SOLOMON, Dorothy Allred 1949-

PERSONAL: Born June 24, 1949, in Salt Lake City, UT; daughter of Rulon Clark (a physician) and Mabel (a pianist; maiden name, Finlayson) Allred; married Bruce Craig Solomon (a human development program director), January 8, 1968; children: Denise Andreianne, Layla Janelle, Jeffrey Bruce, Laurissa Jeanne. Education: University of Utah, B.A., 1971, M.A., 1981. Religion: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon).

ADDRESSES: Home—3710 S. 645 E., Salt Lake City, UT 84106. Office—Lifespring, Inc., 1381 E. 2100 S., Salt Lake City, UT 84105. Agent—Victoria Gould Pryor, Literistic Ltd., 264 5th Ave., New York, NY 10001.

CAREER: Salt Lake City Board of Education, Salt Lake City, UT, English, literature, and drama teacher, 1971-74; Utah Arts Council Artists-in-Education Program, Salt Lake City, writer-in-residence, 1980—. Member of Writers at Work Literary Conference at Park City, UT. Leadership coordinator and trainer for Lifespring, Inc. (human development program), Salt Lake City, 1984—; member of board of directors, Children's Center (for emotionally handicapped children), 1980-84; member of board of trustees, Lifespring Foundation; member of Hunger Project.

MEMBER: University Writers, Manuscripters, Rotary Club (honorary member).

AWARDS, HONORS: Distinguished journalism awards from Academy of Pediatrics and Sigma Delta Chi, both 1979, both for Utah Holiday article "Suffer the Children"; first prize for biography in Utah Original Writing Contest, 1981, and publishing prize in Utah State Writing Contest, 1982, both for In My Father's House.

WRITINGS:

In My Father's House (autobiography), F. Watts (New York, NY), 1984.

Inside-Out: Creating Writing in the Classroom, Utah Arts Council (Salt Lake City, UT), 1989.

Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy, W. W. Norton (New York, NY), 2003, published as Daughter of the Saints: Growing Up in Polygamy, 2004.

Contributor to Utah Holiday and Good Housekeeping. Fiction editor, Quarterly West (University of Utah), 1976.

SIDELIGHTS: Dorothy Allred Solomon has worked through her challenging childhood in several autobiographical writings. In My Father's House is an account of her growing up in the 1950s in a Mormon household that secretly practiced polygamy. The twenty-eighth child of fundamentalist schismatic Rulon Clark Allred, Solomon recalls early years of relative happiness; it was only in adolescence that she began to experience the strains of secrecy and isolation, constantly fearing discovery and separation. Fighting the feelings of alienation towards her family and faith she experienced in young adulthood, the author has since laid past grievances to rest and reembraced the religious traditions of her family. A "spokeswoman on polygamy" (though monogamous), Solomon does not pass judgment on her father and his religious convictions ("bringing as many souls into the world as possible"); she perceives his struggle within the American tradition of fighting for individual religious freedom.

Reviewing In My Father's House for the New York Times Book Review, Mary Catherine Bateson described Solomon's youth as a curious mix of the familiar and the bizarre. "But while most readers today will not recoil from polygamy as 'lewd and obscene,'" she continued, "many will recoil at what it cost children to be brought up as outcasts." "When a child is required to keep the basic circumstances of his or her life secret," Bateson further noted, "childhood is violated." Still, the critic found "Mrs. Solomon's return from alienation to her family's tradition and faith … moving, for it expresses the impulse to retain and affirm a sense of the basic relationships in her life."

After a long hiatus, Solomon returned to her life story in 2003 with Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy, also published as Daughter of the Saints: Growing Up in Polygamy. In addition to providing information on a little-known topic, Solomon's work garnered qualified praise from reviewers for other reasons. Booklist contributor June Sawyers looked favorably on the "remarkable clarity and even humor" with which Solomon produced her account, while Times Picayune book editor Susan Larson dubbed this "remarkable memoir" "an eerily compelling insider's view." Solomon had detailed records at hand when writing the memoir and spent many pages explaining the relationships of the wives and their children, to the detriment of the book's pace and the possibility of sociological discussions, according to some critics. "Solomon crawls toward the book's climax," commented David Sheets in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "emphasizing too much extreme metaphor in day-to-day routine—culled from family journal entries—and not enough analysis of why some people tempt legal, religious and social ostracism to practice what even devout Mormons have questioned since the church's founding in the early nineteenth century." About the narrative style, Washington Post Book World reviewer Jonathan Yardley discussed Solomon's use of metaphors and similes, calling them "improbable" and thus distracting. Despite its alleged shortcomings, a number of reviewers found Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk noteworthy. "This book is an act of psychological catharsis, but it is also a history of an outlaw phenomenon and a chronicle of a huge extended family," wrote Chicago Sun-Times reviewer Henry Kisor. "Sometimes the weight of detail can slow down the reading, but over-all it is a remarkable testament."

Solomon once told CA: "I began writing because of a dream. The dream was about freeing myself from authority figures who would unfairly imprison me and others. I flew to a mountaintop, where I received from the heavens a message of love and freedom, for all my brothers and sisters (all over the world). My childhood—growing up in a polygamous (fundamentalist Mormon) family—allows me an unusual viewpoint from which to regard and explore the beauties, sorrows, and mysteries of life."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, June 1, 2003, June Sawyers, review of Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy, p. 1713.

Chicago Sun-Times, July 6, 2003, Henry Kisor, "Endpapers," p. 12.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2003, review of Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk, pp. 666-667.

Library Journal, September 1, 1984, review of In My Father's House, p. 1667; May 1, 2003, Jan Blodgett, review of Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk, p. 130.

New York Times Book Review, February 24, 1985, Mary Catherine Bateson, review of In My Father's House, p. 37.

Publishers Weekly, August 17, 1984, review of In My Father's House, p. 52; April 14, 2003, review of Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk, p. 55.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 13, 2003, David Sheets, "Daughter of Polygamist Laments Her Childhood," p. E3.

School Library Journal, November, 1985, Diana Hirsch, review of In My Father's House, p. 107.

Times-Picayune (New Orleans, LA), July 15, 2003, Susan Larson, "New Looks at Mormon World," p. 1.

Washington Post Book World, July 10, 2003, Jonathan Yardley, "The Many Wives They Lead," p. C2.*