Ebershoff's 19th Wife Explores Lives
of Mormon Brigham Young's Sect

(Trade Paper Edition, Random House, June 2009
ISBN:978-0-81297415-7
(0-81297415-8)

BookFlix (Video Interview,
courtesy of Random House)

David Ebershoff, editor-at-large for Random House, has been on summer tour for the paperback
release of his own acclaimed novel, The 19th Wife (Random House, June 2009) The tour resumes in October
and November. Here's a behind-the-scenes video look at what inspired the book.

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 her family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how both she and her mother became plural wives. Yet 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, family, and faith.

Praise for The 19th Wife

"Wonderfully lyrical. . . . it does that thing all good novels do: It entertains us."
—Los Angeles Times
"Ambitious. . . . impressive. . . . Ebershoff demonstrates abundant virtuosity."
—The New Yorker


David Ebershoff is the author of two novels, Pasadena and The Danish Girl, and a short-story collection, The Rose City. His fiction has won a number of awards, including the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Lambda Literary Award, and has been translated into ten languages to critical acclaim. Ebershoff has taught creative writing at New York University and Princeton and is currently an adjunct assistant professor in the graduate writing program at Columbia University. For many years he was the publishing director of the Modern Library, and he is currently an editor-at-large for Random House. He lives in New York City.

© Random House