The Lonely Polygamist

Rating

Golden Richards, husband to four wives, father to twenty-eight children, is having the mother of all mid-life 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 America s best young fiction writers, tells a tragicomic story of a deeply faithful man who, crippled by grief and the demands of work, religion and family, becomes entangled in an affair that threatens to destroy his family s future. Like John Irving and Richard Yates, Udall s characters engage us to the fullest as they grapple with the nature of need, love and belonging. A beautifully written comic masterpiece, keenly observed and ultimately redemptive, The Lonely Polygamist is the unforgettable story of an American family - with its inevitable dysfunctionality, heartbreak and comedy - pushed to its outer limits.

Promotional Information

'A wry, sympathetic portrait of a spectacularly dysfunctional family' New Yorker From the author of the legendary novel The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint.

About the Author

Brady Udall is the author of Letting Loose the Hounds, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, an international bestseller, and the newly released The Lonely Polygamist. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Playboy, GQ and Esquire, and his stories and essays have been featured on National Public Radio's This American Life. He teaches in the MFA program at Boise State University, and lives in Boise, Idaho and Teasdale, Utah with his wife and children. His great-great grandfather, David King Udall, was a polygamist. His second wife, Ida Hunt Udall, was his great-great grandmother.

Reviews

"Udall demonstrates a wonderful ability to move the reader one way or the other. He is a brilliant comic writer, and this novel is full of laugh-out-loud moments and running jokes. But he is equally adept at heartbreaking tragedy. Combining the two superbly here, he has recreated the terrible wonder and wonderful terror of family life, in a novel that's not larger than life, but just as large, as difficult, as funny and as poignant as everyday life itself" -- Doug Johnstone * Sunday Herald * "It's funny, but not simply a comic noel; Udall has some wonderful observations about the dynamics of family life" * The Times * "An exceptional tale of an exceptional family." * The New York Times * "A dark, funny and insightful probe into the ways we can be lonely even when surrounded" * Sunday Telegraph, Australia * "Memorable... Shining above all in this joyful celebration of communal living is Rusty, the misfit whose explosive fate will have profound effects on the whole, enormous family." -- Ross Gilfillan * Daily Mail *