By Dennis Lythgoe
Deseret News book editor

      When Boyd Petersen initially approached his father-in-law, Hugh Nibley, about writing a biography, Nibley said, "How could there be anything interesting about someone who has lived for 37 years in Provo?"

Hugh Nibley Stuart Johnson, Deseret News

      It was the kind of terse reaction that Petersen would get again and again.
      When Petersen asked Nibley what he was like as a young man, Nibley said, "I just kept one step ahead of the law." "If I asked a general question," said Petersen, "he'd give me a smart-aleck answer. He wasn't going to let me off the hook from doing my homework. So I asked questions based on letters or speeches I had read and got a good reaction."
      The 92-year-old LDS scholar, author and occasional gadfly still remembers an enormous amount, said Petersen. Including his time in kindergarten, the names of his grade-school teachers — and the sinking of the Titanic, even though he was only 3 years old at the time.
      But it was through Nibley's correspondence that Petersen hit pay dirt. "His letters have a lyrical quality to them. Most are really readable and witty — not incomprehensible. They seemed to me a gold mine. The problem with his journals is that he wrote them in a combination of shorthand with Egyptian and Greek thrown in." Petersen said that Egyptologist John Gee refers to it as "Niblight."
      Paul Springer, Nibley's housemate while attending Berkeley, was a confidante, fellow scholar and kindred spirit, although not a member of the LDS Church. He gave Petersen access to their letters, which began in 1934 and carried through the late 1960s. "These letters are the anchor for the whole book," Petersen said. "They're amazing. The conversation between them was so intelligent, gentle and funny."

Boyd Petersen Stuart Johnson, Deseret News

      One period the Springer letters did not cover was World War II. When Petersen was going through the Nibley garage — which is really a library — he came across a box of letters Nibley wrote to his mother in Claremont, Calif., during the war. The gap was filled.
      Petersen is married to Nibley's youngest daughter, Zina. He is working toward a Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Utah while teaching part-time at Brigham Young University and Utah Valley State College.
      He worked on the Nibley manuscript for 14 years, using a topical approach instead of chronological, "because Hugh had such a big life. I'm a literature person, so I tried for a 'Grapes of Wrath' effect to give more pace to the narrative."
      Petersen concedes that as a son-in-law, he cannot pretend to be objective. "I do love the man. He's been a tremendous influence on my life. He's the father of my spiritual self. But I have tried to be balanced. He is human — not a god sent down from a mountain. When biographers make the subject bigger than life, I feel like they're not telling the whole story."

LDS scholar Hugh Nibley speaks at a symposium in 1989. His son-in-law is writing his biography. Deseret News Archives

      On the other hand, Petersen believes his identity as a son-in-law gave him access to people and materials other scholars might not have had. "Hugh has never been one to toot his own horn. Not being a son or a daughter also has given me perspective his children lack. He was not a perfect father. He was away from home a great deal. His kids had to share him with the entire church! Some of them have a great deal of resentment about that. I don't have that. But if your father is famous, you know his failings."
      Although Nibley spent considerable time criticizing Mormon culture, he never criticized LDS general authorities, says Petersen. "His commitment to the church was never in question. If his opinion differed with that of the church, he kept his mouth shut."
      Had Nibley been called to be a general authority himself, Petersen said, he would have been "lousy. It would have been interesting to have heard him speak in General Conference. But he would have been frustrated with the meetings and the travel. He doesn't get warm fuzzies talking to people. He'd rather be in a library."