Binding: Hardcover Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9781400063970 ISBN: 1400063973 Label: Random House Manufacturer: Random House Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 514 Publication Date: August 05, 2008 Publisher: Random House Release Date: August 05, 2008 Sales Rank: 1221 Studio: Random House
Product DescriptionFaith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.
Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense.
It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.
Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.
And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith.
What Others Say
Enjoyable and thought provoking
I listened to The 19th Wife: A Novel on my Ipod. The characters are all multidimensional. Their stories are well developed and very interesting. The narration is well performed. I highly recommend The 19th Wife: A Novel for either a read or a listen.
Just ok.
While the book was ok, it was nothing beyond that. I am usually the type who picks up a book and finishes it in a couple days.... but this one took me MUCH longer because it just did not engage me.
It was like a Lifetime movie
This was one of those books I couldn't wait to be done with, as I had to read it for my book club. The writing is just okay, nothing overly literary, and at times the narrative is so cliche, or at least doesn't feel real, like the author is stretching a limited imagination. It tells two stories in two separate narratives that the author is trying to somehow relate to one another.
One is a historical fiction about Brigham Young's 19th wife, who divorces him and sets about on a crusade to end polygamy in the late-19th Century. That part of the book I really liked. It's fairly well researched and feels authentic. The other is a modern sort of murder mystery about a 19th wife in a cult-like sect that split of from the Mormons after ... Read More
An Interweaving of History and Fiction
I must admit I bought this novel under a misapprehension. Based on a quick reading of the cover blurb, I was expecting two fictional narrative strands, one set in the early days of Mormonism, and the other set in modern times, both of which would be mysteries. What I got was a novel set in modern times interwoven with a real (and fascinating) memoir by the estranged polygamous wife of Brigham Young. There is a mystery in both parts of the story, but the mystery of Ann Eliza Young is a real one that has never been solved. And while I cannot deny the compelling nature of Ann Eliza Young's memoir and the other historical narratives (some real, some fictional) which make up the historical strand of The 19th Wife: A Novel, I can't help but feel that Ebershoff ... Read More
Not what I thought
It was not what I thought it would be. To much switching back and forth.
