First Book of the Week: Finished

Book of the Week: The Lonely Polygamist, by Brady Udall

I finally finished this book. It is 599 pages long! I don't know what it was about this book, but I felt compelled to finish it, even though about half way through I wasn't feeling it.

The book follows the Richards Family. They are a Mormon family in (I think) the 1970's. There is one husband, four wives and 28 children (two that are deceased before the book begins). The father, Golden, his fourth wife, Trish, and his son Rusty with the third wife, are the characters I consider to be the main characters because there are chapters strictly devoted to their points of view.

Golden is struggling in life and faith. He is building a brothel in Nevada, while everyone at home thinks he is building a senior citizen's home. While away from his family in Nevada, he falls for the boss's wife, Huila. They begin an emotional relationship and Huila helps Golden come to terms with the loss of his handicapped daughter, Glory, two years prior. While their relationship never actually becomes physical, Golden still feels guilty that he feels so strongly for this woman that is not his wife.

Trish, the fourth wife, is also in crisis. She grew up in another fundamentalist Mormom sect, but after her father died her mother left the commune and took her children with her. Trish was married to a man named Billy and they had one daughter, Faye, and multiple miscarriages. Billy is a bully, and one day Trish decides to leave. She finds herself in the same church as Golden and his family and one thing leads to another and they become married. She is not happy in her current situation because her and Faye are stuck living in a duplex in town, and she rarely sees Golden because he is away working.

Rusty is Golden's son from his third wife, Rose of Sharon. Rusty hates his family and life. He feels ignored by his family and abandoned by his mother. He is forced to live at the 'Big House' with the first wife and her children, while his mother and the second wife live at 'New House' with all their children. Rusty acts out and has journals of his plans to get back at his family. While out one night, trying to get away from his family, he meets a recluse named June who lives far out of town in an abandoned village where makes fireworks and is working on an elaborate bomb shelter.

The book goes into great detail about how the family came to be and their current situation. There are a ton of characters, and sometimes it is hard to keep track of all of them. I do like how the author mainly focused on one child, instead all of them having a voice in the book. I think it would have been too confusing to have multiple story lines with too many names and personalities to keep track of. The book is slow paced, which at times is a good thing, but other times it doesn't work. For example, the ending could have been wrapped up so much sooner, and the longer it went on the more improbable it seemed to become.

There was one chapter devoted to a nuclear test that was administered by the government in the desert the same day that Golden and his first wife were married. It described how the nuclear cloud came blowing through the town and how it would effect some members in the community years in the future. I was a little confused by this chapter because it didn't seem to have a lot to do with the story, except to explain why some of Golden's children were miscarried, or born with handicaps and that his first wife would later develop lung cancer.

Overall, the book was okay for me. I wish it would have been more fast paced, and not so wordy. Although, I do feel like I know this family, I just don't think I want to. There were a lot of conflicting feelings for me while reading the book. While I felt bad for Golden, I couldn't help but think he got himself into the troubles he was facing. And I did not agree with their lifestyle at all and couldn't understand why anyone would choose that life.

Grade 2 our of 5 stars.