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.
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.
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.
'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
Author
About David Ebershoff
David Ebershoff, born in 1969 in California, is the author of two bestselling novels in David Ebershoff is the author of The Rose City, Pasadena, The 19th Wife and The Danish Girl, which has been made into a film starring Academy Award-winner Eddie Redmayne and directed by the Academy Award-winning director of The King's Speech, Tom Hooper. His books have been translated into twenty languages and honoured by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Lambda Literary Foundation and the American Library Association. He has taught writing at Princeton, NYU and Columbia, and is currently Vice President and Executive Editor at Random House.
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.
The 19th Wife features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, eBooks of the Month, General Fiction, Fiction, Recommendations
Paperback. Not Available.
The 19th Wife was written by David Ebershoff and published by Transworld Publishers Ltd
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