The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
Jonathan Cape $38.99)
Rocketing up the New York Times Bestseller list, this book has been praised for its intricate plot, its scope and daring, and its bold and sweeping narrative. Udall is a brilliant writer. His language is measured and assured, his ability to take the reader on a fresh and entertaining journey well documented and proven.
It came as quite a surprise, then, to discover The Lonely Polygamist was not only weighed down under screeds of unnecessary detail, but lost in the shadow cast by its leading man - the bumbling builder, Golden Richards.
Golden is a huge, lumbering dimwit, who lacks any sense of direction, self-determination or common sense. Add to this his lack of moral fibre, his indifference to his family, and his self-centred nature, and Udall has unwittingly created a most frustrating individual.
A Mormon, Golden has accumulated four (disgruntled) wives and a shade under 30 (unruly) children. To support this brood, he takes a job building a brothel hundreds of miles from his family homes. Initially, Golden is disgusted with himself for taking money from the "Devil", but this moral dilemma is soon forgotten, as is his family, when he meets and falls in love with a mysterious woman - wife number five?
Meanwhile, back home, his 11-year-old son Rusty is getting a little angry at the lack of fatherly attention. Finding himself deposited with Beverly, wife Number One, while his own mother takes a little "rest" at the psychiatric hospital, Rusty starts to plan his escape from the "A-holes" (his brothers and sisters), the Witchy Woman (Beverly) and Sasquatch (Golden).
Rusty is the book's true "hero" - he is a brilliant construction, riddled with pre-teen angst, loaded with memorable sayings, while being equal measures menace and loving son. It is a real shame the book wasn't trimmed down and presented just from Rusty's point of view. Udall has a penchant for building surprising twists into the end of his stories, so that some of the "unnecessary" detail proves necessary after all.
If you like Dickens, you might love The Lonely Polygamist. If you like your literature delivered in giant slabs, with multiple points of view and endless characters, ditto. While the story does have some golden moments, it languishes far too close to a certain salty city and ends up more than a little rusty.
Steve Scott is an Auckland reviewer.
