The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall ✔✔✔✔✔

Finally, a book I couldn't put down! It had seemed like a long time since I added five checkmarks to a book, and this one was like a drink of cold water after a long, dusty walk. I just absolutely loved everything about it, and knew I would before the first page was completely read - the writing is conversational, humorous, and intelligent, the characters are so completely human with all their various idiosyncracies, and some of the events in this novel made me laugh so hard I cried, and also made me shed a tear or two of sadness, What more could you ask for in an excellent book?

Golden Richards has four wives and 28 children, but he's lonely, and finds himself heading for an affair. When you hear the title, your mind conjures up pictures of a stiff-necked patriarch, women in prairie dresses and long hair wound around their heads, children with pinafore dresses or breeches, shy smiles on their faces - but NONE of those images work for this family - the four wives are regular people, albeit with the odd issue here and there, the children are always fighting or conniving against one another, and through it all floats Golden, who is trying to recover from the death of Glory, one of his daughters, some three years earlier.

That's all I'm going to say - you just have to read it. This makes my list of all-time favorites. About 3/4 of the way through the book, I was already grieving the end of the story, and the wonderfully colorful people who make up this novel.