A Short Stay in Hell

A Short Stay in Hell is a 2009 thriller fantasy novella by Steven L. Peck, a professor of biology at Brigham Young University, whose literary works are widely acclaimed within Mormon literary circles. It follows Soren Johansson, a devout Mormon who, upon his own death, discovers that Zoroastrianism is the “one true religion” and is temporarily sent to Hell for his lifelong belief in the wrong religion (7). His hell takes the form of a library filled with every book that could possibly be written (inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Library of Babel”), and he can only escape the library once he finds the book that tells his life story. In his quest to find the correct tome and free himself from Hell, Soren must reckon with the profound implications of his strange new existence in a narrative that explores themes of Searching for Meaning in Randomness, Crises of Belief in the Afterlife, and Human Connection Within the Context of Eternity.

This guide refers to the 2011 Kindle ebook edition of the text, published by Strange Violin Editions.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of religious discrimination, substance use, graphic violence, sexual violence, sexual content, self-harm, mental illness, suicidal ideation, death by suicide, illness, and death.

Plot Summary

After dying of cancer, Soren Johansson finds himself in a Zoroastrian version of Hell. A lifelong Mormon, Soren struggles to make sense of the revelation that Zoroastrianism appears to have been the correct belief system and that his religious life on earth was all for naught. Along with other recently deceased people, all of whom are also shocked that their religious beliefs have not granted them access to heaven, Soren materializes in the office of Xandern, a minor Zoroastrian divinity. Xandern scolds those assembled for their self-superiority but assures them that their time in Hell will not be permanent. Then, he begins sending them each to hells specially configured to their respective personalities. When Xandern discovers that Soren was an avid reader in his lifetime, the demon sends him to Hell in the form of a library.

Soren arrives in the library, which contains every possible book that could ever be written, and learns that in order to escape, he must find the book that tells the story of his own life. Other people, all American and all white, have also arrived in the library, and he begins to form connections with them. After days of searching, one man, Biscuit, discovers a book that contains two complete words: “sack it.” Biscuit reveals that during his life, he was unhoused and carried his belongings with him in a sack everywhere he went. Because of this personal connection, Biscuit becomes convinced that the book has a hidden, deeper meaning, although everyone else in the group thinks that he is being irrational. Soren begins to grow tired of the group and becomes especially uncomfortable when they start using the library’s food kiosks to procure alcohol. He runs away from them, spending several days exploring the library without finding its endpoint. Eventually, he returns to tell the rest of the group what he has learned, at which point he begins a romantic relationship with a woman named Betty.

After about a century of living in the library, the residents begin to form their own societies. Soren is a member of the university, an organization devoted to studying the texts that people discover each year. The discoveries are never longer than a sentence, and Soren is beginning to feel hopeless about the possibility of ever escaping the library. He confides in a woman named Rachel, who is also a member of the university, and she shares her own feelings of frustration and exhaustion. Soren and Rachel begin a romantic relationship that will last a millennium, with Soren considering Rachel to be the greatest love he has ever experienced.

One thousand years into his time in the library, Soren’s life with Rachel is disrupted by the arrival of Dire Dan, an extremist cult leader who has begun spreading a doctrine of violence around their region of the library. Dire Dan and his followers attempt to corner and capture Rachel and Soren, but she escapes by jumping into the library’s central void. Soren is left to face the cult members on his own, and they capture and torture him for over a month. Eventually, Soren escapes the cult by jumping into the void and dragging Dire Dan with him.

Soren falls through the central void for days on end but is eventually able to propel himself onto one of the floors as he passes by it. He is sure that he will be able to reunite with Rachel if he searches hard enough, but he instead only finds people whom he has never met before. One of them, named Master Took, has calculated that there are 959,312,000 books in the library, which is more books than there are electrons in the universe. Hearing this statistic, Soren feels entirely hopeless. He throws himself back into the void, using a crudely fashioned knife to kill himself each time he wakes up, and is able to spend eons falling in this way. The appearance of Wand, a woman who is also falling, briefly disrupts the monotony. Wand and Soren have a brief romantic relationship but are separated when they try to land on a floor together. Unable to find her again, Soren devotes himself entirely to the search for his book.