Brady Udall’s The Lonely Polygamist was a difficult book for me to wrap my head around. I’m still not sure if I understand what Udall wanted to communicate. The story revolves around Golden Richard, one of his twenty-eight children, and one of his four wives. The narrative moves between these three characters and, at the end, only a few things change. One of the few conclusions I reached was that the ending of this book doesn’t matter; it’s all about the journey. And, not to give too much away about the ending, I think this book is about how life–in whatever form it takes–just goes on.
The first character we meet is Golden himself. Unlike other polygamist patriarchs I’ve seen portrayed in fiction, Golden doesn’t have a lot of religious convictions. For most of the book, he seems bewildered, more than anything else, about how his life shaped up. We see his history in small interludes, not flashbacks. In his present, Golden is organizing the construction of a brothel in Nevada–the only job on offer at the time. He is desperate to hide this information from his strict older wife and the rest of his community. Ironically, he spends most of his narrative on his own, far away from his gargantuan family. Golden isn’t much given to reflection about his family. So while there was a lot of worrying on his part about a new woman who caught his fancy and about the way his Nevada job is spiraling out of control, it’s hard to tell what he really thinks about his role as pater familias. In a way, Golden falls into polygamy the way that children used to take on their parents’ jobs, because that was the way things were done. He’s certainly not taking on plural wives for religious reasons.
Another part of the book is told from the perspective of Golden’s youngest wife, Trish. Trish was the daughter of polygamists whose mother broke away after her husband’s death. But Trish drifts back into the life after a disappointing marriage. Trish is an outsider of sorts, given that her sister-wives are at least a decade older than she is. Trish also lives in a duplex, away from the rest of the brood. Like Golden, she doesn’t reflect overmuch about her marriage. Instead, she spends most of her time waiting for a piece of Golden’s time until she meets a sweet local oddball with a fascination for explosives. But through Trish, we do get a glimpse into how the household(s) function–and fail to function. We see the rigid order of the first wife and the rebellious chaos of the second wife and the fading of the third wife.
A third part of the book is told by Golden’s son, Rusty, the family black sheep and scapegoat. This kid can never do anything right. One would think from this brief description that Rusty’s meant to gain the reader’s sympathy, but he’s a hard kid to like. He’s secretive, a little perverted, selfish, a Holden Caulfield without the vocabulary or the principles. He’s that kid, the one who smells funny and says things that are uncomfortable and bizarre. I suppose some readers might think that Rusty just needs a little attention, a little love to sort him out. But I think a little medication might be in order for this kid–or at least some counseling.
The three narrators lead such separated lives that reading The Lonely Polygamist is almost like reading three books at the same time. Only the fact that they’re part of the same sprawling family ties them together. Because none of them ponder about why they’re a family, about the religion behind it, it’s hard to know what this book is trying to say about polygamy. This is one of the hard things about this book for me. What is it trying to say? If it’s not trying to make a statement about polygamy, what is the message? With a topic like this, I have to believe that there is a reason why Udall chose polygamy. There are too many abuses in the system for the message–at least in my mind–to be that this is just another way of life, as valid as any other. When I turned the last page, I wanted to ask the author, “What are you trying to tell me?” And yet, the ending–without giving too much away–shows the Richards family carrying on after failures and deaths. They just…soldier on.
I feel a bit like I have to warn future readers. If you’re expecting Big Love on paper, this is not your book. This book is not about politics or scheming or sex. It’s about a family. Admittedly, it’s an odd family. But their stage is smaller than the stage the Hendricksons are playing on. Watching them reminded me of nothing so much as the first line of Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The Lonely Polygamist perfectly illustrates the second half of that statement.