Booktagger

Set in a secretive offshoot of the Mormons that still practices plural marriage, Jordan, a young man expelled as a teenager from his community (he calls it 'Saudi America') for innocently holding hands with a half-sister, returns to Utah to defend his mother. His polygamous father has been found dead in front of his computer, and one of his wives - Jordan's mother - is in jail accused of the crime.
In a parallel narrative, Ann Eliza Young, the 19th and final wife of Brigham Young, leader of the Mormon Church in the latter half of the nineteenth century, tells the sensational story of how her parents were drawn into plural marriage and how she herself escaped her powerful husband to lead a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. Bold, shocking and enthralling, The 19th Wife expertly draws together these two narratives to explore how religion can distort love and family, in a pageturning literary mystery.

About David Ebershoff
David Ebershoff is the author of The Danish Girl, a New York Times Notable Book and the winner of the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Lambda Literary Award. His collection of stories, The Rose City, was named one of the best books of 2001 by the Los Angeles Times. His books have been published in more than a dozen countries to critical acclaim. Since 1998, he has been the publishing director of the Modern Library. He has taught at New York University and Princeton, where he is now a visiting lecturer. Originally from Pasadena, he is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago, and he currently lives in New York City. He can be reached at www.ebershoff.com.