The Twenty Seventh Wife

The big passionate novel of a woman daring to live and love freely—no matter what the price. She was forced to choose between one man's love and her own pride as a woman. Brigham married one woman too many when he took Ann Eliza Webb as his twenty-seventh wife. He was the leader of the polygamous Mormon faith, as powerful in the Utah Territory as the President of the United States. She was a great beauty with a quiet manner—and an iron will. For four years, Eliza lived in Brigham Young's harem as his 27th wife. Then, one summer morning, she walked out, deserting her husband and suing him for divorce...

This profile of the man and the writer is an introduction to the personality behind The Chapman Report and The Fan Club. Through correspondence, diaries, manuscript annotations, interviews and other private sources, the profile reveals the man who began as a sports stringer for a Wisconsin newspaper and is now one of the world's most popular novelists.

The compelling memoir of the nineteenth wife of Brigham Young, second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. In 1869, Ann Eliza Young married Brigham Young, becoming what she believed to be his nineteenth wife. She went on to file for divorce in 1873, alleging neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion. She was excommunicated from the church in 1874, and the divorce was granted the following year. She would go on to lead a fight against polygamy, Mormonism, and Brigham Young, testifying before US Congress. In Wife No. 19, Young shares her account of her life in the LDS Church. It served as an exposé, detailing the treatment of herself and other female church members. Originally published in 1876, this autobiography went on to be the basis of Irving Wallace’s 1961 biography The Twenty-Seventh Wife, as well as David Ebershoff’s 2008 novel, The 19th Wife.

Ann Eliza Young's sensational insider's expose of polygamy was originally published in 1876. The title refers to her role as church leader Brigham Young's 19th living spouse, although she was reportedly the 27th woman to marry the president of the LDS Church and the founder of Salt Lake City. The thorough, 600-page plus book details not only Ann Eliza Young's upbringing by parents who practiced multiple marriage, as well as her marriage to Young - she was 24 and he was 67 when they wed - but gives a fascinating first-hand account of the dark history: domestic violence, lies, degradation, and even murder! Young's intriguing story was the basis for Irving Wallace's 1961 biography "The Twenty-Seventh Wife," and of David Ebershoff's 2008 novel "The 19th Wife."

In 1939, as a farmer tried to scratch out a living for his family in North Carolina, Harper Garris came into the world as his twenty-seventh child. While growing up on a thirty-nine-acre farm in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Garris lived in poverty. But when he was suddenly left without a father on a cold winter day, Garris’s life became more challenging than ever. Garris shares vivid memories from a unique, hardship-filled childhood where he ate biscuits for every meal, relied on the woods as his bathroom, and watched his sisters plow the fields with a mule. As his widowed mother sold the farm and moved the family to Shelby, North Carolina, Garris matured into a teen who was determined to make his mark on the world, with the help of a talented sign painter who gave him a job and mentored him. At age sixteen, Garris moved to Indiana and secured work. While there, he played in a band and met his wife. He chronicles his experiences as he and his wife raised three children, making it clear that his steely determination to persevere is what helped him survive his many challenges. The Twenty-Seventh Child offers a glimpse into one man’s family history and journey through life as he bravely faced trials and tribulations and learned to embrace his roots.

Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain. Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense. It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife. Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death. And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’ s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith. Praise for The 19th Wife “This exquisite tour de force explores the dark roots of polygamy and its modern-day fruit in a renegade cult . . . Ebershoff brilliantly blends a haunting fictional narrative by Ann Eliza Young, the real-life 19th “rebel” wife of Mormon leader Brigham Young, with the equally compelling contemporary narrative of fictional Jordan Scott, a 20-year-old gay man. . . . With the topic of plural marriage and its shattering impact on women and powerless children in today's headlines, this novel is essential reading for anyone seeking understanding of the subject.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)