RILEY LIBRARY ADULT

Book of the Month

The Lonely Polygamist, by Brady Udall

When times get tense --and they often do--for Golden Richards, the title
patriarch of Brady Udall's The Lonely Polygamist, he turns to a soothing
chant of the names, in order, of his 28 children. (It's also practical, when he
needs to sort out just which toddler is showing him a scab, and which teen
is asking if he can come to her 4-H demo.) While Big Love seeks the inherent
soap opera in a man with many wives, Udall finds the slapstick: Golden's
houses are the sort of places where the dog is often wearing underwear and
a child or two likely isn't. But Udall doesn't settle just for jokes (though the
jokes are excellent). Golden may be hapless, distracted, and deceitful, but he
is large-hearted and so is his story. There's menace and more than a full share
of tragedy there, as well as unabashed redemption and a particular sympathy
for the loneliest members of this crowded family. With a fresh and faultless
ear for American vernacular, Udall's big tale of beset manhood effortlessly
earns its comparisons to tragicomic family classics from The Corrections to
John Irving.

----- Tom Nissley. Amazon.com Review
.