We were something else – a cult, a cowboy theocracy, a little slice of Saudi America.” I know people don’t really talk like that, but he did and so do a lot of the men where I come from … I should tell you right off we weren’t Mormons. “My dad … was a religious con man, a higher-up in a church of lies, the kind of schemer who goes around saying God meant for man to have many women and children and they shall be judged on how they obey. He never had much respect for his father. He has since come out of the closet, and has also been out of communication with his mother, who herself is known as the 19th wife of Jordan’s father. Jordan was not the first young boy to be sent into exile.Īt the book’s outset, Jordan has been gone from Mesadale for six years. He believes, however, with good reason, that the older men did not want any competition from the young boys.

This (fictional) story is narrated by Jordan Scott, a young boy who was evicted from the colony, ostensibly for holding hands with his stepsister. The contemporary story takes place in Mesadale, which is a fictional amalgam of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona – two existing enclaves of Firsters. Ann Eliza was instrumental in helping to bring an end to the practice of polygamy by Mormons after her apostasy, widely-circulated book, and speaking tour of the country in the second half of the 1800’s. The focus of the earlier tale is the actual story of the so-called 19th Wife, or Ann Eliza Young, one of the many wives of LDS leader Brigham Young. The stories of both groups are intertwined in a creative scheme that attempts to mimic the verisimilitude of a historical study. This novel is about the practice of plural marriage among the original Latter Day Saints and also among the current “Firsts” or “First Latter-Day Saints,” those who continue to practice polygamy as part of their faith.

The 19th wife book review