You knew you’d someday want to read a novel about polygamy, right? Well, how about this new one by David Ebershoff called The 19th Wife .
The NYT states: “The 19th Wife succeeds in illustrating how the same issues have spanned great temporal changes in polygamist culture. And although its period-piece chapters about Ann Eliza prompt apprehension, they sustain interest and come alive.”
The product description notes:
“Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense.
It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.
Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.
And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith.”
Read the NYT review here. Random House is the publisher.
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