GOLDEN RICHARDS, the "lonely polygamist" of Brady Udall's second novel and third published work of fiction, is not only lonesome but also many other things that, ideally, a patriarch and apostle of the Lord would not be: indecisive, feckless, withdrawn and hesitant. All of which puts his four wives in the excruciating position of having to beg him, often, to "embrace his God-given patriarchal authority" and "make a decision once in a while." At one time it seemed as if Golden, a mammoth, unkempt man referred to as Sasquatch by one of his sons, might be the One Mighty and Strong, a venerated figure in the polygamist society that broke off from Mormonism in 1890 after plural marriage was banned, to be "delivered from on high to set in order the house of God." He is still a leading figure in this particular not very well-off community in the far southwestern corner of Utah, near both Arizona and Nevada, as a member of the Council of the Twelve that now, rather sadly, comprises only eight. Udall's novel forces readers to contend for its 600 pages with two dissonant stories: the exceptional tale of an exceptional family, part of a phenomenon so minuscule and remote a part of American society as to be freakish, known only by lurid headlines torn from the news; and, more conventionally, the story of a family man's burnout, temptation and redemption. This family man just happens to have four nuclear families, which makes his midlife crisis and ensuing affair a little more complicated than most. The picaresque has become commonplace in American literature, as so many male novelists write about the same sorts of well-meaning but manic, befuddled men in varying states of collapse. In this regard "The Lonely Polygamist" is not especially artful, any more than its artless title suggests. It is funny, it can be moving, it is ambitious and it is tender about man's endless absurdities and failings - but does it have anything new to say about 21st-century American life? This is where Udall has been sly. Though it takes more than 200 pages to notice, the novel is set not in current times but in the 1970s, with a brief detour to witness Gulden's first (and only legal) marriage "on a sweet summer day in the middle of the 20th century," where on the distant horizon the Army's desert test of an atomic bomb provides a weird backdrop. Golden's 28 children do not wrestle with technology, cable TV or the Internet; nor are they caught up in the culture wars. Most attend public school. And no adult in the novel has a political or controversial social thought to offer. The Virgin Valley polygamists (the shorthand is "plygs") abide peacefully with their neighbors, Mormon or not, without being cut off from them or modernity. One man, not of the community but nevertheless an integral figure in the story, fought in Vietnam, but that conflict is mentioned just once. However, Udall has struck on something significant: By avoiding questions of contemporary relevance, he can highlight the very normalcy, at least in theory, of a culturally alien and abhorrent practice. Polygamists, nowadays, are vilified for things either absent in this book (like child rape and under-age marriages) or subdued (like violence and the expulsion of boys and nonconformists). But Golden's brood is a lot like ours. When his first wife says, "This family needs to grow, to evolve; we've become stagnant" - a family of 32 sharing three houses! - it somehow makes perfect sense. The numbers aren't working out; the relationships are off. A fifth wife, and more children from the fourth and youngest to "give her a place in this big, ridiculous family": we understand it's a perfect solution. As in good science fiction, this world is no less recognizable for the strangeness of its people. It is also, slyly again, egalitarian. Divinely provided male dominance seems irrelevant in a society that, if we extrapolate from the Richards clan, is ruled by its women, starting with the "algebraic formula" set at the Summit of the Wives to determine the bed rotation of the husband. Mothers have the sole right to name their children and make their own home, with the result that the father has, as it were, no room of his own. Golden simply "wanders among the houses like a vagrant or a ghost, easily forgotten and leaving no trace." As for sex, that is no great blessing for the men. One lives the Principle, according to Golden's father, "because it's a hard thing to do and it makes us better for it," there being a surfeit of good women in the world, but almost no good or righteous men. Plural marriage means those good women don't have to settle. If anything, sex is more important to the women. All Golden's wives crave it more than he does, and the fact of his 27 living children aside, Golden, who works as a contractor on distant construction sites, spends most of the book avoiding intimacy with any of them, so much so that when he eventually seizes on impotence as an excuse, his relief is exquisite. Even his adultery, so painfully indirect and long in the making, is chaste. When finally desire comes, the polygamist patriarch produces a condom, which he doesn't know how to use. But his wife does. MORE worldly, more patient, wiser and better educated than their husband, Golden's wives are superbly normal and competent. They create a matriarchy that sustains an off-kilter patriarch. And although that inverts the usual presentation of this discriminatory religion, Udall's novel is not satire. No one and no creed is held up to ridicule. No authorial woundedness, rage or glee is discernible. Ironies aside, the basic insight of this book is an eloquently stated platitude, that love is "no finite commodity," that "to give to one did not necessarily mean to take from another; that the heart in its infinite capacity . . . could open itself to all who would enter, like a house with windows and doors thrown wide, like the heart of God itself." Golden's happiest moment, in the end, is when he realizes he can provide, in body and spirit as well as material goods, for all his brood. Sometimes, reading "The Lonely Polygamist," one wishes the author had a little less respect, but then the book might be that much less charming. 'The heart . . . could open itself to all who would enter, like a house with windows and doors thrown wide.' Eric Weinberger teaches writing at Harvard. He has reviewed for The Nation, The Boston Globe and other publications.

