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A review by drjoannehill
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
4.0
An absorbing read about aspects of the LDS church, which I didn't know much about before. Following two plot lines that have parallels around love and relationships, power, control and community belonging, it contemplates theological doctrine and the complex history of polygamy in the USA through two central characters, a 21st century young man kicked out of his secretive FLDS town, and Ann Eliza Young, wife of Brigham. With the latter, fictional rewritings of her memoirs are used to outline the early history of the Mormon. While critical of FLDS and the early church, in my opinion, the book is largely sympathetic to modern day mainstream LDS.
I am not very pro-organised religion and subscribe to "your rights end where mine begin" so this novel was both entertaining and informative of an institution (LDS church) and a geography (Utah) I knew little about. I appreciate novels that focus critically on history and challenge received opinion. However, the plots left me with a number of questions as not all of the complexities of both plot lines are tied up at the end and the finish is a little simplistic. So it's 4* from me.
I am not very pro-organised religion and subscribe to "your rights end where mine begin" so this novel was both entertaining and informative of an institution (LDS church) and a geography (Utah) I knew little about. I appreciate novels that focus critically on history and challenge received opinion. However, the plots left me with a number of questions as not all of the complexities of both plot lines are tied up at the end and the finish is a little simplistic. So it's 4* from me.