No way out

In the opening scene of this new novel, the protagonist,
Golden Richards, comes home from work to one of the three houses where his four
wives and 28 children live, and he literally cannot find a pot to piss in. The
bathrooms, of which there are never enough, are all occupied. The house is in
disarray and chaos. Golden goes to the utility closet and is at last able to
relieve himself in a bucket in the company of an exiled dog.

This utility closet becomes a metaphor for a lost man
looking for a way out of his life's problems, and he is only one of several
characters in this tragic-comic novel who attempt to plot their escapes.
Udall's novel is big, laugh-out-loud funny and finally disturbing.

Udall, who comes from a Mormon but not a fundamentalist
background, searches for and finds a spiritual meaning in plural marriage--each
person involved must trust in the abundance of love and believe that no amount
of love can be hoarded and claimed as one's own. It's a generosity so
extraordinary that it made me put down the book and say, "What?" I had never
looked at marriage in this way, and it caught me off guard.