Dorothy Allred Solomon

I found this to be a very open and honest memoir. Now that does not mean that I believe that Solomon is giving the whole unpolished truth but I believe that to the best of her ability, she is telling the truth. Solomon talks about how hard it is to be honest about what her family is, was, will be, and even where they are going. She talks about how the first thing the children in the family learn to do is lie to outsiders. The world on the other side of the fence is evil and out to get you. She talks about how hard it was to learn that was not true. This is more than just one woman's memoir of growing up in polygamy but how her family started in polygamy. She traces her family from Europe to the America's on both sides. She gives records about her grandfathers and grandmothers. She also follows her siblings lives as much as she can. Solomon is an outsider to her life now. She is seen as the devil's seed and wants to lead others into hell. When she talks about that, I felt her sorrow that her family cannot understand her. If you are looking for an interesting memoir, give this one a try.

I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.… (meer)

I thought this book was going to be some sort of expose, like Quiverfull, but then I realized it was an insiders book written about Mormon women. I debated returning it to the library but figured I'd keep an open mind and just go for it.

The book itself is very well written and the author goes into detail about what life is like as a woman in LDS, and also has some insight into the very fundamental families, as she was born into a polygamous family that was excommunicated from the LDS church.

I feel like this book has somewhat of an almost feminist aspect to it, because you can tell throughout the book that Solomon struggles with the ideas of women being second class citizens in LDS, unable to hold positions within the priesthood, give blessings or healings. However she rationalizes the patriarchal ways of LDS by explaining that women are able to make babies, and that makes up for it.

Honestly, this book strikes me in a strange way because of the author's firm religious convictions. I don't mind that she's LDS, and I'm glad that she finds a fulfilling life as a wife and mother and member of her church. I'm glad that she has a wonderful sisterhood that helps her through thick and thin. I think that everybody deserves to have such a wonderful family (if they so choose) and support group of friends.

However, what bothers me is the fact that LDS promotes women-as-mothers to all of the women in the church, and that doesn't really help if a woman doesn't want to be a stay at home mother, doesn't want to bear children, can't bear children, is gay, or otherwise doesn't subscribe to the idea of the nuclear family.

Solomon also briefly brings up homosexuality in men and acts like it's something they can turn on and off at will, and that men should still bear children even if they're gay. This wouldn't bother me so much if it didn't negatively effect so many gay people, and if the LDS church hadn't poured so much money into prop 8 campaigns in California. At that point, they're no longer living their lives the way they want in an insular way -- they're forcing their moral views onto others. And that's just not fair. No, Solomon isn't directly responsible for this, and can't be considering that women don't have a voice in the LDS church, but it still rubs me the wrong way knowing what I know about LDS and reading this book.

Solomon also writes about one of the UN conferences for women. She makes it sound as if LDS women had this great idea to go against the "pro life" and "pro choice" dichotomy and come up with the idea of funding reproductive health clinics for women. Actually, pro choicers have been advocating for such a thing since the invention of birth control, but religious fundamentalists tend not to believe in women's use of birth control. Although Solomon agrees with the use of birth control (obviously after happily abstaining from having sex until after marriage, which is not realistic for many women, including Solomon, who was herself raped) she is adamantly against abortion. She argues that women do have a "choice" which is either to carry a baby to term and keep it, or carry a baby to term and put it up for adoption. This ignores the lived experience of many women who can't do either of those options, to whom birth control is not affordable or available, and who opt to have abortions. Again, Solomon's opinion wouldn't bother me if they weren't a large part of her church, which spends lots of money on campaigns to limit reproductive health options for women in the US.

Also, I feel like Solomon paints non LDS members as generally immoral and bad. One doesn't need a religion to have a high stand of morals and values, have a wonderful family life, good friends, volunteer time and money to charitable organizations, and generally be good citizens. Religion does give a code of values to people who follow, but just because somebody is an atheist doesn't mean that they pierce their nose, dye their hair orange, play violent video games, listen to heavy metal music and torture frogs. While not resorting to such strong rhetoric, Solomon definitely alludes to LDS members as being so much more family-oriented and good people than non LDS members. I hate to break it to her, but my family wasn't hugely religious, and I'm not religious at all, and we still have unbreakable bonds of love and support for each other. I know that there must be many other families, religious or not, that were and are the same way. You don't need to be LDS to be a good person.

But other than things like that, which made me feel like my brain was being run against a cheese grater as I read it, this book was certainly eye-opening and interesting.… (meer)