The Prophet's Wife

A Novel of an American Faith

Libbie Grant

• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780063070622
• eBook ISBN: 9780063070998
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

A lyrical novel exploring the origins of the Mormon faith, RECOMMENDED by the New York Times Book Review.

“Superb… a first-rate historical novel” – The Denver Post

“A masterpiece … perfect for fans of Hilary Mantel and Geraldine Brooks” – Kris Waldherr, author of The Lost History of Dreams

In 1825, in rural Pennsylvania, Emma Hale marries an itinerant treasure-digger, a man who has nothing but a peep-stone in his pocket and a conviction that he can speak directly to God. His name is Joseph Smith and in a few short years, he will found his own religion, gather zealous adherents by the tens of thousands, and fracture Emma’s life and faith. 

While the Mormon religion finds its feet and runs beyond the grasp of its founder, Emma struggles to maintain her place in Joseph’s heart—and in the religion that has become her world. The Mormons make themselves outcasts everywhere they go. Joseph can only maintain his authority by issuing ever-stranger commandments on God’s behalf, culminating in an edict that men should marry as many women as they please. The Mormons’ adoption of polygamy only sets them further apart, and soon their communities are ravaged by violence at the hands of their outraged fellow Americans. For Emma, things take a more personal toll as Joseph brings in a new wife—a woman whom Emma considers a sister.

Emma knows there will never be peace until Joseph faces the law. But on the half-wild edge of the frontier, he’s more likely to find death at the hands of a vigilante posse than a fair trial. For the sake of her people—and her soul—Emma must convince the Prophet of God to surrender... and perhaps to sacrifice his life. 

“Probes the emotional maelstrom” – The New York Times Book Review

“Fascinating … one of the most interesting and nuanced portrayals of a marriage I’ve read in a very long time … Brilliant.” – Allison Epstein, author of A Tip for the Hangman

IX

The Weak Things of the World

1836–1837

In spring, the river fattened on the thaw, running swift and high between its banks. You could hear the water’s rush, an ongoing sigh, early every morning before Kirtland had taken up the noise of daily life. That was how the Mormons came down to the temple, like a river in the thaw. The road was a watercourse, the fences and fields its banks; a lively current flowed down, the people murmuring and splashing in anticipation.

Emma paused in the little yard outside her home. With a pang of misgiving, she watched the congregation flocking past. Hardly a soul glanced at her, and those who did lifted their hands in greeting. There was no hint of judgment. She knew this. Even so, she couldn’t help fearing the rumors. Since the previous autumn, whispers had passed from home to home like a miserable infection. The Prophet had committed some sinful act, an adulterous transgression, the details of which varied in the telling. But on one point, every rumor agreed: Emma Smith had been wronged.

She had kept to herself through fall and winter, as much as she’d been able. She disliked being the object of too much sympathy; it only made her dwell on what had transpired, and she was determined to forget Fannie Alger—Nancy Marinda, too.

“Where are they going, Mother?” Wide-eyed, Julia watched the congregation. She clung to Emma’s skirt with one hand and Young Joseph with the other. The boy was staring with far more apprehension than his sister. He looked as if he wanted to cry but couldn’t quite decide why he should.

Emma bent and tied Julia’s bonnet under her chin. “They’re going to the temple, darling, and so shall we. Today your father will dedicate the temple, and after today, we shall worship God in His own house every Sunday.”

She lifted Young Joseph to her hip, drew a deep breath to steady her nerves, and led Julia out to the road.

If anyone pitied Emma that day, they didn’t allow her to see. Several people called out greetings. A spirit of festivity pervaded the town. She could almost forget she’d been the subject of the greatest scandal ever to rock Kirtland. The people sang as they marched in one body, the whole church in harmony. All around her in the crowd, she saw copies of her little brown-covered hymnal peeking from men’s pockets or pressed against women’s hearts. The music Emma had chosen rang inside her mind, every note and lyric lifting her soul until she felt herself soaring high above the troubles that had plagued her through the winter. A new season had arrived—one of rebirth and redemption.

The crowd narrowed and compressed outside the temple, filing through one of its dark doors, which a boy of the lowest-order priesthood held open. Each congregant fell silent when they crossed the threshold and saw the temple’s interior for the first time. The outer façade was lovely enough, with its gleaming walls and stately symmetry, but so great were the elegance and richness of the inner chambers, Emma thought Heaven itself might pale by comparison. Save for the polished wooden pews, every surface was white with plaster. Great pillars held up a soaring ceiling. Windows almost twice the height of a man allowed morning’s soft gold to come pouring in; the light flowed along corners and curves like melted honey. At the east and west ends of the chamber, under two massive arches of carved and painted wood, rose the pulpits of the priesthood offices: a long altar capped in polished oak, and above the altar, three successive tiers of three interlinked, bow-curved rostra. Each pulpit was marked with the initials of a degree of the priesthood, the letters picked out in gold leaf. The men who held those offices already sat in their lofty perches, watching with solemn dignity as the flock arrived.

