The 19th Wife

 

I have really enjoyed having time to read for fun lately. My latest read is The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. Polygamy has always been something that fascinates me. I always think about how miserable I would be if I had to share my husband with another woman, with two other women! I wouldn't be able to tolerate seeing him sharing secrets, asking advice, or spending time with women that were not me; right in front of my face! Not to mention have SEX with and father children with! How did those women do it?

I guess if you really think that's your ticket into heaven, you can tolerate some pretty awful things. 

This book (historical fiction) combines a historical autobiography of Ann Eliza Young, notorious 19th wife of famous Mormon Prophet Brigham Young, with the story of a modern day polygamous family. This book has it all, history, murder, deception and triumph and I really REALLY enjoyed reading it. David's prose really transports you into this lifestyle during turn of the century in rural America, and provides a truly realistic perspective on what the women must have been like living in these Mormon compounds. At the same time he brings you back to present day and a modern day murder mystery set on a Utah polygamous compound.

Final verdict? TWO THUMP UP!!! If you are interested in Polygamy and like historical fiction, pick it up, you won't be disappointed.

When I was looking for a pic of the book cover to post I saw that Lifetime made a movie based on this book last year. Now I'm not one to watch a Lifetime movie clip without rolling my eyes and giggling but i'll TiVo this one and make sure to watch it. I would like to see how the movie matches up to the book. 

It's also cool that it stars Chyler Leigh (Grey's Anatomy) and Matt Czuchry (Gilmore Girls). 

Movie review to follow

Any of you guys as fascinated about Polygamy as I am? I mean I can wonder about how these women must have felt during this time when Polygamy was new in the Mormon church. But that being said polygamy has been illegal and not recognized by the Latter Day Saints for over a hundred years but that doesn't mean people aren't still doing it.

Case in Point. 

Sister Wives? Yes I'm obsessed, but that's a post for another day ::wink::

Until then I am (and will always be) my husband's one AND ONLY wife,

Book Review: Baby Catcher, Chronicles of a Modern Midwife

My Latest read was Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent. This autobiography recounts dozens of the births that Peggy attended throughout her career as a Midwife in Berkley California during the 1980's. She practiced as an OB-RN on a mother baby unit at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkley for 15 years before she decided to go to Midwifery school. Once she graduated and became a Certified Nurse Midwife she started a private practice specializing in home births. She also was instrumental in opening one of the first hospital sponsored birth centers in the Berkley area.

The book is separated into three basic parts; her beginning career as a RN, her midwifery career, and her journey afterward. The many birth stories occupy individual chapters throughout the bulk of the book. Each chapter is a different family, a different pregnancy, and a different labor journey filled with support, love, a little calamity and always good laughter. It was a book recommended to me by several of the OB Nurses on a nursing message board I frequent online; and I would recommend it to any woman who is looking for a good read.

It was especially interesting for me to learn more about the popularity of home births during that time. She went to Midwifery school in the late 70s during the height of the "hippy" movement in Berkley, and home birth was on the rise. People wanted to have the freedom to labor in their own homes at their own pace, seems reasonable right? Today that option is really risky; since liability has pretty much obliterated the ability for Midwives to get insured for home birthing. So laboring at home has become dangerous because there is a lack of skilled personnel that can be present. It's frustrating to me how much of a monopoly OB-GYNs have on the "market" so to speak. With cesearans on the rise more than ever before the need for CNM's is even greater, we need to get back to the basics, after all, women were giving birth long before there were OB-GYNs, or hospitals, or anything medical for that matter.

I feel that any woman who is thinking about having kids should read this book, or something like it to open your eyes to the different options you have available to you. I know for sure that I will have a Midwife deliver me when I decide to start having children, and I think I'm going to try my damnest to have a natural childbirth as well.

Book Review: The Red Tent

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant is a story based on a book of Genesis in the bible which tells the story of Dinah-The Fallen Woman (click here to read the bible chapter.) The story is historical fiction based on the story of Dinah and her family, centering around her 5 mothers (her birth mother Leah, and her 4 "aunties" Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilah.) If you know your old testament (which I don't so don't worry about it) these are the 5 wives of Jacob, son of Issac, son of Abraham. (yes that Abraham!)

The author here does such a wonderful job of engrossing you into the lives of women who lived in that time. What they did, what they cooked, who they believed in, what they sang and laughed about, how they had children and raised them. The passing of time in their home was marked by the menstrual cycle of the women, who at the new moon would gather together in a "Red Tent" specific for celebrating the cleansing of the womb and the preparation of possibly taking a new life in the next month. During those few days they talked and laughed together and praised the goddess' responsible for blessing their lives.

This was my second time reading this book; I first read it during my freshmen year of college, quite by accident while working in the URI Theater Department costume shop as a seamstress. The head of the shop was named Sally, and she was quite the "granola" type of woman. She was Bohemian in every essence of the word, and I liked here a great deal. Anyway I digress. She always had books on tape playing in the shop that we would listen to while we worked. I became quite interested in a particular one and when she told me the title which was this book I went out and read it cover to cover in one weekend. It sucked me in completely. I love when books do that.

One thing this book really makes me reflect on is how women treat other women. I really think today's women have relationships to one another all backwards. We are way too catty with one another (she's fat, that outfit is horrible, she's a b*tch) and we are missing out on the bonding experience we uniquely can have as women. I love my friendships with my girlfriends but honestly the women I consider as "sisters/kindred spirits" are a very small number indeed. As women of today we have so much more than these women who lived thousands of years ago, but they loved their children just as we do (will do), and they loved each other, just as we should.

Who are your sisters? your kindred spirits?

Book Review - Brave New World

I finished reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley last night and I have to say that it was a very interesting read. It was first published in 1931 to mixed reviews but the past 70 years it has become a cult classic novel. This was required reading for the English Lit class opposite mine in High School so I never got to read it, but having read George Orwell's 1984 and enjoying it I thought I would enjoy this book as well.

This is the type of book that really makes you think, it is based on a Utopian society set in England in the year 2540. The utopia uses futuristic reproductive technology and sleep conditioning to form a society of humans without individualism, where "everyone belongs to everyone else." Natural reproduction is no longer necessary because children are born in "hatcheries" and raised in conditioning centers. The new concept of bokanovsky process is developed with can split a single egg into 30 or 50 identical twins. The cast system is set from fertilization, with each caste (The Alphas on top, the Epsilons on the bottom) genetically conditioned to fit perfectly into their walk of life, each person is completely happy with the life they have. From the top CEO to the lowliest janitor.

Most of the society's functioning is centered around a drug called soma, a pill that can easily be compared with a strong narcotic, a sedative and hallucinogen that everyone takes like it's candy. Sex is casual and plentiful, children are conditioned from infancy to engage in "erotic play" with one another. There is no ambition, no passion, no love or commitment, "everyone belongs to everyone else."

There is one man, Bernard, an alpha who is considered an outcast from the rest of his peer group because he enjoys spending time alone. (it is considered very rude and a waste of time to be alone at all ever). His feelings for a certain girl, Leina moves him to invite her to a "savage reservation" in America. A jungle like compound where the human "savages" still have family units ("how terrible") and the woman still give birth to their "children" (very crass statements in this society). They travel there together and what they discover is something neither one of them ever could have expected....

The story itself is very creative and surprising. I encourage you to give it a try, it really makes you think about how far off the beaten path a society can get. This is an accurate portrayal of a dystopia.

Read and Enjoy!!