Synopses & Reviews
So begins this astonishing and poignant memoir of life in the family of Utah fundamentalist leader and naturopathic physician Rulon C. Allred. Since polygamy was abolished by manifesto in 1890, this is a story of secrecy and lies, of poverty and imprisonment and government raids. When raids threatened, the families were forced to scatter from their pastoral compound in Salt Lake City to the deserts of Mexico or the wilds of Montana. To follow the Lord's plan as dictated by the Principle, the human cost was huge. Eventually murder in its cruelest form entered when members of a rival fundamentalist group assassinated the author's father. Dorothy Solomon, monogamous herself, broke from the fundamentalist group because she yearned for equality and could not reconcile the laws of God (as practiced by polygamists) with the vastly different laws of the state. This poignant account chronicles her brave quest for personal identity. Originally published in hardcover under the title .
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I have never read a memoir that moved me so deeply. --Teresa Jordan
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To read this book is to shape-shift into pre-modern, larger-than-life beliefs and emotions'"and also to relive their consequences. --Ben Dickinson, Senior Features Editor, Elle
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What a hypnotically strange and dream-like world Dorothy Solomon describes. --Lynn Freed, author of House of Women
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[An] amazing story. --Pam Houston
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Written with courage, compassion, and an uncommon wisdom.... This book is a reckoning with truth. --Terry Tempest Williams
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Solomon succeeds so admirably where Krakauer fails. She has produced a book sprinkled with both beauty and 'indelible sadness'. --Boston Sunday Globe
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Her harrowing family history and bracingly vivid, frequently poetic memoir is a document of consistent fascination and intermittently astonishing power. --Elle
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Bold and strongly imagined...takes us deep to the heart of a family story that is both strange and familiar. --Kim Barnes
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A wise and moving memoir that should be read by anyone interested in how we configure our relationships. --Judith Freeman
Synopsis
"I am the daughter of my father's fourth plural wife, twenty-eighth of forty-eight children a middle kid, you might say." So begins this astonishing and poignant memoir of life in the family of Utah fundamentalist leader and naturopathic physician Rulon C. Allred. Since polygamy was abolished by manifesto in 1890, this is a story of secrecy and lies, of poverty and imprisonment and government raids. When raids threatened, the families were forced to scatter from their pastoral compound in Salt Lake City to the deserts of Mexico or the wilds of Montana. To follow the Lord's plan as dictated by the Principle, the human cost was huge. Eventually murder in its cruelest form entered when members of a rival fundamentalist group assassinated the author's father Dorothy Solomon, monogamous herself, broke from the fundamentalist group because she yearned for equality and could not reconcile the laws of God (as practiced by polygamists) with the vastly different laws of the state. This poignant account chronicles her brave quest for personal identity. Originally published in hardcover under the titlePredators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk. "
Synopsis
"Probably the best book ever written about polygamy. Neither an apologia nor an exposé."--
Synopsis
I am the daughter of my father's fourth plural wife, twenty-eighth of forty-eight children'"a middle kid, you might say.
About the Author
Dorothy Allred Solomon lives in Park City, Utah. She is the recipient of several awards from the Utah Arts Council and a Governor's Media Award for Excellence.