“It’s not every day that you attend the funeral of your husband as organized by his other wife. Or, rather, the funeral of the man you’ve been calling husband for six months. Who was John Taylor? I no longer have a clue.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (MAR 4, 2014)

John Taylor does not fit the stereotype of a polygamist. Although he is handsome, charming, and charismatic, he is not selfish and arrogant, nor does he seem obviously abnormal or deviant. On the contrary, Taylor is a doctor who uses his impressive skills to perform reconstructive surgery on children who have facial deformities. His partners are unhappy that Taylor insists on doing pro bono work, since the big money is in cosmetic procedures for the affluent. Still, Taylor is a complex individual who, for reasons of his own, married three women who live in Palo Alto, Los Gatos, and Los Angeles; he somehow managed to juggle his myriad professional and personal responsibilities. It is only after Taylor dies in his hotel room of an apparent heart attack that his trio of wives become fodder for the tabloids.

Twenty-eight year old Samantha Adams is a detective in the Palo Alto Police Department in California. She has been living for ten years with her boyfriend, Peter, an anthropologist whom she dubs “an academic wannabe.” Sam is ambivalent about her feelings for Peter, a fact that is driving a wedge between them. When she is assigned to the John Taylor case, Sam has little time to devote to Peter, since there is evidence that the doctor may have been murdered. Did one of his wives do him in? If so, which one?

In lesser hands,  A Circle of Wives might have been little more than a cliché-ridden mystery with sensational overtones. Fortunately, Alice LaPlante is a talented and intelligent author who creates spellbinding and well-rounded characters; writes witty and realistic dialogue; and constructs plots that are clever and surprising. In addition, her prose is straightforward and effortless; it is refreshing to read a novel devoid of heavy-handed similes and metaphors. LaPlante gives voice to the aforementioned Sam Adams (who is eager to prove that she can solve her first major murder case) as well as the three Taylor wives, Dorothy (a poised and elegant woman to whom John was married for 34 years); MJ Taylor, an accountant (John’s wife for six years); and Helen Richter, a pediatric oncologist who was married to John for six months.

Among the memorable scenes in this book is the funeral mass for Dr. Taylor. All three wives are present, each lost in thought, remembering the man they loved. Dorothy, MJ, and Helen could not be more different from one another, but they all cared deeply for John, and each provided him with something special that he needed. Alas, A Circle of Wives is marred by an over-the-top ending with too many twists and turns. Still, most readers will enjoy this generally well-crafted and entertaining page-turner that proves once again how little we know about the people who are closest to us.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 90 readers
PUBLISHER:	Atlantic Monthly Press (March 4, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Alice LaPlante
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Turn of Mind The Making of a Story

Bibliography:

• Turn of Mind (2011)
• A Circle of Wives (March 2014)

Other:

• The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing (2007)
• Method and Madness: The Making of a Story: A Guide to Writing Fiction (2008)

“When Baba Segi awoke with a bellyache for the sixth day in a row, he knew it was time to do something drastic about his fourth wife’s childlessness. He was sure the pain wasn’t caused by hunger or trapped gas; it was from the buildup of months and months of of worry. A grunt escaped from the woman lying next to him. He glanced sideways and saw that his leg had stapled Iya Tope, his second wife, to the bed.He observed the jerky rise and fall of her bosom but he didn’t move to ease her discomfort. His thoughts returned to Bolanle and his stomach tightened again. Then and there, he decided to pay Teacher a visit. He would get there at sunrise so Teacher would know it was no ordinary stopover.”

Book Review:

Review by Friederike Knabe (DEC 20, 2013)

Ishola Alao, known as Baba Segi, has a problem that upsets his stomach and general well-being. After two years of trying, his fourth wife still does not show any signs of being pregnant. He already has a stable of kids with his other wives, but what is the use of another marriage if it doesn’t give him more offspring? Furthermore, his young wife, “the graduate,” has been creating unease and tension between his other wives. It is really beyond him to understand what the reason could be, given that he is sharing his favours equally among the women. Something has to be done about his “barren” wife and all else will sort itself out after that. Or does it?

Nigerian author Lola Shoneyin was a well-known poet and short story writer by the time her debut novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, was published in 2009. It immediately won several awards and was also long listed for the 2011 Orange Prize. As the title and my short introduction suggests, the novel takes an intimate look at a life in a polygamous family in modern Nigeria. Drawing on her own in-depth knowledge of the issues, Shoneyin writes with great confidence making this novel a very engaging and authentic read. She harmoniously combines humour and irony with empathy and sensitivity in her vivid depiction of the central characters and the circumstances they find themselves in. The reader is taken inside the complicated day-to-day of such living arrangements and, quite naturally, we also gain insights into the very difficult underlying societal issues of traditional gender relations and economic inequalities.

Bolanle, the young educated fourth wife is the central figure of this fast moving and highly absorbing tale: her introduction into the household sets off a series of events and revelations that have repercussions nobody could have anticipated. What is predictable is that her arrival does not go down well with the three established wives and mothers of Baba Segi’s children. Iya Segi, the “mother of the household” has had until now a very good handle on everything and managed the second wife, Iya Tope, and the third, Iya Femi pretty well (each named after her first-born child). Now with the intruder among them jealousy, insecurities, favouritism and disruption of their established group dynamics take over the daily life. One expresses what the three feel: “These educated types have thin skins; they are like pigeons. If we poke her with a stick, she will fly away and leave our home in peace”  On her side, Bolanle does not really understand the inner workings of the household and adds to the difficulties.

