Monday, February 16, 2009

The Peaceable Kingdom

by Ardyth Kennelly, published in hard cover by Houghton-Mifflin in 1949; paperback in 2004 by The University of Oregon Press.

This is an inside look at Mormonism in chapter-stories about the second wife in a polygamous marriage, as she grapples – with amazing strength and humor – all the challenges her marriage and religion throw her way. A great treatise on motherhood, if nothing else. Read reviews at Amazon.com -- all of whom give it 5 stars. I can't say it any better than they have. Here's the beginning of one of them:
5.0 out of 5 starsFebruary 6, 2007 - Absolutely without doubt the best novel this 70-year-old has ever read.

I've been trying since I registered with Amazon four years ago to find the courage --and enough superlatives--to review this timeless, brilliant, incomparable, exquisite, flawless, hilarious, heartbreaking, life-affirming, never-to-be-forgotten story told from the viewpoint of the second wife-in-polygamy of a Mormon tailor during the tumultuous years when Utah had to abolish polygamy in order to join the Union.

Linnae is the most human and believable, yet the most lovable & admirable, heroine in literature--and that is no easy trick.

No comments: