Mormon writer finds faith and loss in contemporary polygamy

The smart attraction of Brady Udall's second novel begins with its oxymoronic title, The Lonely Polygamist .

As the book is released this week, publishing insiders are pegging it as the next breakout Western novel, the best new Mormon fiction in a generation. Based on the advance buzz, The Lonely Polygamist might also be considered the kind of contemporary story that deserves to be labeled a Great American Novel.

"This book is going to be huge in our neck of the woods because it's topical, but I also think it's going to be huge nationally," says Betsy Burton, owner of The King's English Bookshop, who will host Udall's reading on May 4. "I think this book will be on our bookshelves for a long time to

Brady Udall at his Boise, Idaho home. (Joe Jaszewski/For The Salt Lake Tribune)come. I think it will be part of our literature."

The novel's opening line plunges readers into the compelling, rollicking story of southern Utah contractor Golden Richards, his four wives and the family's 28 children, struggling to get by in the Jimmy Carter years. "To put it as simply as possible: This is the story of a polygamist who has an affair," Udall writes. "But there is much more to it than that, of course: the life of any polygamist, even when not complicated by lies and secrets and infidelity, is anything but simple."

The patriarch is a man often confused about where he's supposed to stay the night, who apologizes so often for his failures that his middle wife refers to him as "Monsieur Pardonnez-moi." He's commuting to Nevada to construct what he tells his wives is an old-age home, but is really a brothel.

In this family, mothers ignore the children as they regularly stampede inside the family's Big House, creating a racetrack around the kitchen. And for comfort and reassurance, their father habitually sing-songs the names of all 28 children to the tune of "The Old Gray Mare": "EmNephiHelamanPaulineNaomiJosephineParleyNovellaGaleSybilDeeanne. ..."

Domesticity, times four » Udall, 40, a father of four and an associate professor at Boise State University, considers his 600-page book "a big family novel." "In America, we do things in big and extreme ways," says the writer, a native of St. Johns, Ariz., who graduated from Brigham Young University and the University of Iowa.

Of course, not all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are likely to embrace this book as a "Mormon novel." Mormons have been shying away from polygamy stories since the LDS Church officially abandoned the practice in 1890.

Udall identifies himself as a Mormon writer while admitting he's not what would be termed active, or a believer, exactly, although his wife -- he's got only one -- is devout. "I'm not sure I believe in God on most days, but the search for God is the most important human endeavor there is," Udall says, "and most writers won't even take the subject up."

The Lonely Polygamist is an ambitious yet everyday story that unfolds through the points-of-view of Golden, his youngest wife, Trish, and 11-year-old Rusty, son No. 5, who's labeled the "family terrorist." One significant piece of furniture is a hand-me-down couch, nicknamed The Barge. The burnt-orange plaid, fishy-smelling sofa sparks a fight among the wives and later serves as Golden's refuge.

Even the family's houses get to speak up for a chapter or three; also anthropomorphized is a nuclear bomb explosion. "If people see it as a polygamy novel," Udall says, "then I've failed."

For all its wry humor, the story is deeply anchored in the pain and loss of parenting, as it explores the complicated relationships between men and women. Doubt, faith and sex -- or not having it and not talking about that -- are shadows that hang over the Richards family.

In many ways, Udall's big domestic novel functions as an alternative history of the 1970s. In contrast to the free-love generation in the outside world, Golden and his wives, Beverly, Nola, Rose-of-Sharon and Trish, burrow into their religious enclave, hiding from complicated and unfulfilling pasts.

A literary bet » At a time of great uncertainty in the publishing world, W.W. Norton, the New York publisher, is betting on the appeal of Udall's followup to 2001's The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint . The Lonely Polygamist received a first printing of 50,000 copies, sizable for a work of literary fiction. His publisher is investing in Udall's work by sending him on an increasingly rare 27-city book tour.

All spring, other publishers were noting the buzz for Udall's book, says Nicole Aragi, the writer's agent. "I kept having lunch with editors who were saying: 'I hear you've got the big book for May.' "

Booksellers have been effusive in their praise, noting Udall's wry humor and his ability to make his flawed characters very human. "I've had a number of books that have been best-sellers," says Aragi, whose authors include Edwidge Danticat, Junot Díaz and Jonathan Safran Foer, "and I've never seen a book that has gotten so many quotes from booksellers."

Writer Darrell Spencer, a Las Vegas native who taught Udall in the early 1990s at BYU, called the characters in The Lonely Polygamist "wonderfully developed" before offering even higher praise. Spencer said he got so involved in reading the story of one particular American family, he forgot to get distracted by the issues of polygamy.

"It's the first novel set in this culture that absolutely opens it up to everyone," Burton says. "It explains polygamy to people who don't have a clue what it is, and makes it understandable and sympathetic, while dealing with what pain it throws families into. You can't miss that -- everybody is in pain."

The bookseller adds: "It's the way he writes about social issues of polygamy, religion, family, abuse -- inadvertent or intentional -- and adultery. He deals with all of these issues, and yet he uses humor and compassion around every one of them. That's kind of a miracle."

Other Utah writers, too, say they hope Udall's novel will open the doors for artfully crafted stories from Mormon writers to find a national audience, separate from the thriving local market of faith-promoting morality tales.

Before "Big Love" » Like many Westerners, Udall can trace his familiarity with polygamy to his family history, although he didn't know much about the subject while growing up.

In 1880, church leaders called the writer's great-great-grandfather, David King Udall, to be a bishop and colonize the St. Johns area. Like many Mormon leaders of the era, he felt pressure to take on plural wives. He later served a federal prison sentence before President Grover Cleveland pardoned him. (Arizona political legends Stewart and Mo Udall are Brady Udall's grandfather's first cousins. As the writer explains: "They're descended from the first wife; they're the Democrats. We're descended from the second wife, and we're the Republicans. That's the way it worked.")

Udall taught English in Korea and served an LDS mission to Brazil before graduating with an English degree from BYU. While attending the prestigious Iowa Writer's Workshop in the mid-1990s, Udall had already earned a reputation for crossing boundaries, with a literary résumé listing awards from BYU and Playboy magazine. (Winning the men's-magazine fiction contest prompted a call home to his devout LDS parents. "I've got good news and bad news," is how he recalls the conversation.)

Back in 1998 -- a lifetime ago in pop-culture years, pre HBO's "Big Love," pre the Texas raid on The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints' ranch -- Udall began exploring contemporary polygamy by writing a nonfiction piece for Esquire magazine. The piece was based on conversations with a family who lived in suburban Salt Lake City.

"When I wrote that article, nobody was talking about polygamy," Udall says. "I was worried that nobody would want to read it or talk about it because it was all so strange."

In his research, Udall observed how isolated the husband was, a man who shuttled between houses and families, keeping a satchel of clothing stashed in the back of his car. Simply put: The family patriarch didn't have a room of his own. To Udall, the polygamist wives seemed happier and more content than the men.

An affair, a wedding and a funeral » Those paradoxes inspired the fictional character of Golden, who becomes isolated and turns away from his wives after a daughter's tragic death.

Udall began writing the novel in 2002. As he began, he knew the story would contain an affair, a wedding and a funeral, and he had already sketched out a significant plot point concerning a piece of chewing gum.

"All I do when I sit down to write is think about a scene: How can I make this funny?" says Udall, citing the dark humor of Mark Twain. "I want to place comedy and tragedy in as close of quarters as possible. I think that's what the great writers do."

Udall soon discovered how ambitious his project was. The themes he was exploring -- explicating the culture of a family, considering the implications of nuclear testing, while setting religious practice against the backdrop of Western contemporary history -- all had deep personal resonance. "I knew I had to go for it," he says. "I didn't think anybody else could do this. I don't want that to sound presumptuous, but I knew I could do this book and do it in an ambitious way."

After all, maybe imagining the story of a polygamist having an affair wasn't any more presumptuous than writing a novel about a half-Indian, half-Caucasian orphan boy (Edgar Mint was optioned by Michael Stipe for a film, although that project has since stalled).

"I grew up in a giant Mormon family," says Udall, the third of nine children. "Writing about a family with 28 kids in it is actually closer to my experience than writing about an orphan."

The lonely writer » Still, over the next six years, the story sprawled out of control to nearly 1,400 pages. He offered this excuse to his agent about why the book was taking so long: "I've got four wives and 28 children to name."

At his desk, at times he felt as alone and isolated as his protagonist. He looked to Dickens or Twain as writing models, and wanted to push beyond the expectations of Western regional literature. More character development, more relationships, more plot, that is, and less description of mountains and canyons.

"I love the country, and I'm going to describe it, but it's not going to be at the forefront," Udall says. "There's a clichéd Western voice, the kind of taciturn, male, Western voice. It's Hemingway, or something. It just feels like it has been done too many times. It just feels like we need a more expansive voice."

Throughout the writing, he worried about how contemporary female readers would respond to the story and was relieved when his wife, Kate, praised his depiction of the Richards women, particularly Trish, the youngest wife.

Along the way, he had to consider his own dismissive feelings about polygamy. "I came to understand they're living the lifestyle that our church and our forefathers used to live," he says. "We are looking at our heritage. To turn our back on them is dishonest."

The best fiction, of course, doesn't arise from political arguments or moral stances, but from unforgettably believable characters and diamond-precise language. In the end, readers will decide if they can relate to The Lonely Polygamist 's super-sized southern Utah family.

One family, struggling to keep all the kids fed and accounted for. One family, struggling against everyday loss to build the Kingdom of God.

After nearly a decade of thinking about Golden Richards and his marital problems, Udall remains interested in the contradictions of living the Principle. "What I find fascinating about polygamy is that it can be viewed as a deeply patriarchal, old-fashioned way of life," the writer says, "but also as just another alternative lifestyle for the modern age."

From the article -- a description of the novel: The patriarch is a man often confused about where he's supposed to stay the night, who apologizes so often for his failures that his middle wife refers to him as "Monsieur Pardonnez-moi." He's commuting to Nevada to construct what he tells his wives is an old-age home, but is really a brothel.

