Secrets and Wives

What do we really know about modern practicing polygamists - not fictional ones like the Henrickson family on HBOs Big Love? Weve seen the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the news the underage brides in pioneer dresses on a Texas ranch. But the FLDS is just one of many groups that have broken with mainstream Mormonism to follow those parts of Joseph Smiths doctrine disavowed by the LDS Church. Gaining unprecedented access to these communities journalist Sanjiv Bhattacharya reveals a shadow country teeming with small town messiahs dark secrets and stories both heartbreaking and strange. Polygamys dark side - incest forced marriages and physical abuse - is laid bare. But Bhattacharya also finds warmth in the fundamentalist diaspora and even finds himself taking an ideological stand for polygamys legalization. More than just an expos of Mormon polygamy Secrets and Wives is the personal journey of a foreign atheist and liberal a stranger in a strange land who grapples with hard questions about marriage monogamy and the very nature of faith.