Latinos in Idaho

by Gerald Grimmett

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0931659841
• ISBN13: 9780931659843
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Limberlost Press
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.4" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

What were those 1 star REVIEWS all about?!!This book is 5***

I don't know what those 1 & 2 star reviews were about, but those people appearently did NOT read this very funny and highly researched book. If those reviewers had read this book they would have seen what a hilariously funny guy Gerald Grimmett is. Those badass reviewers obviously had an agenda of their own , they just want to disrespect the author(might they be wolves in sheeps clothing ?). I would recommend this to every person who needs their spirits lifted and their funnybone knawed on.I had to make sure I had Depends handy.One funny character in the novel is Zeke Wilkes(a John the Baptist wanna-be)....How can one not laugh at the picture of an old man running around the desert in old fungi-ridden lion skin stealing dolly underwear off the line in the back-yard? I learned a lot about present day Short Creek and the whole present day lds church. Mr. Grimmett certainly knows his stuff, and I would recommend this highly creative and funny book to any one.

SLAPSTICK IN PRINT-SALT LAKE TRIBUNE-MARTIN NAPARSTECK

SLAPSTICK IN PRINTBy Martin NaparsteckSpecial REVIEW CORRESPONDENTTO THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE The Wives of Short Creek By Gerald Grimmett Limberlost Press, $21.95 Gerald Grimmett in The Wives of Short Creek has given us a good, old-fashioned farce, and like all farces, it needs a target. His target, as the title suggests (Short Creek is the former name of Colorado City, the world's most famous polygamist community), is religious extremism. The plot of the novel revolves around a claim by a community member that he possesses the only copy of "the last prophecy" of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church, and an attempt by the publisher of a Salt Lake City newspaper, the Courier & Mail, to purchase it for $2 million. Farce, of course, is melodrama that is intended to be funny. (We often laugh at melodrama that isn't farce, but the writer doesn't want us to). As such, it deals with overdrawn plots and inflated characters -- and Grimmett's novel is no exception. When farce is a work of literature, it's slapstick in words. Consider this sentence, a little more than half way through the novel: "If you dressed Heber in a dark blue business suit, hung a Rush Limbaugh tie around his neck, and placed him in a bank, he'd look a little like Burl Ives after a Pritikin diet." Even outside the context of the plot, the sentence not only makes sense but provides a clear indication of the book's tone. It's both irreverent and dependent on the reader being familiar with varying cultural references (Limbaugh, Ives, the Pritikin diet). The 75-year-old bishop of Short Creek ("15 or so . . . wives, 43 children, and 289 Grandchildren and umpteen great-grandchildren") wants the town's sheriff, Heber Dean Smith, to handle the sale of the document containing Smith's final prophecy. He also wants the sheriff to take more wives; Smith, to the bishop's chagrin, is satisfied with one, Zinny. On the other side, C.J. Thomas, a reporter for the Courier & Mail, "the only anti-establishmentarian newspaper between Denver and San Francisco" and rival of "the church owned Deseret Call," is sent by the publisher to deliver the money. Thomas isn't real happy about the assignment, having more fun doing other things (when we first meet him he's with "A butt-naked coed . . . He'd picked up . . . that evening at a Jazz game"). There are varying subplots, a key one involving a woman who believes "being a wife to a good Mormon was as boring as sorting socks" and that the culture she's a part of believes "to be childless was a sin akin to drunkenness" and that "barren women were to be pitied." And there's Rose Lee, who was divorced after five years of marriage by "Bishop-to-be DeKay LaMott." The problems started when Rose Lee received what DeKay called "filthy pornography." She had "absent-mindedly signed a petition [for the Arizona Women's Alliance] in the Kingman Mall, having no idea what it was for, but the solicitor had a cute butt . . . That act h

Gerald Grimmett delivers another outstandanding work

Gerald Grimmett has written a fine novel combining the elements of historical fact and issues of present day sociology in his newly released book, Wives of Short Creek. Tackling the subject of polygamy that exists in the outposts of Utah and neighboring states, Wives examines the economic and social impact this has wrought through a kaleidoscope of fictitious characters that includes an appointed sheriff, a notorious polygamist, and a radical feminist. Grimmett paints a vibrant landscape for these characters to run amok in the humor of a well-paced plot, yet they leave a message.......the message that polygamy is alive and tolerated, to a surprising degree, in fringe elements of our society. Grimmett, much to his credit, declines the bully pulpit of religious harangue so that Wives can be the warm, laughable, and human story that it is.

What a pleasant surprise!

I read Mr. Grimmett's novel, The Ferry Woman, and was totally enthralled and captured by Emeline's story. The tragedy that he depicts still haunts me. I knew very little about the subject until I read The Ferry Woman. Now the marketplace seems to be flooded with books about the Mountain Meadows (I also recommend Blood of the Prophet by Will Bagley) and with Jon Krakauer's new book, Under the Banner of Heaven, the ugly head of polygamy is getting attention, but Mr. Grimmett is once again a step ahead.On the strength of The Ferry Woman I was waiting to see if Mr. Grimmett would do a similar novel as his first. What a pleasant surprise! The Wives of Short Creek is a comedy of polygamy that should have readers howling, guffawing, or throwing the book across the room in anger. His character, Sheriff Heber Dean Smith is as memorable as Emeline. And his wife Zinny is a wonderful woman of contradictions, an old scold, or a wonderful lover, as well as a businesswoman who keeps Heber in whiskey.I would venture to gues that this novel is a kind of companion piece to The Ferry Woman, but don't know if the author had that in mind. But that doesn't matter, because The Wives of Short Creek is another not-to-miss book of Mr. Grimmett's about the foibles of men, women, and their religion. And by no means do I detect any anti-Mormon sentiments (from the author, at least--except against polygamy). The book is fun, educational entertainment. Bravo again!

A whole new ballgame

After reading Grimmett's Ferry Woman, I looked for his next book, and was not disappointed. The Wives of Short Creek is a sly and wicked and funny look at modern Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, just coming out before Jon Krakauer's dark Under the Banner of Heaven. They could be mirrors of contrast, and the different points of view quite similar.Wives is as good as the Ferry Woman, but so different as not to recognize Mr. Grimmett's writing. Highly recommended for the sheer entertainment.