A family drama with stinging turns of dark comedy, the latest from Udall (The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint) is a superb performance and as comic as it is sublimely catastrophic. Golden Richards is a polygamist Mormon with four wives, 28 children, a struggling construction business, and a few secrets. He tells his wives that the brothel he's building in Nevada is actually a senior center, and, more importantly, keeps hidden his burning infatuation with a woman he sees near the job site. Golden, perpetually on edge, has become increasingly isolated from his massive family-given the size of his brood, his solitude is heartbreaking-since the death of one of his children. Meanwhile, his newest and youngest wife, Trish, is wondering if there is more to life than the polygamist lifestyle, and one of his sons, Rusty, after getting the shaft on his birthday, hatches a revenge plot that will have dire consequences. With their world falling apart, will the family find a way to stay together? Udall's polished storytelling and sterling cast of perfectly realized and flawed characters make this a serious contender for Great American Novel status. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Udall's long-awaited novel (after The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint) depicts a lively, humorous, and sometimes tragic picture of Golden Richards, his four demanding wives, and his 28 children. They are an unruly Mormon clan, scattered among three separate houses in rural Utah. Richards, a hapless graying contractor with a limp and a sinus condition, supports them with his less-than-successful construction business. To avoid bankruptcy, he takes a job in Nevada, a project he tells everyone is a senior citizens' home but in fact it is a bordello. That's only one of Golden's secrets. The sister wives hold weekly summits to schedule Golden's visits from wife to wife, house to house. He doesn't have a home of his own, so he frequently takes refuge in a playhouse built for a daughter who died in a tragic accident. In trying to help, he often makes things worse, but he valiantly makes one last effort to bring harmony to his fractious family. VERDICT Udall observes with a keen eye for the ridiculous while showing compassion. Think of the zany theatrics of Carl Hiaasen paired with the family drama of Elizabeth Berg. Enthusiastically recommended-Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Unhappy families are different, quoth Leo Tolstoyeven when they're headed by the same patriarch, the situation from which Udall's (The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, 2001, etc.) latest unfolds. "There's hard things we have to do in this life," says a wizened desert rat to an existentially confused Golden Richards, the protagonist. "We bite our lip and do 'em. And we pray to God to help us along the way." Golden is in need of such guiding words. At 48, he calls three houses home, each of them stuffed full of children. Things aren't going well out in the world that he's unsuccessfully tried to keep at bay; his construction business is mired in recession, and he's working in Nevada, far away from the comforts of home(s). To complicate matters, Golden, though already blessed or burdened with three wives, has taken up with another woman, a fringe effect of which is that now he has a fondness for mescal. Golden's life occasions a series of hard choices and often-rueful meditations, and Udall smartly observes how each plays out. His novel opens with a tumultuous welter of children who, though tucked away in a remote corner of Utah, have access to all the media and know, aptly, what a zombie is. As Golden's saga progresses, he learns about the mysteries of such things as condoms (as a friend meaningfully says, "so you don't go fucking yourself out of a spot at the dinner table") and the endless difficulties and intrigues of family politics, with all their plots against the patriarchal throne. Udall layers on real history with the tragedy of atomic testing in the Southwestern deserts of old, and imagined tragedy with some of the unexpected losses Golden must endure. In the end, Udall's story has some of the whimsy of John Nichols's The Milagro Beanfield War but all the complexity of a Tolstoyan or even Faulknerian productionand one of the most satisfying closing lines in modern literature, too. Fans of the HBO series Big Love will be pleased to see an alternate take on the multi-household problem, and lovers of good writing will find this a pleasure, period. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.