The Lonely Polygamist
Ratings15
Average rating3.4
I don't get the adoration of this book. The characters were too pathetic for me to want to keep reading. I gave up after 200 pages. Second contemporary novel about polygamy I've given up on.
An interesting read. At times, I felt I was reading a script for Big Love (though Golden is a much more sympathetic figure than Bill ever was). Yet other times the story would veer in an unexpected direction and feel like something entirely new. About halfway through, I became way less interested in Golden and preferred the chapters that focused on Rusty or Trish. Rusty is a total ass, sure, but he also produced the most laughs. Though can we talk about the Rusty hand-job thing for a minute? EWWWW. So not necessary and left me liking Trish a whole lot less, someone I was actually rooting for most of the book. And by the end, I'd have to say the characters on the margins–Hulia, Nestor, June–were the most interesting to me and I wish they had been fleshed out more.
This was another book that did not live up to the premise of its (totally awesome) title. In fact, I found it so boring that I've apparently put off reviewing for two weeks.
What I expected was an exploration of polygamy, emotions, and the idea of being lonely when surrounded by people. Maybe also, being a Jewish woman from the eastern half of the country, and therefore having very little exposure to Mormons and known to FLDS, I have a bizarre fascination with them.
What I got was a quality author acting like he could get away with the most basic of midlife crisis plots by adding a couple extra wives. With four wives and a potential fifth, a mistress, a mob boss, an anarchist bomber and 20-somthing children, you'd think that at least some of the supporting characters would have something in the way of character development. Unfortunately, it was mostly a bumbling, completely unsympathetic putz of a main character and the son cast in his own image with no characterization of the remaining cast.
On the other hand, Udall's use of nuclear experimentation as a foil for interpersonal dynamics worked beautifully (if not a little on the wordplay side of things.)
