| Description |
367 pages ; 21 cm |
| Note |
Includes a reading group guide, (p. [365]-367) |
|
"A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback original." -- T.p. verso. |
| Summary |
An English accountant and his two wives are the subject of this intriguing and evocative debut novel based on a real-life 19th-century California bigamy case. A loving husband and attentive father, Henry Oades assures his wife, Margaret, that his posting to New Zealand will be temporary and the family makes the difficult journey. But during a Maori uprising, Margaret and her four children are kidnapped and the Oades's house is torched. Convinced his family is dead, Henry relocates to California and marries Nancy, a sad 20-year-old pregnant widow. When Margaret and the children escape, eventually making their way to California and Henry's doorstep, he does the decent thing by being a husband to both wives and father to all their offspring, a situation deemed indecent by the Berkeley Daughters of Decency. |
| Subject |
Immigrants -- New Zealand -- Fiction.
|
|
Immigrants -- California -- Fiction.
|
|
Kidnapping -- Fiction.
|
| ISBN |
9780345510952 paperback |
|
034551095X paperback |
|
