(79) The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff

I love reading a fictional book that inspires me to Google. The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff is just the most recent book to send me to the search engine.

Ebershoff has taken a timely media subject, Polygamy, and has interwoven the factual history of the Mormon church with the fictional story of Jordan Scott and has come up with a book that you will find hard to put down.

Told in alternating chapters, The 19th Wife is the story of two different 19th wives. The first being Ann Eliza Young, the 19th wife of Brigham Young. The wife who ended up divorcing her husband & denouncing Polygamy. Google produced this website. http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/brighamyoungswives.htm. Although the research that Ebershoff did was obviously quite more extensive, the link will give you an idea of Ann Eliza's story.

The rest of Ebershoff's book revolves around the fictional story of a second 19th wife. Set in modern day Utah, Jordan Scott's mother is the 19th wife of a man powerful in his community. Jordan has long since been banished from the community & has been surviving on his own, in the real world, but when his mother, the 19th wife, is accused of murdering her husband, Jordan returns to help prove his mother's innocence.

While I am not quite done reading the book, I have read enough to know that The 19th Wife has enough "meat" to it , that I predict it will become a favorite of Book Clubs everywhere.