| | |  | Sports and Outdoors | Home » » The Lonely Polygamist: A Novel | | | | | | | Description: | | A New York Times bestseller: from a luminous storyteller, a highly anticipated new novel about the American family writ large. “Udall masterfully portrays the hapless foibles and tragic yearnings of our fellow humans.”—San Francisco Chronicle Golden Richards, husband to four wives, father to twenty-eight children, is having the mother of all midlife crises. His construction business is failing, his family has grown into an overpopulated mini-dukedom beset with insurrection and rivalry, and he is done in with grief: due to the accidental death of a daughter and the stillbirth of a son, he has come to doubt the capacity of his own heart. Brady Udall, one of our finest American fiction writers, tells a tragicomic story of a deeply faithful man who, crippled by grief and the demands of work and family, becomes entangled in an affair that threatens to destroy his family’s future. Like John Irving and Richard Yates, Udall creates characters that engage us to the fullest as they grapple with the nature of need, love, and belonging.
Beautifully written, keenly observed, and ultimately redemptive, The Lonely Polygamist is an unforgettable story of an American family—with its inevitable dysfunctionality, heartbreak, and comedy—pushed to its outer limits. | | | Product Details: | | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 152 reviews |
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Average Customer Review:
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97 of 111 found the following review helpful:
 Comic, bittersweet novel of family, lots of familyApr 21, 2010
By Michael A. Duvernois
I think the initial draw to the book is the portrayal of a polygamist family (man, four wives, and twenty eight children), but ultimately to book succeeds in making the connections from comical extremes back to everyone's daily situation. The typical reader is likely to have one or zero spouses, but there's a humanity and fundamental commonality of experience in the drawing of the book's characters that allows us to enjoy the ride. This is a novel of the family and a novel of modern America with a protagonist trying to balance home life, work, the demands of society, and the wayward tugs of the heart. While juggling four sister-wives and a struggling construction business.
I'm not fully willing to go with that "Great American Novel" review quoted above in the amazon description. Udall certainly is willing to tackle big issues and write a broad tale, and it is a good read. There's maybe just a little edge that is missing. As if things are a touch too neat and tidy, and maybe there's been a little extra sugar on the bitter pills. It's a minor quibble, and you should definitely read the book!
74 of 84 found the following review helpful:
Just delightfulApr 28, 2010
By David J. Loftus
You figure a title like this has to be ironic, even sarcastic. For most of us the notion of a polygamist Mormon patriarch -- one possessed of four wives and 28 children -- probably conjures a despotic control freak. But this book is simply and sincerely titled. The protagonist Golden Richards is a sweet, bewildered, and thoroughly overwhelmed man.
Constantly fleeing and hiding from the demands and power plays of his wives and a melee of kids in three different houses, fighting to revive his failing construction business, deeply wounded by grief and guilt over the accidental death of a daughter and the still-birth of a son, he finds himself attracted to another woman who clearly needs help and attention but is precisely the wrong person for him to be seeing.
Apart from Golden, the narrative most often inhabits the minds of Rusty, a troubled 11-year-old lost in the pack, and Trish, the fourth and youngest wife. We get plenty of back stories along the way: the origins of Golden's father Royal, the courtship of his first wife Beverly, critical past moments in the history of this odd, sprawling family.
There are also wonderful miniature portraits -- of the true power brokers and go-getters in the local Mormon community, other polygamists like Ervil LeBaron who give the church a bad name, unattached mothers hoping to become Golden's fifth spouse, the odd books that characters read in hiding (from the romance novel, To Love a Scoundrel, to How to Derail a Train With Common Household Items), and the sweetest and wisest sheriff you could imagine.
The book reads easily, with much humor and occasional stabbing sorrow. Udall unobtrusively slips in a broad spectrum of the landscape, from Hispanic tenants with their drugs and mescal, to Nevada brothels, survivalist bomb shelters, and nuclear tests.
There are astounding plot turns, but not like those of a thriller that smack hard yet feel weightless; these surprises settle in and make you say, "but of course!" Udall truly does make this unusual situation feel quite normal. He makes you identify with everyone, and much to your surprise, sympathize with and even root for his protagonist.
"[T]his ... was the basic truth they all chose to live by: that love was no finite commodity. That it was not subject to the cruel reckoning of addition and subtraction, that to give to one did not necessarily mean to take from another; that the heart, in its infinite capacity--even the confused and cheating heart of the man in front of her, even the paltry thing now clenched and faltering inside her own chest--could open itself to all who would enter, like a house with windows and doors thrown wide, like the heart of God itself, vast and accommodating and holy, a mansion of rooms without number, full of multitudes without end."
