It might be enough to just say that Dorothy Allred Solomon is the 28th child of Rulon T. Allred, went through hell as a child, and grew up with a desire to live a normal life, with more than the usual amount of baggage. That's the short review.

It is beyond the scope of this review to relate all the events, all the twists and turns. Rather, I'll offer a brief overview, and then commend this book to all interested readers.

Solomon's book merits reading. And despite its drawbacks, which I shall outline later, it delivers a compelling and absorbing story of growing up in a polygamous family and the tensions from within and without that would ultimately lead to tragedy.

Solomon begins by recalling some of her memories as a child growing up in a polygamous household. As seen through the eyes of a child, the experience was near idyllic. Solomon evokes pleasant memories of family outings and childish mischief, of living in the midst of nature's splendor, but isolated from the outside world as mandated by their lifestyle.

Solomon's recollection of her father's place in the family structure is remarkable:

As the family patriarch and the leader of our religious group, my father was next to the godhead in our eyes. He looked like Heavenly Father, with his crown of silver-blond hair, his long straight nose, his piercing blue eyes. And when he spoke, his teeth biting each pronouncement, we felt the precision of his authority. Once God had spoken the world into being; now our father declared our day-to-day reality, and it materialized. (p. 21)

This is a portrait of man loved and respected by this daughter of a plural wife. She later describes Rulon as the center of her life. And even as she grows to resent her father's lifestyle, and his growing insistence that she follow in his footsteps and live "The Principle," she never loses her love, and respect, for her father. Ultimately, the chooses monogamy, but her affection for her father remains.

The book then probes deeper into daily life on a polygamous compound. Here we meet the other plural wives, including Solomon's mother's sister, Ella. There is some discussion of family unity and simmering jealousies, of an imposed, compartmentalized lifestyle dominated by a childless, and thus compensating, first wife. Solomon recalls the birth of her younger brother, the coming together of the sister wives at such times as childbirth.

But simmering beneath the surface of it all is a conflict between Rulon and the brother of "Aunt Adah," another of Rulon's wives. This brother, the leader of the "Short Creek" polygamous sect, claimed priority over Rulon's group. The tension between the two men, and Adah's propensity for having her family to her home regularly, increased the difficulties among the wives and between the families. Aunt Adah would finally leave the Allred sect, further increasing tensions.

Through it all, Solomon recalls:

I once asked my father which of his wives he loved the most. He grinned and said, "Each of my wives is a queen, a jewel in my heavenly crown." I wondered aloud how they could be at once jewels in his crown and queens with crowns of their own. "You children are their jewels. And they love each of you as I love each of my wives." Then, searching my eyes he said, "You must never give up your quest for queenhood, darling. It is your birthright and your destiny." I suspect he meant I should become one of many wives, content to have power through my husband's priesthood authority. But even when I was young, I sensed that "queenhood" could be a hollow title, the booby prize in the great and passionate tableau of life. (p. 53-4)

What follows is a sometimes confusing but always engaging tale of fear and flight, families living apart to avoid being prosecuted by the authorities. It tells of two forays into Mexico, where they hoped they could live unmolested, but would encounter poverty and hunger, and at last opposition, that would drive them back to the United States.

It would be during this period of flight and hiding that the Allred family would encounter the LeBaron family. Ervil LeBaron would emerge as the titular head of his own polygamous group, a man jealous for authority over Allred's family. And as kindly and saintly as Rulon T. Allred is portrayed, even so is Ervil pictured as if his name did not contain the letter "r." Purely bad, violent and vengeful, it would be Ervil who would orchestrate, using two of his female followers in disguise, the violent assassination of Rulon T. Allred.

When Solomon finally marries, it is, of course, a monogamous union. But her husband joins the Marines and is shipped off to Vietnam. There he encounters horrors he could only have imagined before. And he loses his faith, and his mind, and must finally return, a shattered and broken man, to a wife and a child he's never met.