Emma made her way down the banks of pews to sit as close to the eastern altar as she could manage. A contented quiet filled the room. Even the children were reverent, staring around in wide-eyed fascination. Let them see me today, Emma thought—Let everyone see, and let them all know I’m no longer ashamed.

Joseph, for all his faults and sins, had willed this magnificent place into being. He had brought this community together and held them for six years, united in a single purpose, to create this wonder of a chapel. Everything she had suffered seemed justified amid the gold-and-white glories streaming in through those high Gothic windows. Every indignity, every doubt—they were prices she could well afford to pay. It would have been worth any cost, this bliss, this proof of the goodness the Mormons had made together. As she gazed up at the moon-white arch bending above her head, pride came upon her so powerfully that tears stung her eyes. She dabbed them away with her kerchief. It must be a sin, or nearly a sin, to feel such pleasure in what her husband had accomplished. Yet no man but Joseph could have made something so magnificent. No one else had his vision—the boundless imagination, the unshakable confidence. No one else had the force of will—such power, the unearthly gift to make others believe that they could build the kingdom of God on Earth. Don Carlos had called Joseph a fraud and a tyrant, and perhaps he hadn’t been wrong. But Joseph was also something more: a leader of men; a maker of worlds.

When the last congregants had entered, Joseph emerged from a small side chamber, dressed in his finest brown coat, his collar held stiffly in place by a blue ascot tie. Her heart leaped at the sight. Time, reality, the solid walls around her seemed to bend and shift; she felt herself standing again in the yard outside Hale House, staring down the insolent boy who had grinned at her, the fog of his breath half-obscuring his face. Could this be the same man?

The invocations, the blessings, the hymns, the sermons, the assembly weeping with ecstasy. She watched her husband through it all. He was inexhaustible in elegance and grace. Her eyes had fastened to him the way a baby’s stare attaches to its mother, through some unconscious, infrangible instinct. She thought, Have I always loved him so? I must have seen him thus, always, but I never was aware until now.

When morning had faded, Joseph excused Sidney Rigdon from the altar, where he had preached a most inspiring sermon, and stepped up again before the congregation. He looked down upon the assembly with that serene, loving smile. “Now,” he said, “we must send our beloved women and children back to their homes. The men shall remain for further blessings. Go in peace, under the Lord’s protection.”

Startled, Emma leaned back in her pew. Why send the women away? Hadn’t the women sacrificed just as much as the men for the sake of their temple? They had sacrificed more, in some ways. She thought of the china cups and saucers ground into plaster, the heirlooms that could never be replaced. This place belongs to us as much as to any man.

She glanced tentatively to her right, then her left. The other women looked around in stunned disbelief. At least, Emma thought, I’m not alone in my dismay.

No man returned from the temple that afternoon. Nor did they come home for supper, nor in the low gray fade of dusk. Emma put the children to bed by herself, then went out into the yard with her scrap-pail to feed the hens.

A handful of women passed by on the Chillicothe Road. They were wrapped in shawls against the chill. None spoke; it was no social outing. They moved with the stiff, determined air of soldiers marching to war.

“Sister Emma,” one of them called.

She blinked through the dusk, trying to determine who had spoken. It was Phebe Carter, a tall, sturdy woman, almost as broad as a man. She was only a few years younger than Emma, yet she had steadfastly refused to marry. God would make it known to her, Phebe told anyone who would listen, which man He intended for her husband—if he wished her to have any man at all. While she waited patiently for that matrimonial revelation, Phebe made herself useful. She was the most reliable friend any woman in Kirtland could ask for. If rumor implied that a man had used his wife poorly or had made her cry, he was apt to find Phebe, with her acid tongue and strident voice, waiting for him the moment he stepped outside his door.

“Come and join us,” Phebe said. “These poor girls have all been made to fix supper and put their little ones to bed and bring in the animals and lead the family prayers without any help from their husbands. And all that food gone to waste, waiting on men who refused to show. I ask you! We’re going down to the temple to find out what for. And to give the men what for, if they haven’t a good excuse!”

She joined Phebe’s band on the road. The evening was dark, though the sun had only just set. There would be rain the following day—rain all week, if she guessed correctly.

The brigade rounded the willows and turned down the temple lane. The women paused, huddling close together, none daring to speak. The great white hulk stood silently before them, stark and pale against the encroaching night. Surrounded by darkness, the temple seemed to brood.