From the article: Of course, not all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are likely to embrace this book as a "Mormon novel." Mormons have been shying away from polygamy stories since the LDS Church officially abandoned the practice in 1890. Udall identifies himself as a Mormon writer while admitting he's not what would be termed active, or a believer, exactly, although his wife -- he's got only one -- is devout. "I'm not sure I believe in God on most days, but the search for God is the most important human endeavor there is," Udall says, "and most writers won't even take the subject up."...Udall taught English in Korea and served an LDS mission to Brazil before graduating with an English degree from BYU.

From the article: "It explains polygamy to people who don't have a clue what it is, and makes it understandable and sympathetic, while dealing with what pain it throws families into. You can't miss that -- everybody is in pain."

From the article - Udall's family history: In 1880, church leaders called the writer's great-great-grandfather, David King Udall, to be a bishop and colonize the St. Johns area. Like many Mormon leaders of the era, he felt pressure to take on plural wives. He later served a federal prison sentence before President Grover Cleveland pardoned him. (Arizona political legends Stewart and Mo Udall are Brady Udall's grandfather's first cousins. As the writer explains: "They're descended from the first wife; they're the Democrats. We're descended from the second wife, and we're the Republicans. That's the way it worked.")

From the article: Along the way, he had to consider his own dismissive feelings about polygamy. "I came to understand they're living the lifestyle that our church and our forefathers used to live," he says. "We are looking at our heritage. To turn our back on them is dishonest."

As a descendent of a polygamist, my feelings exactly.

From the article: "What I find fascinating about polygamy is that it can be viewed as a deeply patriarchal, old-fashioned way of life," the writer says, "but also as just another alternative lifestyle for the modern age."

I profoundly disagree.

I profoundly disagree.

I feel that many who wish to destroy marriage today will twist Mormon polygamy into something that can be used as means to justify alternative lifestyles.

It's not right, but I feel it will be used this way.

How so / why? Regards,

From my family's past experience;
from human experience -- going back to Jacob's day in the Old Testament where he was having children with two wives AND the women's two slave girls;
and from current sociological realities.

Let's start with the last first:
If polygamy is "A-OK," then why not group marriage? Why not two wives and five husbands?
Why not four husbands, six wives, and a dog?
If not one man and one woman, who draws any boundaries and why/why not? On what grounds, then, does the government say "no" to a group marriage?

I sometimes wonder if polygamy was more often reversed in history, if one woman had 27 husbands, for example, if it would be looked upon a bit differently by men.

The bottom line, of course, in all of this, is that children usually lose in this "open-ended 'family.'" Children have enough trouble gauging how to relate to the opposite sex (to apply toward a future marriage of their own) through their parents.

If you toss in that a boy now needs to get geared up on how to handle anywhere from two to 12 (or more) wives simultaneously, you shift "Preparing for Adolescense" to "Preparing for Compartmentalized Bedrooms and Compartmentalized Relationships."

My own family & family's cultural history: Men slinking around from house to house to avoid arrest for bigamy charges. Men taking a second or third or fourth wife to Mexico for yet another plural marriage in the 1890s and 1900s...while the "original" wives remained at home, knowing their husband was off on yet another honeymoon. Men having the ample right to "court" single, younger women -- often teens.

Your national "neighbors" delivering 7 million signatures on 28 banners to Congress in 1898, signaling their distaste for polygamy. (All geared to keep a polygamist voted in from Utah to assume office).

Women promised to be in a "one-flesh" union with their husbands, which is natural marriage. (Jesus knew not of teaching wives becoming "one flesh" with "sister" wives):

"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female,' 5and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." (Jesus, Matthew 19:4-6)

I don't think we can get any more "natural" than the "nature" the Creator made, do you? Also, since Jesus describes marriage as "2-becoming-one flesh" -- I don't most really see polygamy as "21-becoming-one-flesh" do you?

I referenced Jacob of the Bible earlier: When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I'll die!" 2 Jacob became angry with her and said, "Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?" (Gen. 30:1-2)

(A household of anger, wife & child-bearing rivalry, jealousy...typical of 19th century polygamous households as well...need I say more?) [BTW...God ensuingly warned Israel -- see Deut. 17:17 -- not to take many wives, saying their hearts would be led astray from devotion to God]

Colofornian: I profoundly disagree.

alexander_busek: How so / why? Regards,

Dear Colofornian,

Thank you for your thorough response (not repeated here)!

I think you may have misunderstood my question (just as I apparently misunderstood your original "diagreement").

I am by no means a propoponent of plural marriage (polygamy, including its variants: polyandry or polygyny or group marriage). On the contrary!

The misunderstanding arose from the fact that the term "alternative lifestyle," for me, does not automatically have positive connotations.

So, yes, polygyny (one man having several wives) is deeply patriarchal and old-fashioned. And, yes, polygyny is, in my view, on a par with other "alternative modern lifestyles" (homosexual marriage, cohabitation, serial polygamy, etc.)

But, for me, neither of those facts speaks for polygyny.

So, I guest that that means that you and I are both critics of polygyny.

Regards,

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