Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife » (Reprint)

Irene Spencer currently lives in AnchorageAlaska, with her husband Hector Spencer. During the 28 years of her first marriage to a polygamous husband, Irene gave birth to 13 children (all single births). She also adopted a newborn daughter, who became her ninth child. Irene has 121 grandchildren. She has 49 great-grandchildren. Among her many talents, she is an accomplished seamstress who sews for family and friends, she's a great cook and bakes pastries and homemade bread, she speaks Spanish and English fluently and has traveled to 23 foreign countries and 23 states.

Irene Spencer did as she felt God commanded in marrying her brother-in-law Verlan LeBaron, becoming his second wife. Her dramatic story reveals how far religion can be stretched and abused and how one woman and her children found their way out, into truth and redemption.

Publishers Weekly

Just as A Mormon Motheris the standout memoir of a 19th-century polygamous woman's life, this autobiography offers the compelling voice of a contemporary plural wife's experiences. Daughter of a second wife, Spencer was raised strictly in "the Principle" as it was lived secretly and illegally by fringe communities of Mormon "fundamentalists"-groups that split off from the LDS Church when it abandoned polygamy more than a century ago. In spite of her mother's warnings and the devotion of a boyfriend with monogamist intentions, Spencer followed her religious convictions-that living in polygamy was essential for eternal salvation-and became a second wife herself at the age of 16 in 1953. It's hard to tell which is more devastating in this memoir: the strains of husband-sharing with-ultimately-nine other wives, or the unremitting poverty that came with maintaining so many households and 56 children. Spencer's writing is lively and full of engaging dialogue, and her life is nothing short of astonishing. After 28 years of polygamous marriage, Spencer has lived the last 19 years in monogamy. Her story will be emotional and shocking, but many readers will resonate with the universal question the memoir raises: how to reconcile inherited religious beliefs when they grate against social norms and the deepest desires of the heart. (Aug. 22)