In the chapter where Ann Eliza goes to Beehive House to ask Brigham Young for a new stove, he balks at first but then gives in, telling her, “I always thought you of all people would understand what it meant to be my wife.” What does he mean by this? Is his statement justified at all?

In the opening of David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife, Ann Eliza Young, the 19th wife of Brigham Young, writes that when people approached her with incredulity about being raised to believe in plural marriage, she responded:

“Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many and never easy to explain.”

Does Ann Eliza’s statement hold true in general? How valid do you believe her statement to be?

Read with me in June — this month’s book selection is The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It’s murder mystery in which Jordan Scott, whose mother kicked him out the polygamist community in which he was raised on the word of the group’s leader, returns after she is accused of the murder of his father; in a parallel narrative, Ann Eliza Young, the 19th wife of early Mormon leader Brigham Young begins an anti-polygamy crusade after her marriage dissolves and she’s expelled from the church.

Click here to reserve your copy of the book.