In My Father's House: A Memoir of PolygamyBefore Big Love, before Eldorado, a groundbreaking memoir explored polygamy, not with outrage but with honesty and grace. In 1984, when polygamous groups knew little but the fear and pain of secrecy and hiding, Dorothy Allred Solomon, the twenty-eighth of forty-eight children, went public with her family’s story. Descended from five generations of Mormon polygamy, Solomon evokes the fervor and dedication that bound the Allreds to “living the Principle.” She vividly renders the persecution and poverty she knew as a child, the joyous awe of a father’s too-rare presence, and an abiding hunger for autonomy. Confronting the paradox of a faith that seals loved ones as families for eternity but casts them as outlaws in the here and now, she traces the events that culminated in her father’s 1977 assassination, a tragedy that rocked all Utah. Now, more than a quarter century later, Solomon revisits her story in a new preface and epilogue and in light of recent events that continue to rivet attention and spotlight our national struggle for understanding and fairness. |
From inside the book
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Page 231
"You never felt any jealousy or competition? Really now, Mama." I was thinking of
the insufferable heat in my chest when Brian came home too late. My mother
shook her head. "The only time I felt any distress was when Lisa and your father ...
"You never felt any jealousy or competition? Really now, Mama." I was thinking of
the insufferable heat in my chest when Brian came home too late. My mother
shook her head. "The only time I felt any distress was when Lisa and your father ...
Page 262
I felt incomplete in not seeing him before we left. Of all the people in my family, I
felt he would understand my contradictory longings, how my need to belong
strained against personal destiny. As we traveled the winding road to the
highway, ...
I felt incomplete in not seeing him before we left. Of all the people in my family, I
felt he would understand my contradictory longings, how my need to belong
strained against personal destiny. As we traveled the winding road to the
highway, ...
Page 274
"Yes, but of course I felt much worse than she imagined, for I believed that I was
to blame even before she did." He told other stories, of how his car broke down
on their honeymoon and he had put Susan on a bus, then hopped a freight in ...
"Yes, but of course I felt much worse than she imagined, for I believed that I was
to blame even before she did." He told other stories, of how his car broke down
on their honeymoon and he had put Susan on a bus, then hopped a freight in ...
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