I don't know how true-to-life this story may be. But it feels right, it reads beautifully and often hilariously, and I liked it an awful lot.
60 of 68 found the following review helpful:
 A tale of the toxic desertMay 30, 2010
By E. Jacobs
I am of two minds about this book. I really enjoyed the premise, and the writing. And the story really brought home a major theme: that whatever you are exposed to in your youth sticks with you forever, for better or for worse.
The story is primarily about Golden Richards, a polygamist with four wives and approximately 28 kids. The logistical difficulties inherent in this lifestyle are made very clear early on. You get a real sense that Golden will be facing some problems, and indeed he does. The second major focus of the book is one of his sons, Rusty, who is also coping with being a "plyg" kid in the best way he knows how. The beginning of the book was sharp and focused and nicely paced. But the middle seemed to just be a series of roadblocks with no resolution or gratification for the reader. It was almost as if the author was saying to himself, "what can I do next to torture this guy some more?". The plot seemed to be just stuck in a rut at that point.
I'm kind of ambivalent about the book. It had some wonderful reviews and there were certainly parts of the book that got me thinking that this was some really fine writing. But after thinking about the book for a few days, I'm not feeling like it's one to strongly recommend, unless for those with a strong interest in the subject matter.
53 of 66 found the following review helpful:
the best read of the yearApr 16, 2010
By bradyfan
"Dan"
This is the best book I have read in this (relatively) new year. By turns laugh out loud funny and hearbreakingly sad- its also endlessly creative. Its everything you would want in a piece of fiction- pick it up, read the 1st page, turn the page , read on- before you know it you are completely caught up in the world of Golden, his 4 wives and 28 children. This is a book to read once, tell all your friends about it, read it again. These characters and their story will stay with you for a long long time. The feeling I had while reading it was the feeling I remember having when I read Lonesome Dove for that 1st time. If you are a lover of good fiction- then you are in luck because this is fiction at its finest.
21 of 25 found the following review helpful:
 Distasteful (but not because of the subject matter!)Aug 15, 2010
By J. L. Rubenking
This book has gotten great reviews this year, and I was rather eager to read it. But while it has many moments of hilarity, as well as genuine, relatable tragedy, I was left ultimately with a feeling of distaste for the book. Not because of the polygamist subject matter; on the contrary, I don't care what anyone's beliefs or living situations may be. Golden Richards (the protagonist) can have his four wives and 28 kids and I have no quarrel with it. There are other, more glaring faults with the book that prevent me from liking it.
My first bone of contention is with Golden Richards, who, as a character, is so ignorant as to be almost mentally challenged. He's a hulking brute with no education who just stumbles through the mess of disgruntled wives and rampantly rambunctious children he's tied to. This is a man who spends weeks with gum in his pubic hair, seemingly unable to figure out a way to remove it. While this episode is initially funny, it just becomes pathetic. When Golden is tempted to begin an affair that would destroy his family forever, he stumbles toward it just as he hulks into every other decision, fumbling and unthinking.
There are some good things to consider here as well, though. Udall gives us three narrators in this tale, and I enjoyed having other viewpoints from Golden's. We also hear from the fourth and youngest wife, Trish, and one of Golden's kids, 11-year-old Rusty, "the family terrorist." Trish's backstory and present view of her situation and the whole Richards' family situation are evidence that at least the women in this book know what's what. Trish isn't one to let the other wives run roughshod over her, but she also depends on them for many things, especially incorporating her introverted daughter from a previous marriage into the household. But Trish also lives independently, in an apartment in town. It's there that she develops a friendship with the always 'escaping' Rusty and Rusty's friend, the fireworks-loving handyman, June. The relationship between Trish and June is a lovely one, a what-if sort of relationship that gently grows out of commonalities - these two people just might make it if they left everything else behind.
With Rusty, Udall gives us the best character in the book. Outrageous, funny, sad, bitter, hateful, wonderful Rusty. When he goes off on his tirades against his 'evil aunt' or the sad fact that his clothes are in tatters and he doesn't have any friends at school, we are right there with him, rooting for him. He calls his dad "Sasquatch" and fantasizes about his future with Trish, while worrying about his own fragile mother and fighting with his many brothers and sisters.
My other bones of contention are the pat, tidy, wrapped and tacked ending, and the horrible fate that befalls a much loved member of the family. Having put up with some pretty bizarre goings-on for 500 pages, does the reader deserve the cheap hat trick of an ending to this novel? We want better for the characters (yes, even Golden), and Udall fails to deliver.
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