In this beautifully written dark comedy, Brady Udall has taken a charged
subject and given it a human face that any of us would recognize. This
is the story of Golden Richards, his four wives and his twenty-eight children. Like
the rest of America, they are struggling to pay the bills and find balance between
their jobs, family responsibilities and complicated marriages. To support them all,
the devout Golden has secretly agreed to build a brothel in Nevada, which sends him
down a slippery slope of deception amid good intentions. Hijinks and catastrophes
ensue. I laughed out loud, gnashed my teeth with the wives, ached for the child who
didn’t fit in, and I came to like Golden Richards in spite of his foibles. Set against the
deserts of Utah and Nevada, The Lonely Polygamist is as heartbreaking and
redemptive as the land itself. This is fiction at its finest. —Heidi Shayla, The Duck Store (University of Oregon)
Face Out
The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
July 19, 2010
