Sunday, May 16, 2010

2010 book 124

Brady Udall's The Lonely Polygamist
This has been getting rave reviews calling it a great family epic of our time and whatnot, and even though I wasn't particularly interested in the subject matter and it's a hefty read, I figured I'd give it a go. Now it's definitely worth reading, but it suffers from a lot of the problems Big Love has, namely that the husband is the least interesting and weakest (in every way) of the characters. Seriously, wouldn't that show be way better if Bill died, and we got to watch the women struggle to maintain their family without him? Anyway, same deal here--patriarch Golden is weak and feels empty and gets tangled up in some non-holy messes; meanwhile, one of his sons is desperate for attention, as is one of his wives. But it's hard to really love a book with such a schmoe of a protagonist, even if the family dynamics are fascinating. B.

1 comment:

Christina said...

I think that the point of this book is that he was kind of a failure and his wives were running things, but it was a failure of the whole system. I did really want Trish to run off with June, though. Also, I am so so glad I am not from a polygamist family!

I totally agree with your letter grade on this one, too!