Red Water
By Judith Freeman
Pantheon, $24
ISBN 0375420924

Buy or borrow this book! Support your local independent bookseller Find it in a WorldCat library Compare prices at major online bookstores

Send this review to a friend

The Mormon behind a massacre

The Mormon faith holds, or has held, beliefs that seem peculiar to those outside the faith. Chief among these disputed beliefs is polygamy. It was this conjugal communism that brought persecution and ridicule on John D. Lee, but it was murder that brought him to death before a firing squad. A man with many wives leaves many widows, and Red Water is the story of three of them, crafted beautifully into an historical novel with its origins in an actual crime.

For reasons that history never fully explains, a group of Mormon settlers, aided by Indian allies, massacred an entire wagon train of non-Mormon immigrants in Southwestern Utah in 1857. For years, Indians were blamed for the Mountain Meadows massacre, which left 120 men, women and children dead. Lee was eventually charged in the crime, and his execution by Mormon authorities is the catalyst for this novel.

Emma, Ann and Rachel were among Lee's 19 wives. Emma was 19 when she came from England to be "sealed for Time and All Eternity" to John Lee; Ann married Lee when she was 13, and Rachel was one of Lee's older wives. They were part of the extended family of a lusty, charismatic man, a member of the Mormon elite who were allowed to make plural marriages and who took full advantage of the privilege. By telling Lee's story from the wives' viewpoint -- through Emma's monologue, a third person narrative for Ann and a diary for Rachel -- the author deftly captures the essence of 19th century Mormonism, the nature of polygamy, the conflict between good and evil, the strength of the women who carried the emotional as well as physical burdens of these families, and the details of pioneer life in the harsh landscape of southern Utah.

Red Water is a powerful novel whose three narrators engage us so completely that we absorb their intricate history effortlessly. The author herself was raised in a large Mormon family and through her, the characters speak with grace, dignity and the voice of authority.

Mary Garrett reads and writes in Middle Tennessee.