38,000 And Growing

Today I finish reading a book on polygamy and my local paper carries a story from AP News, “Utah police investigate plural family for bigamy.”  There seems to be no end to this controversy as the article states, “an estimated 38,000 self-described fundamentalist Mormons continue to believe and/or practice polygamy, believing it brings exaltation in heaven.”  These fundamentalists seem to have perfected delayed gratification.

Polygamy is not my hobbyhorse, but I will admit to reviewing two books on the subject.  First was David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife, on November 16, 2008, “Who Is Afraid Of Wife Number Nineteen?”.  The second was Brady Udall, The Lonely Polygamist, on August 8, 2010, “One Two Three Four and Five Wives.”

Udall praised Dorothy Allred Solomon, Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up In Polygamy as the best account by an author who had lived the life.  So I bought the book, but with wrong expectations.

Solomon writes from a refreshed, expanded memory and with inhibiting familial and emotional ties that make the book suspect for all but Mormons, an insider book for insider readers.  For the general reader the book will confirm prejudices and suspicions, and only lightly inform.

Since the Mormons started the problem and seem to provide continuing energy to keep it bright, perhaps they should lead the nation in resolving the problem.  They could declare excathedra that marriage is a private matter and a fundamental civil right.  No one should be made an outlaw because of whom they live with.  Religion would bless those who ask for the blessing, and leave in peace those who do not ask for the blessing.

Now that would be something for a big choir to sing about.  Charles Marlin

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One Two Three Four and Five Wives

One, two, three, four, and finally five wives make for a fool’s paradise and that is what Brady Udall gives Golden Richards in The Lonely Polygamist.  If the women of the Mormon polygamist communities were the ones recording the divine laws as well as administering them, and if only women were accepted as religious and community leaders, then I could say maybe.  In Udall’s novel the polygamists of Virgin Valley as are the living communities of the American West are ruled by men, men only.

With all those wives and children the novel is well populated, but most only produce background noise and traffic.  The ones the author works on become known to the reader in sorrow and pain.  These are not happy campers although they are often comic.

Despite keeping my distance from the plygs I could not help myself.  There was breathing, personness to like in Rose, Nola, Rusty, Glory, and Trish.  And when Ferris hits his teens, look out.  June Haymaker and Golden Richards prove that a good man can be strange and seriously flawed, and still be a good man.

This book is stressful for competing authors who watch the Amazon Bestsellers Rank, but they must remember that Udall’s ranking is skewed by his large Mormon family.  Yes, he is of the political Udalls and they all are fiercely proactive in promoting the name.  Every Udall mother is buying copies for yet unborn grandchildren.  So relax dear authors.  Let him stay ahead of you.  Charles Marlin

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