, or just after — I could look it up, I guess, but I’m lazy just now) and center on a family named Fitzgerald, who are Irish Catholics living amongst the Mormons in a town called Adenville. (Not that there was a great deal of religious angst in the books. There was a little, but not much at all. Except for one very sad episode involving the town’s singular Jew.) “Papa” ran the town’s newspaper; “Mamma” ran the household; and the three sons — Sweyn, Tom, and John — all did their thing. John is actually the first-person narrator for the books, and the title The Great Brain refers to Tom, who is easily the smartest kid in Adenville but who pretty much refuses to use his powers for good. Instead, he’s basically a very slick con-man, constantly coming up with bizarre schemes to swindle his friends out of treasured possessions or money.
This probably sounds a bit mean-spirited, and maybe in a way it is, but Tom also has a way of getting his comeuppance eventually (one very ill-advised scheme, involving a wooden raft and some rapids, nearly gets him and a couple of other kids killed). These books were a lot of fun to read, although one does wish for someone to just look at Tom and say, “God, you are so full of shit!”
Much less well-known is Fitzgerald’s “grown-up” book covering some of the same territory, Papa Married a Mormon. I’m not sure how much of the children’s books is based directly on Fitzgerald’s own life, but for some reason I suspect that Papa Married a Mormon is a bit closer to the truth. This book is more of a history of John Fitzgerald’s family, centering on the move west by John’s father and uncle, and then focusing on John Sr.’s courtship of the Mormon girl he falls in love with at first sight. It’s been a long time since I read this book — my mother once happened to find a copy at a used book sale — but I remember liking it very much. Anyone with fond memories of the Great Brain books is urged to track down Papa Married a Mormon, if possible.
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