The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

I thought this was one of the funniest books I have ever read! Obviously, it is touchy material--it is about polygamy and the author is a Mormon--but one of the children, Rusty, is hilarious! A lot of his chapters, told from his eleven year old vision of the world, reminds me of A Christmas Story, when Ralphie has his daydreams about protecting his family with his coveted Red Rider BB gun. That kind of funny. So the story is about Golden, a man with four wives and 28 children, who has a failing construction business and lies to everybody about his current work project. Everyone thinks he is building a senior center in Nevada (lives in Utah, so no one goes to check the facts), but he is really building a brothel, Pussycat Manor II. Inevitably, he stumbles upon the brothel owner's wife (Huila) and they spend time together and he falls for her. But all hell breaks loose when Ted Leo (said brothel owner) finds out. Golden's past is expolored, and the author uses a significant amount of foreshadowing, which isn't obvious at the time, but makes it a good reflection at the end of the novel. It is so sad that this book has only been checked out four times--including my reading--since being available at the library since June, 2010. It is definitely not a book to miss, and introduces one to the theology behind polygamy and why this belief system is still kept even today.