Reviewed on Richard & Judy's Book Club 2009 on Wednesday 18 February.

An intriguing look in to the world of the Mormons. Two intertwining stories, one a modern murder mystery, the other a story of the a wife in a polygamous marriage who broke away from the sect to crusade against polygamy. Plenty here to keep your interest going even if the 600 odd pages may seem daunting.

Synopsis

Jordan returns from California to Utah to visit his mother in jail. As a teenager he was expelled from his family and religious community, a secretive Mormon offshoot sect. Now his father has been found shot dead in front of his computer, and one of his many wives - Jordan's mother - is accused of the crime.

Over a century earlier, Ann Eliza Young, the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader of the Mormon Church, tells the sensational story of how her own parents were drawn into plural marriage, and how she herself battled for her freedom and escaped her powerful husband, to lead a crusade to end polygamy in the United States.

Bold, shocking and gripping, The 19th Wife expertly weaves together these two narratives: a pageturning literary mystery and an enthralling epic of love and faith.

Reviews

'Employing the dual narrive idea with aplomb…dishes the dirt on what it’s really like being one of many wives. Funny, profound and utterly transporting.' Marie Claire

'Fascinating ... demonstrates abundant virtuosity, as he convincingly inhabits the voices of both a nineteenth-century Mormon and a contemporary gay youth excommunicated from the church, while also managing to say something about the mysterious power of faith.' New Yorker

'Engrossing...vivid...packed with historical illumination, unforgettable characters...the greatest triumph is the way all this material illuminates the larger landscape of faith.' Washington Post

About the Author

David Ebershoff, born in 1969 in California, is the author of two bestselling novels in the US, the first of which, The Danish Girl, is due to be filmed starring Nicole Kidman. He is also the author of a collection of short stories, The Rose City. His fiction has been published in more than a dozen countries to critical acclaim. He has won a number of literary awards, and is a lecturer in creative writing at Columbia University as well as an editor-at-large for a book publisher in New York. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation