Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy [BARGAIN PRICE] (Hardcover)

by Dorothy Allred Solomon (Author) "I AM THE ONLY DAUGHTER of my father's fourth plural wife, twenty-eighth of forty-eight childrena middle kid, you might say, with the middle kid's propensity..." (more)
Key Phrases: polygamous patriarchs, priesthood council, righteous seed, Aunt Emma, Aunt Rose, Aunt Sally (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The abduction of teenager Elizabeth Smart by a fundamentalist Mormon preacher placed a renewed focus on renegade offshoots of the Church of Latter Day Saints and the culture surrounding the religion in the state of Utah (which, like the church, formally opposes polygamous marriage, though state and religious leaders both seem well aware that the practice continues, and they often turn a blind eye toward it). Like Natalie R. Collins's 2003 novel SisterWife, Dorothy Allred Solomon's Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk couldn't seem more topical, but it is an even more powerful book because it has the weight of truth behind it. "I am the daughter of my father's fourth plural wife, twenty-eight of forty-eight children—a middle kid, you might say," her frank memoir begins, and Solomon (a freelance writer who now lives in a happily monogamous marriage in Park City, Utah) maintains a similarly gripping and poignant tone through the book. Her family's story is a fascinating one: Her father, the physician Rulon Allred, was also a fundamentalist preacher and a closet polygamist who went to great lengths to keep his plural marriages and sprawling family a secret from society at large. In 1977, he was shot to death by assassins from a rival fundamentalist sect, the bloody end to a misguided lifestyle that had already taken a severe emotional toll on many around him. His daughter does not hesitate to expose the violent and sexist behavior that permeates many of these cultish offshoots of the Mormon Church, but she does not reduce the believers to one-dimensional caricatures, either, and in the process of sharing a very personal tale, she often steps back to place it all in the much broader context of religion and society, charting the history of the Mormons and the contradictions between ideals and actions on the part of both church and state. --Jim DeRogatis --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
Solomon's work is far from the sometimes maddeningly prosaic crowd of memoirs by people recounting small triumphs and plain glories. As the 28th of 48 children born to a polygamist, Solomon tells her astonishing tale with so much emotional clarity and raw honesty that the Utah dirt she played in seems wedged between the pages. Because this is a story about Solomon's staggeringly large family, she launches into a great deal of family history, tracing the clan's polygamist past and recounting the recriminations and threats of arrest that color each generation. She describes her father, Rulon Allred, with a subtle combination of attraction and repulsion, giving polygamy a human face while showing how flawed that countenance can be. This long way around to Solomon's own story can be plodding at times, but when she begins to lay bare her personal history, the book crackles with new life. The writing style, a gentle cadence full of detail, serves the story well, as when the author, who was born in 1949, describes her family as being like the deer in the mountains above Salt Lake valley: "For the most part, we were shy, gentle creatures who kept to ourselves, ruminants chewing on our private theology, who dealt with aggression by freezing or running." As Solomon tells of the struggles of the five wives her father had, and the hard times they endured as the authorities sought to enforce antipolygamy laws, she delves deeply into matters of identity, belonging, persecution and independence.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• ISBN-10: 0393049469
• ASIN: B000HWYI1I
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,590,753 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent writting describes a family life that is different, December 30, 2003

By	Stephanie Manley (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy (Hardcover)

What could potentially be a seedy novel that pokes fun of a segment of society that is on the fringe turns into an almost heart warming story of growing up in an unusual family setting. She writes with a conversational style describing her very different family, growing up with many syblings, and several mothers.

What comes through this book that while polygamy may have an appeal for some, it really comes packed with many loaded issues. Multiple wives creates multiple issues. Logistically speaking it is difficult to support seven wives, and many children. While her father was a doctor, several of the wives worked out of the home to help support the family, and those that were not working out of the home worked constantly trying to keep up with laundry, cooking, and cleaning.

Her life was wrought with hiding their family secret, as it is still illegal to have so many wives. Only children of the first wife are legally recognized as being legitimate. Their lives were not easy, and growing up in the church left them often with marrying early to continue this cycle.

This book is definatly worth a read! Its definately not the simple tale you think it might be.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Account - Keep In Mind, it's an Autobiography , April 28, 2006

By	A. Leung (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy (Hardcover)

I recently discussed this book with a friend whose an avid reader and an active participant in a women's book club. She was afraid the younger women wouldn't care for the book because it lacks dialogue. Such a shame and yet I wonder if it's that glamor and glitz that so many autobiographers interject into today's books (such as James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces") that contemporary readers look for and are disappointed when it isn't provided.

I, on the other hand, found this a fascinating tale that really delved into the mindset of those involved, regardless of how they were involved, in polygamy. Dorothy Allred Solomon, the daughter of a polygamist, writes about her experiences and recollections of life on the compound that expands into a detailed historical account of the polygamist movement, the fight to disband and abolish polygamy, the covert movement in the polygamist following and the shame that the by-products of polygamy, which includes Dorothy, had to come to terms with as they began blending in with monogamist families to escape the persecution that ensued.

The author writes the majority from the viewpoint of when she was a child, so I felt there was a fair amount that may have been influenced by the age she was when these events occurred. As the author recounts events that occurred later in her life, I felt some important elements may have been left out as it became devoid of the detail, bereft with the emotion that pummelled the first portion of her life and the book.

Yet, it's still a moving book that while it's dry in dialogue, allows the reader to get a good sense of what the author's family and the author herself had to deal with whether it was raw emotions and confusion or the outward reproach of society.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An empathetic journey into the world of the other Mormons, April 23, 2004

By	"davidcoperfield" (Gorham, ME United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy (Hardcover)

I thought this book was fantastic. In a very human way, it fills a huge gap in what I knew about Mormon History and present-namely, what happened to the tens of thousands of polygamous families when the church shifted from pro-polygamy to anti-polygamy, and who are the tens of thousands of modern-day polygamists and what is their relationship to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The mainstream church teaches that Joseph Smith wrote down a revelation regarding polygamy in 1843, but that he had started practicing it well before then, but never recorded who his "wives" were, nor when they were "married." Then Brigham Young and the Saints in Utah had a whole bunch of wives and were honest and upfront about it. The federal government had a massive clampdown on the lifestyle, and in 1890 the church issued a "manifesto" stating that the church no longer taught nor encouraged the continuance of the doctrine. The way the church teaches it, the people who were in polygamous marriages simply ceased to exist as soon as the manifesto was decreed.

We learn in the book that a few days before the manifesto was issued, the president of the Church, Wilford Woodruff, called Dorothy's grandfather into his office. He gave him a calling to move to Mexico and establish a colony there were Mormon Polygamists could legally live their religion. Her grandfather went, but between the lawlessness of the country and inhospitable climate, they could not survive and were forced to return to America. A few events transpired were his viewpoint collided with that of the mainstream church-in addition to having abandoned plural marriage, the Church had drifted away from the spirit of the United Order and Law of Consecration. You see how her grandfather changed from a leader in the mainstream church to a fringe member to an excommunicated Fundamentalist.

Dorothy does a fantastic job of showing you the world through the eyes of a child born into fundamentalist sects of Mormonism. It shows her religious heritage and how it connects to the religious heritage of mainstream Mormons. And it shows the life of a child who loved her mommy and daddy, but obviously wasn't cut out to carry on the religious tradition that she was inheriting. The reader can clearly see the follies of Mormon polygamy and the flaws in the various adherents. But the focus isn't on the follies and flaws. Rather, the focus is on the humanity of the children, women, and men who find themselves indoctrinated in a religion of outcasts.