Panelists discuss D. Michael Quinn's new memoir, Chosen Path

Signature Books Podcast

In this episode, D. Michael Quinn’s son, Moshe; Equality Utah executive director Troy Williams; and historian Sara M. Patterson join Signature Books director Barbara Jones Brown for a compelling conversation on Mike Quinn’s remarkable new memoir, Chosen Path, newly published by Signature Books.

D. Michael Quinn will long be remembered as one of the most prominent historians of Mormonism. Born and raised in southern California, D. Michael Quinn (1944–2021) taught history at Brigham Young University for twelve years after earning his PhD at Yale. He is the author of many groundbreaking articles and books on Mormon history, including his three-volume Mormon Hierarchy series (subtitled Origins of Power, Extensions of Power, and Wealth and Corporate Power), Elder Statesman: A Biography of J. Reuben Clark, and Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, for which he won the Mormon History Association’s Best Book Award in 1988.

A lifelong Latter-day Saint, Quinn grapples in his memoir with the “subconscious factors operating” in his efforts to discover and reveal uncomfortable truths about his church’s history: his relationship with himself as a closeted gay man, his relationship with his oft-absent and secretive Mexican-American father, and his relationship with a church not yet ready to grapple with controversial aspects of its own identity. Quinn’s revelatory memoir provides perspective not only on his complex life, but also on readers’ own internal tensions.