The Polygamist's Daughter Analysis

Part One Book Response The Polygamist’s Daughter begins with seven year old Anna being abandoned by her mother and being sent to live with a strange man in Mexico. Main character Anna Keturah Lebaron was raised in a radical polygamous off shoot of Mormonism called The Church of the Lamb of God. Anna’s father and leader of the church, murderous Ervil Lebaron had thirteen wives and more than fifty children as he led his followers as the one true prophet of God. Throughout the book the author tells readers about her 1970’s and 1980’s childhood in Mexico, Colorado, and Texas dealing with the hardships of living in the cult. While Anna lived in Mexico with a man who her father promised she would marry, she was forced to go door to door on the streets to sell baked goods. During her time in Mexico, she sees her father for the first time she could remember in her life. She was in awe of him and just …show more content…
Often, Lebaron includes actual dates to events she feels as most important but doesn’t include her age, and it makes it difficult to understand how much time has passed from one event to the next. I’m not sure if the author made this decision to try and translate the displacement she experienced growing up, but it becomes confusing to readers. For example, the important event of Anna seeing her father for the first time while in Mexico doesn’t include an age or a date which takes away from the weight of the experience. Later in the book Anna tells readers that her father dies in August of 1981 in his jail cell awaiting trial, without including her age. Both of these memories are important moments that change the direction of her life and her outlook on other events of her life. Without these details it takes away from the importance of these events. When telling a life narrative, age and time are important to determine the pace of the