Author:       David Ebershoff

Publisher:    Random House

ISBN:          978-1-4000-6397-0

Website:      www.the19thwife.com

Type:         Fiction:Historical

Pages:        514 Hardback 

Purchase:    $17.16 @ Amazon.com (HERE)

The Story

“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.”

(Above excerpt is from www.the19thwife.com)

The Review

I am a really big fan of the show “Big Love” on HBO.  In case you’re not familiar… it’s a drama about modern-day polygamists.  I am totally addicted!  When I heard about The 19th Wife, I was intrigued and I looked forward to cracking open its pages.

David Ebershoff is a talented writer and the writing of this book reflects how much time and effort he put into it.  He has taught creative writing classes at New York University and Princeton and is currently an adjunct assistant professor in the graduate writing program at Columbia University.  In addition to his teaching experience, he is an editor-at-large for Random House.  All of this experience is demonstrated in the clean, precise writing of this book.  Ebershoff writes from the viewpoints of several different characters, both male and female. 

There are two main story-lines of this book as described above: Anna Eliza’s historical story of her exodus from her polygamist marriage to Brigham Young and modern-day Jordan Scott’s tale of a “lost boy” from the church attempting to save his mother from false charges in prison.  In addition to these two main characters, there are inserted chapters in the book from the viewpoints of reporters, students, family members and Brigham Young himself.  Truthfully, with so much going on, the beginning of the book took me a while to absorb (i.e. the characters, the history, etc.)  But, once I got moving along, it was easy to keep track of the different players of the stories. 

Ann Eliza

What most rings true for me about reading this book is that, although it is a historical FICTION book, there is so much research behind it that I am confident that I’ve really learned a considerable amount of this part of our nation’s history.  So many questions were raised for me in reading this book… let me share a couple: 

1.  If the “Firsts” (first of the Latter Day Saints) believed that plural marriage was a component of their religious freedom covered under their constitutional rights, then where would be today if other groups chose practices that were unethical/immoral and hung them under the “it’s our religion” hat?  We talk about the separation of church and state, however at some point there has to be involvement between the two despite what our founding fathers had hoped for.  Religious groups just can’t mistreat or injure other people, animals, or the land and claim it to be a component of their belief system. 

2.  I wonder about modern-day polygamists.  With or without the government’s involvement, do these women really NOT know that what they are entering into is wrong?  Sure, there are instances within The Bible that describe plural marriage, but it certainly doesn’t condone it nor encourage it.  The Bible describes marriage between one man and one woman.  Are these women really that naive and sheltered from modern-times that they don’t know any better?  It strikes me as strange.  How could you not know?

David Ebershoff has an absolutely amazing website with more resources than I have time to investigate to read further on the topic.  Specifically, he has the link to the PDF version of the original “19th Wife” written by Ann Eliza herself.  I did glance over a good part of this book and am considering downloading it on my hard drive to read in the near future.  In addition, there are copies of the New York Times articles pertaining to the divorce between Brigham and Ann Eliza.

If you’ve read this book or are interested in reading it, David Ebershoff is currently in the midst of a book tour and has scheduled events in which you can meet him and pick yourself up a copy.  HERE is the link to his events schedule.   Also, as this review is a part of a TLC Book Tours “tour,” you can catch more interesting reviews of this book at:

 Hey Lady! Whatcha Reading? - May 18th

A Guys Moleskin Notebook - May 20th

BookNut - May 26th

The 3 R’s: Reading, ‘Riting, and Randomness   - June 15th

The Book Faery Reviews - June 16th

Shelf Life - June 17th

 An Interesting TidBit From Valorie

I know a highly intelligent and nice book review blogger from Utah with an interesting family and even more intriguing family legacy.  Valorie’s Blog is called Morbid Romantic and you can access it by clicking HERE (she’s also written a GREAT post expanding on her family history with photos HERE).  Valorie and I follow each other’s blogs and she made a recent comment on a contest giveaway that I was hosting.  It was during this comment that I learned that Valorie had some connections to the Mormon History so I asked her about it.  She wrote me back and shared this with me:

My family, being old and Mormon, loves to trace its genealogy.  Because of this, I not only have a very large and detailed family tree, but two whole hardbacked novels full of pictures and biographies.  According to the books that we have, some of my relatives James and Mary Johnson, were members 30 and 31 of the church.  After moving from the original settlement of Iowa, the two of them moved to Fillmore, Utah (where my grandparents still live) when called upon to do so by Brigham Young.  My mother even currently lives about four blocks away from Brigham Young’s winter home in St. George, Utah.  A funny story about James and Mary is that Brigham Young approached James about taking a second wife and James told him that he had to get permission from Mary.  When Mr. Young went to speak to her, she threw her cup of coffee in his face.  Mr. Young went back to James and said, “You have all the wives you can handle.”  One of their children was Gabriel, who is the one that my part of the family is connected to.  I guess I have a history of very high spirited women in my family.  When Gabriel tried to court another woman to take a second wife, his wife Eunice walked right in and took him out of church by his ear!  Naturally, as the stories go, he never tried that again.

Gabriel eventually built a hotel called the Huntsman hotel in Fillmore: http://www.thisistheplace.org/virtualtour/12-huntsman.html.  They reconstructed the building as part of Heritage Park in Salt Lake City, but my grandparents donated a lot of the original doors and such.  Now they serve ice cream out of the parlor and the saloon that my family had built next door.  All the males were very active in missionary work (though they didn’t go door to door with backpacks on bikes like now.  Gabriel had a many kids, but the important ones are Gabriel Riley and Alonzo.  Gabriel Riley is important to me because he is my great-great grandfather.  And Alonzo because he is the grandfather of the current govenor of Utah, John Huntsman Jr. 

I guess I have a history of very high spirited women in my family.  When Gabriel tried to court another woman to take a second wife, his wife Eunice walked right in and took him out of church by his ear!  Naturally, as the stories go, he never tried that again.

Win A Copy of The 19th Wife

You can win a copy of this book…

The Giveaway Contest shall run for one week and entries will be closed on June 19, 2009. 

For 1 Entry: leave a comment.

For 2 Entries: leave a comment and mention it on your blog/website.

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For TWO EXTRA ENTRIES:  Please share in your comment what your favorite Historical Fiction book is and share with us why it’s your favorite.

GOOD LUCK!

On Sher’s “Out of Ten Scale:”

This book is excellent.  In regards to my recommendations on this book, I shall be honest in saying that if this topic is one that doesn’t interest you, I wouldn’t recommend the book… but, only because it’s a rather long read.  But, if this topic is “up your alley,” by all means this is a book well worth investing the time in!  You will learn A TON despite the fact that it’s a fictional work.  Each page of this book is really full of information and there is so much to absorb.  I’m a fast reader and this book still took me the better part of the week to complete.  But, I would definitely consider The 19th Wife  a book that I’m glad I read and I one that I would most certainly recommend.

For the genre Fiction:Historical:American, I am going to rate this book a 9 OUT OF 10. 

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