Why a Booktrail?
1800s, 1900s: A picture of polygamy and of the 19th wife…
The 19th Wife
What you need to know before your trail
As a teenager, Jordan was expelled from his family and religious community, a secretive Mormon offshoot sect. Now his father has been found shot dead in front of his computer, and one of his many wives – Jordan’s mother – is accused of the crime.
Over a century earlier, Ann Eliza Young, the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, Prophet and Leader of the Mormon Church, tells the sensational story of how her own parents were drawn into plural marriage, and how she herself battled for her freedom and escaped her powerful husband, to lead a crusade to end polygamy in the United States.
Travel Guide
Utah
“The territory of Utah, glorious as it may be, spike by granite peaks and red jasper rocks, cut by echoing canyons and ravines, spread upon a wide basin of gamma grass and wandering streams, this land of blowing snow and sand, of iron, copper, and the great salten sea – Utah, whose scarlet-golden beauty marks the best of God’s handiwork – the Territory of Utah stands defiant as a Theocracy within the borders of our beloved democracy, imperium in imperio”
Mormons
Marriage in Utah in the mormon community can mean something very different to the understanding of the word in polygamy in general. Ann Eliza Young is married to the Mormon leader Brigham Young. The church is also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She flees the church and years later and actually spent the rest of her life campaigning for the legal abolishment of the system in the United States. This part of the story is based on real historical fact.
This group of people are vindicated for their treatment of marriage, relationships and women and their use of multiple marriages. What happens to a woman’s choice and what happens when someone leaves the community and are effectively banished from their families? In the novel there is mention of the Mesadale Firsts Community (fictional but inspired on communities such as the one led by Warren Jeffs)as a man fights to free his mother from being unjustly convicted of killing his father. this is a study of the Mormon pioneers contrasted to the Mormons of today – they might have had a more basic way of life then, butto men of Mesadale are not too dissimilar today in the way they recruit new wives. Technology however is not always progression!
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The 19th Wife
Author/Guide: David Ebershoff Destination: Utah, Salt Lake City Departure Time: mid 1800s, 2000s
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