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The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall (view source)
Revision as of 13:50, 16 April 2010
, 13:50, 16 April 2010no edit summary
Golden Richards bursts onto the printed page. He is the central character and let's be honest, without him there would be no wives, no children, no complicated domestic life - make that, domestic lives. Immediately I pictured Golden in my mind's eye, as a Homer Simpson type - but with lots more children. He's a bumbling, blustering, bear of a man. It's as if he's just 'turned up' for the conception of his children, just idly ambled along when they were born.
Udall gives us a big, doorstep of a novel. It's a bold, breezy read. It's also a breath of fresh air in both the story line and also in his unique style of writing. If I tell you that I laughed out loud, really laughed out loud - twice - before page 50, I thtwenty think you'll get a flavour of this book. The children, all twenty eight of them (and yes, I did say twenty eight) dip in and out of the story on a regular basis, as you might expect.
When Golden returns home after a hard day's work, plays with some of the children for a bit and then says ''Hoo-wee. Now, where are your mothers?'' I loved that line. Priceless. And no doubt Golden would deliver it in a dead-pan fashion. You just know that there's going to be plenty of this humour to come. And you can't wait. Udall thoughtfully puts a graph, a family tree (or should that be trees?) of everyone right at the beginning of the novel. I found I referred to it many times.