In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith
In my book, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith,
I look at the 33 women who married the first Mormon prophet, taking them from birth to death. I started writing the book because I was fascinated by the puzzle of trying to work out their complex marriage histories (many married four or five times, sometimes with overlapping, polyandrous marriages), but I gradually became very caught up in the drama of their lives, and became deeply attached to them as real, living people.
Vern Anderson did a fine story about my book for AP: AP Story
If you're interested in how I came to write this book, here's a speech I gave at the Association of Intermountain Booksellers on February 25, 1998.
Additional information on the plural wives I have collected since the book was published.
Changes made in Second Printing of ISL
Futher corrections
My response to the Tanners' use of my book.
Awards the book has received
Some reviews
A mini-essay I wrote on the history of polygamy in Mormonism
An excerpt from my book: the Prologue
Another excerpt from my book: Miracle Tale: Elizabeth Rollins (Lightner Smith Young)
ONLINE PUBLICATION:
The FARMS Review of Books published two long reviews of my book, by Richard Lloyd Anderson, Scott Faulring and Danel Bachman, in which I was characterized as an atheist, a Fawn Brodie disciple , and a John C. Bennett figure. I wrote a long response to the reviews, and offered it to the editor of FARMS Review of Books if he wanted to publish it. He showed a marked lack of enthusiasm for doing this, so I decided to publish it in pamphlet form and online. Here it is:
Dickens
