In life, there are choices that cannot be taken back, roads that, once traveled, disappear behind us, leaving ahead our only option. Worse yet, often, when we make these choices, we are too young, arrogant, or foolish to understand the full measure of their consequences. And so we choose, in haste, partners, children, religions, and find ourselves locked into lives we wish we could take back. Though this piece from Mr. Udall is principally about a man and his struggles to provide for a large and unconventional family, it is this irrevocable sorrow that throbs at its heart and gives it all of its melancholic power.
By even the strictures of his fundamentalist faith, Golden Richards, as he approaches middle age, has much to be thankful for. He is an honest businessman and a prolific father. With his four wives, he has sired more than two dozen children, all of whom expand his priesthood, increasing his godliness. More over, he is a giant of a man whose massive shoulders, at least according to his fellow church-goers, are wide enough to bear not only his familial responsibilities but the hopes and dreams of the church's congregants, all of whom pray often for a great man to reveal himself to them and lead them out of obscurity and into righteousness. But for as much as Golden has done what was required of him, as much as he adheres to the rules as best he can, as much as he strives tirelessly to give his family what they need, he is, in body, mind and spirit, exhausted. The demands of his large, diverse family, the stresses of his sputtering business, and the twin sorrows of the two beloved children he lost too early have combined to beat him down until there is left in him nothing but routine and the knowledge that to halt, even for a moment, will finish him.
But in this darkest hour, there is a glimmer of hope, hope and temptation. She takes the form of a young Guatemalan woman who, forced by circumstance into marrying the same pimp who has hired Golden to do construction on a brothel, falls in love with Golden and, in doing so, becomes, for this lonely polygamist, a reprieve from his troubles. In their quiet, forbidden passion, he finds both an escape from his burdens and a means by which to examine his life and how he arrived at his present misery. But nothing can happen with the young woman, can it? He cannot abandon his 32 dependents and flee with his mistress, can he? To do so would be to follow in his father's dishonorable footsteps, to confirm every moment of disappointment his fellow congregants have felt towards him, and to consign his family to dissolution and beggary. Duty or temptation, honor or freedom... Which shall Golden choose?
The Lonely Polygamist is a sprawling novel of rich landscapes, familial burdens and difficult choices which ensnare the reader as effectively as they do its extensive cast of characters. From the sexual frustrations of Golden's youngest wife, to the Byzantine schemes of his eldest, Mr. Udall draws a compelling and frightening portrait of plural marriage, both the joys it conveys by its solidarity and the miseries it imposes with its isolationism. For the extent to which Mormon fundamentalism is a cult cuts off the practitioners of plural marriage from the rest of the world, forcing them to depend upon each other for social, mental and physical sustenance that is not always forthcoming. The care with which the author handles this contentious issue is evident in the fact that the reader comes away not burdened by the biases of those for or against plural marriage. Rather, he is furnished with its pros and its cons, its celebrations and its sorrows, all of which are depicted with an authenticity that must come from first hand experience.
But regardless of how fair Mr. Udall is to plural marriage, his tale leaves little doubt of its costs. For humans were never designed to enter into relationships such as these, where the excessive burdens of the supersized family fall upon one man's shoulders, where his mates are locked into subservient relationships that cannot be dissolved, and where children are so plentiful that their names and their troubles are both too easily forgotten. We were designed to bond in pairs, to produce few enough children that we could physically protect and emotionally nourish all of them until they are equipped to face the responsibilities of adulthood on their own. To go against that evolutionary programming is to invite in problems we are ill-equipped to handle, a depressing reality with which Golden is all too familiar.
Mr. Udall takes a long while to arrive at his destination, but his journey, here, is characterized by fascinating emotions, complex entanglements and broken hearts. No, he does not make every word count, but he does ensure that the wellspring of his reader's emotions has been sucked dry by the time his conclusion hits home. Funny, moving and introspective work. (4/5 Stars)
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