Rather than telling the story from one – external – perspective, Shoneyin gives each protagonist a distinct voice to tell her/his own backstory and in other chapters reveal their respective views on the unfolding dramatic events in the household. As readers we can appreciate their very different upbringing and circumstances that led them to marry into Baba Segi’s household. We can even develop some empathy with Baba Segi himself, a man whose life has not been easy and has bound him deeply to the traditions of his social environment. All in all a very satisfying read: lively, personal and also educational in giving the reader a glimpse into the challenges faced by societies developing from tradition to modern, from rural to urban life.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 60 readers
PUBLISHER:	William Morrow; 1 edition (June 29, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Friederike Knabe
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on Lola Shoneyin
EXTRAS:	Reading Guide
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Another Nigerian author: The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Bibliography:

• The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives (2009; 2010 in US)

“Families are Forever: He wondered if the slogan was meant as a promise or a threat. ”

Book Review:

Review by Poornima Apte (JUL 21, 2010)

One can see why Rusty, Golden Richard’s son, would call him Sasquatch. After all, Golden is a lumbering, huge hulk of a man and to his son, probably as elusive to spot as Bigfoot. This is because Rusty is one of 28 children and Golden Richards is the “Lonely Polygamist” outlined in this novel’s title.

Golden is married to four wives spread out over three houses in the Virgin Valley in Utah. There’s Old House, Big House and a separate smaller place where the youngest wife, Trish, lives with daughter Faye. Beverly Richards, the oldest “sister wife,” is the family matriarch and sets the rules for the household. She runs a tight ship and enforces rules strongly even if there is silent rebellion among the other sister wives. “You cannot take five steps in this house without being reprimanded or corrected or warned, without being reprimanded that rules and laws are what separate us from the worst aspects of ourselves and are all we have to keep sin and ugliness and anarchy at bay—and that is exactly how Mother #1 would have it,” Udall writes. The entire set also determines Golden’s sleeping arrangements.

Of course Golden, for his part, is almost never home. The owner of a construction company who is staring at bankruptcy, he has secretly taken up the construction of a brothel house in Nevada. Since such a project would be frowned upon by his church and religion, Golden has told everyone back home that he is working on an old people’s home. In Nevada, Golden lives in a small trailer commuting occasionally to home and falling asleep before any of his wives and children have had a chance to curry his attentions. Even if he is endlessly patient, the four wives and 28 children are really beginning to get to him: “He didn’t want to hear about whose junior league basketball game he’d forgotten, or what parent-teacher conference had been missed. He didn’t want to see another overdue utility bill or tax notice, didn’t want to take any more phone calls regarding feuding wives or lovesick teenage daughters or biblical plagues of chicken pox or pinkeye or flu that were always lurking just out of sight, waiting to bring the family to its knees,” Udall writes.

As it turns out it’s not just the family that is making Golden tired. As luck would have it, he falls in love with his boss’s wife, a Guatemalan immigrant named Huila. Golden is initially attracted to her because he finds her to be the only one around who will actually listen to him.

Author Bradley Udall, who himself can trace his ancestry back to polygamy, trains his sights on three central characters—Golden, the youngest wife, Trish, and 11-year-old Rusty. By illuminating their circumstances, he manages to capture the many facets of such a large family.

Trish, who has known of no other way of life than the one she is living now, might be the youngest and the prettiest but she is also the one most ignored by Golden. Unmoored by her husband’s total lack of attention, she takes comfort in the attention shown her by a wandering mechanic, June. Then there’s Rusty, who harbors a crush on Trish, and often visits her just to hang around. As June’s interest in Trish grows, she is conflicted by her desire for attention and the teachings of her church, which would not forgive her straying.

Even if the protagonist looms large (both literally and figuratively) on every page, it is 11-year-old Rusty who is the scene-stealer. His desperate attempts at trying to figure out his place in the teeming household are heartwarming and heartbreaking. Constantly ignored and always misunderstood, the family “terrorist” falls through the cracks completely. It’s one of the unfortunate effects of being one of 28 all vying for attention. In one wrenching scene, the boy is waiting for his father to get home so he can show him a certificate of honor he earned at school. For the eternal prankster, this certificate is a huge deal. “For the boy, it is terribly simple: all his father needs to do is come home and remark kindly on the boy’s certificate. It won’t take much, maybe a smile, a squeeze of the shoulder, and the boy will go to bed happy and all will be well,” Udall writes. But of course, Golden never shows.

Eventually as the boy gets increasingly desperate at some attention, the story takes a darker turn and the narratives of Golden, Huila, Trish and Rusty merge into a seamless plotline.

What one doesn’t see readily in The Lonely Polygamist is exactly how Golden Richards can afford such a large family or how they make do when his finances are on the brink of disaster. There is a hint at social services and hand-me-downs but it’s a question I could not shake as I read through. Udall also doesn’t directly address the religion or the controversial aspects of polygamy here.

By instead focusing exclusively on the family dynamics, he succeeds in showing the reader just how similar all families—no matter their size—can be. Despite the novel’s size at 600 pages, the pacing is fairly taut. And even if this is a tale of a family, Udall spares us melodrama right until the slightly pat ending. Empathy always works in fiction and it works wonderfully in The Lonely Polygamist. When Golden Richards struggles with the “strangling anxiousness” that is a part of him, he is no different from any other middle-aged married man worrying about his family and how he is going to make ends meet.

There is a part of the Richards family in all of us—especially the struggle to make something meaningful out of life all while making it through just another ordinary day.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 94 readers
PUBLISHER:	W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (May 3, 2010)
REVIEWER:	Poornima Apte
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Brady Udall
EXTRAS:	Excerpt Bookslut interview with Brady Udall
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	If you want to know more about the Mormon Church, The Firsts, then and now… and told in a really great way: The 19th Wife by David Ebersoff (amazon)

Bibliography:

• Letting Loose the Hounds: Stories (1980)
• The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint (2001)
• The Lonely Polygamist (May 2010)