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Brady Udall is the author of New York Times bestseller The Lonely Polygamist, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, and Letting Loose the Hounds. He teaches at Boise State University and lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and children.
The Lonely Polygamist
by Brady Udall
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ISBN-13:
9780393080933
- Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
- Publication date: 05/03/2010
- Sold by: Barnes & Noble
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 624
- Sales rank: 159,430
- File size: 995 KB
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A New York Times bestseller: "Udall masterfully portrays the hapless foibles and tragic yearnings of our fellow humans." —San Francisco Chronicle
Golden Richards, husband to four wives, father to twenty-eight children, is having the mother of all midlife crises. His construction business is failing, his family has grown into an overpopulated mini-dukedom beset with insurrection and rivalry, and he is done in with grief: due to the accidental death of a daughter and the stillbirth of a son, he has come to doubt the capacity of his own heart. Brady Udall, one of our finest American fiction writers, tells a tragicomic story of a deeply faithful man who, crippled by grief and the demands of work and family, becomes entangled in an affair that threatens to destroy his family’s future. Like John Irving and Richard Yates, Udall creates characters that engage us to the fullest as they grapple with the nature of need, love, and belonging.
Beautifully written, keenly observed, and ultimately redemptive, The Lonely Polygamist is an unforgettable story of an American family—with its inevitable dysfunctionality, heartbreak, and comedy—pushed to its outer limits.
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Publishers Weekly
Udall's dark comedy of polygamy and American anomie has as its protagonist, the overworked father and (polygamous) husband, Golden Richards. Surrounded by wives and children (so many that he occasionally has trouble remembering their names), Golden is nonetheless a solitary spirit, finding little companionship amid the hubbub of his multiple homes. Udall's nimble prose dances lightly between farce and tragedy, and David Aaron Baker's reading manages a similar feat. Comic episodes are suitably breezy and Baker's pace grows stately when faced with darkness, his reading slowing to a molasses crawl for heartrending moments like the loss of a child. A Norton hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 22). (May)Bonnie Jo Campbell
This is big-hearted American storytelling, the best new book I’ve read in years.Hannah Tinti
The Lonely Polygamist cracks open the door to plural marriage and lets in the light. Brady Udall explores the Richards family with the greatest care and humor, building memorable characters that readers will immediately love. Funny and wise, The Lonely Polygamist stands with other great family novels such as The Corrections and Middlesex, and sets Udall on the top shelf of America’s writers.”Pam Houston
What is so great about this unflinching, superbly crafted, big hearted novel is the way it makes us recognize the polygamist(and sister wife) in all of us. Golden Richards' struggles and desires are no different from ours, he just has them in multiples of four. His story not only demystifies and humanizes polygamist culture, it takes a dramatic stand on behalf of families everywhere—from the most conservative to the most alternative—and suggests a way to foreground, amidst all our failings, the rare moment of success.Salt Lake Tribune
[A] compelling, rollicking story.Dallas Morning News
An absorbing, moving entertaining novel that will transport the reader into Golden’s chaotic world.Cleveland Plain Dealer
A profoundly satisfying read, written with a ferocious verve and authenticity.Wendy Smith - Washington Post
An audacious and frequently funny new novel.San Francisco Chronicle
There's something cinematic about the way Udall presents this tale, with at least a handful of dramatic scenes that seem to beg for a big-screen treatment. Furthermore, Udall's poetic rendering of the Southwestern landscape brings to mind the lingering, panoramic shots of films like Brokeback Mountain and A River Runs Through It. But most of all it's Golden, Rusty and the novel's other complex characters that make The Lonely Polygamist a potential classic. They remain with the reader after the last page is turned.”The New Yorker
A wry, sympathetic portrait of a spectacularly dysfunctional family.Alan Cheuse - All Things Considered
The novelist’s affection for his protagonist and sensitivity to his domestic despair yields characters and scenes that are precise and unfailingly rewarding. [Udall] has that gift for writing sinuous and convincing sentences that convey his affection without compromising clarity or truth.Entertainment Weekly
A riveting emotional tornado of a novel.Eric Weinberger - The New York Times Book Review
Funny [and] moving, [The Lonely Polygamist] is ambitious and it is tender about man’s endless absurdities and failings.”John Dufresne
The Lonely Polygamist is a hefty, eager, and bittersweet novel, and it is a page-turner. Brady Udall deals with familial chaos, reckless behavior, and alarming pyrotechnics with wit, grace, and tenderness. He’s an enchanter who casts his spell with exquisite sentences and unerring, evocative details. Here is a writer of inordinate compassion and formidable intelligence. Read this remarkable novel, friend, live with it, and I promise you this, little Rusty Richards will haunt your dreams.”Sexy Prime
How often does The Great American Novel truly come along?BookPage
The Lonely Polygamist is a great American novel, perhaps the great American novel of the year.”Bookreporter.com
Terrifically thought-provoking . . . a constantly shifting but marvelously controlled story.Newsday
One of the best novels I’ve read in a while . . . Golden Richards, middle-aged, 6-foot-6 polygamist with an overbite, is one of the most appealing, original, and brilliantly tragicomic protagonists to appear in American fiction in some time.Boise Weekly
A rich, poignant look at a family whose lifestyle may seem absolutely aberrant, but for whom life’s issues are wholeheartedly normal.New West
If you're looking for a big, funny, moving novel to read this spring, look no farther.Chicago Tribune
Entertaining . . . very moving . . . Impressive.Associated Press Staff
A brilliantly crafted mini-epic that is at turns hilarious, terrifying, and heartbreaking . . . Cinematic . . . A potential classic.Portland Oregonian
I don’t know how true to life this story may be. But it feels right, and it reads beautifully and often hilariously, and I liked it an awful lot.Philadelphia Inquirer
Uproarious . . . Udall’s storytelling [displays] ease and humor.Rabih Alameddine
The Lonely Polygamist is both an astounding feat and a sumptuous feast. This is the Second Coming of the Great American Novel. Or is it the Third? Who’s counting? Read this brilliant book.”The New York Times Book Review
[An] exceptional tale of an exceptional family.Miami Herald
A thick, transporting, critically hailed novel from which you emerge, blinking but sated, into the real world.