Emma could feel it breathing, a slow inhale. She could sense the mysteries gestating inside those walls, words whispering without a voice, the thrum of a chant in an ancient tongue, a language forgotten before this world began.

“Look,” Phebe whispered.

They all strained to catch whatever she had seen.

Quietly, Emma said, “I don’t see—” but in the next moment the windows of the first floor brightened with a sudden flash, bursting into life and gone in an instant. On the heels of the flash, a roar emanated from the temple, the sound of a tearing autumn wind—but the willows never stirred. They could hear the men now—one great concerted moan of awe, a wordless exclamation.

“Mercy,” Emma said, caught somewhere between fear and exasperation, “what are they doing in there?”

Vilate Kimball caught her hand. She was trembling. “Look to the spire!”

Above the temple, a great heavy sag of cloud had thinned and parted, drifting away. A train of vapor dragged through the upper branches of the willows. The gap in the clouds let down a bright golden bar of moonlight. It fell upon the temple as if aimed by God’s own hand.

“Mighty Lord.” Vilate sank to her knees, hands clasped in frantic prayer.

Emma and Phebe held each other’s gaze for a long, silent moment. Then Emma broke away from the fluttering, praying women and strode toward the temple with Phebe on her heels.

“Land sakes,” Phebe said when she was certain the others wouldn’t hear. “A lot of nerve these men have, abandoning their wives till all hours, leaving us alone to fend for ourselves. What should we have done if Indians had swept into town, I ask you? Or wolves. Or Missourians.”

They were only a few strides away from the doors now. Emma held up a hand for silence. Inside, she could hear a wild revelry: laughing, shouting, singing. Someone was howling, a high, wavering cry like the baying of a hound.

Emma tried the door, but it was barred. She knocked, but the sounds of celebration went on unabated. She knocked again, harder this time—then pounded with all her strength, forgetting it was the door to God’s own house. But the doors remained shut, the women alone in the dark.

She told the women to return to their homes; their husbands would be back in their beds before dawn’s first light. But sunrise found Kirtland’s men still closeted at the temple. Another day unspooled itself entirely in feminine hands. By the second evening, a far larger group of women had gathered to mutter darkly outside the temple.

Emma made her way to the front of the crowd, intending to pound on the door again—to shout for Joseph, if necessary—whatever she must do to recall the men to their temporal duties. But when she broke from the pack, she found another woman already standing at the door.

She was a stranger, a newcomer to town. She wore a long felt coat over a dress of dark-green velvet, finer clothes than anyone in Kirtland could afford. A well-made carpet bag stood at her feet, and she was gazing up at the spire high above, silent and still amid the hoarse shouts of Amen that carried from the building. Black curls spilled down her back, a tumble of hair like a waterfall seen by night.

“Hello,” Emma said. “You must be new here.”

She turned. Her eyes were large and brown, with a dreamy, almost sorrowful cast. The stranger was of an age with Emma, yet there was no hint of weariness about her, the habitual strain one sees on all mothers of very young children. She was refined, delicately polished—even in the dimness of night, Emma could see that much. With their dark hair in near-identical curls, they might have been two sides of the same coin: Emma, the rough and dogged country wife, and this unknown creature, elegant and graceful, the very picture of feminine ideal.

“Hello,” the stranger said. “Yes, I’ve only just arrived this night. A charming town. My name is Eliza—Miss Eliza Snow from Mantua.”

Emma took the proffered hand. Eliza’s skin wa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• June 27, 1844: Nauvoo, Illinois
• I. Before the Foundation of the World
• II. Treasure in the Earth
• June 27, 1844: Nauvoo, Illinois
• III. The Leatherwood God
• IV. The Thunder of Heaven, and the Fierce and Vivid Lightning
• June 27, 1844: Nauvoo, Illinois
• V. The Things You Have Not Seen
• VI. But One Winter More
• June 28, 1844: Nauvoo, Illinois
• VII. In God’s Name, Look to the Heavens
• June 28, 1844: Nauvoo, Illinois
• VIII. Ask, and It Shall Be Given
• IX. The Weak Things of the World
• June 28, 1844: Nauvoo, Illinois
• X. If the Salt Has Lost Its Savor
• XI. The Refiner’s Fire
• June 28, 1844: Nauvoo, Illinois
• XII. Water, Fire, Truth, and God
• XIII. The Restoration of All Things
• June 28, 1844: Nauvoo, Illinois
• XIV. The Saint of the Black Veil
• June 29, 1844: Nauvoo, Illinois
• XV. Hear the Wolves Howl
• June 30, 1844: Nauvoo, Illinois
• Acknowledgments
• P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
• Copyright
• About the Publisher