The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

I read this book this weekend and COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN! (Seriously, was camping and ignored Jeremy the majority of the time!) Absolutely fascinating book about Ann Eliza Webb Young - one of the wives of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader of the Mormon Church during the mid 1800s.

The book is so interesting because its not just a biography of her life, it is spun in so many directions with different story lines. The whole time I was reading the book, I was thinking it was all factual - there are newspaper interviews, Wikipedia entries, letters of acceptance/denial to review LDS archives, letters from descendants, etc -- I knew obviously the modern day story was fictional but was convinced the rest was specifically lifted from the pages of the past. Turns out...gullible was removed from the dictionary and slapped on my forehead....but honestly, I think it made the book better for me.

The book goes back and forth in time between Ann Eliza's memoirs ( a real book she did release after her apostate (new word!) from the Mormon church and Brigham's control) and a modern day story around a polygamist women accused of killing her husband.

From the book, I'm curious to read Ann Eliza's real memoirs just to see how differently she is depicted in this book. Though raised Mormon (briefly) I know next to nothing about the church's past or the history if its leaders - Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. I couldn't believe the audacity of these men to say it was divined from God that they should take on "plural wives" to populate the world with Mormons to save everyone's soul....Seriously guys, SERIOUSLY? And people went for it! But as the book points out however, if this is all you know and this is put to you as a deal breaker to getting into heaven, they you do what the man in charge says but still...oy vey.

Ann Eliza's memoirs deal specifically with how plural marriage effects the women and compares it to a state of bondage - not unlike slavery (the Civil War was fought during this time so it was a perfect argument). The book does deal directly with how sister-wives related to each other and deal with a new addition to their families. Being a devotee to the HBO show "Big Love," I found this insight particularly interesting.

She also notes that what adults do is all well in fine - if adults want to marry 100 spouses and they are all happy about it, then whatever - but she specifies that it only matters once children come into play and what it will do to them and affect them for the rest of their lives. This was one aspect of the book that I thought the author was going a weird direction. The main character of the modern day story is gay and he makes a comparison at one point that being gay and being polygamist were both choices adults make and are fine until children come into play. The book never outright says it but I really felt there was a negative association made that I was disappointed in.

Despite what might be my oversensitivity to the last subject, I would highly recommend this book to everyone - its an eye opener to the history of a religion and a whole movement that apparently is still pertinent to our current time.