The husband, Jess, returns from Vietnam with a friend, Stan. Stan is also a burnt-out case. During Jess' absence, Solomon has contemplated a renewed participation in the mainstream Mormon church, and wants to get her husband involved, too. What follows is a (verbally) brutal discussion. Speaking in the first person, Solomon remembers thinking that Church participation might have a salutary effect on her husband:

...the habits of my childhood urged me to gather with others in the name of God. Maybe I could forgive the persecutions, erase the scars of paranoia, balm the searing guilt of the war. I asked my husband, "If I went to church would you come with me?" I must have known what he would say even before he spoke. "Do you know what I was ordered to do in the name of loyalty and obedience?"

I thought of the rumors that our soldiers had killed women and children in Vietnam. "What were you ordered to do?" I asked softly.

He fumbled in his pants pocket for a wooden match. "I'd die before I promise obedience to another institution. Their walls are reinforced with bodies." (p. 272)

I felt a bit of a chill as I contemplated Jess's attitude toward Church, toward authority.

As Solomon moves on to discuss her father's violent death, she spares us none of the gory detail. Allred, a chiropractor and, in a limited sense, a medical doctor, welcomed all to his office. He was shot down in front of his nurse, also one of his plural wives, bleeding to death in front of the wife. It would be many years before the women who killed him would be brought to justice. After a first jury acquitted them, Solomon was able to get around the double jeopardy problem, and see the assassin re-indicted and, this time, convicted.

In the end, LeBaron's involvement in this crime, and others, would end the dynasty that brought so much tragedy into so many lives.

This book represents a sequel, in a sense, to a previously written account of her life in a polygamous family. Solomon believes that she needed to re-tell the story as she has matured and healed over the years. I've not read the first book, so I don't know how different the accounts are.

Now, allow me, please, three quibbles with this book.

First, from time to time, Solomon reverts to tortured prose in an effort to wax poetic. An example is a recollection of a sense she had, at a very early age, while on an annual trip to Utah from their Monterey, Mexico outpost:

...something happened in the mountains. Something I call soul or spirit triumphed over the dialectics of the ego -- though of course I did not think this way back then. What I observed as a child was that the mountains were bigger than our biggest voices. The sheer cliffs echoed our choir to the sky and the call went on and on. The heart of the sunflower opened like a small replica of the sun. Perhaps a macrocosm above reflected the microcosm below, suggesting that my father's belief in the Celestial Order of Marriage and eternal family was really possible. (p. 197-8)

Shall I feel shame that I read this paragraph twice, and still didn't know exactly what she was talking about? I admire a good turn of phrase as much as the next person, but sometimes simplicity can serve the writer at least as well.

Warning to aspiring writers: excess in waxing poetic can lead to waxy buildup. It is to be avoided, as it causes the reader to stumble and lose the tempo of the story. Interestingly, the further back her recollection, the more she tends to overwrite. Her account of the death of her father, the subsequent trials, the appearance on Sally Jesse Raphael's program, are all sharply told, with few of the rhetorical excess evidenced by the above cite.

Second, the book suffers, but not much, from poor editing. On page 303, for example, Pres. Hinckley is named "Gordon B. Hickey." Wow! You'd think an editor would have picked up on this right away. It isn't as if Pres. Hinckley weren't a prominent public figure. It's astounding that something like this could slip through the editing process.

Third, and last, I believe the book suffered from not having a Family Tree published somewhere in its body. More than a dozen wives, so many children, so many branches of the family, it can be a dizzying experience trying to keep track of everyone. I contacted the publisher on this one, and they agreed.

"Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk" is a very good book. Anyone wanting a glimpse inside a minimally functional polygamous household will find a wealth of information here. And while the author is clearly distancing herself from the lifestyle, she pulls together her memories in a compelling and dramatic way, bringing you into the family as a distant relative.

My minor quibbles aside, I gladly recommend this book and welcome its voice into the continuing discussion on plural marriage and, by extension, alternative lifestyles.

Jeff Needle
jeff.needle@general.com