The Giant Joshua Author:Maurine Whipple The time is 1860's; the scene is Dixie Mission, a far-flung outpost in the Utah dessert where a band of Mormons fight drought and flood, famine and hostile Indians, in an attempt to raise food for themselves and cotton for Brigham Young. Like the giant Joshua, the great cactus of the dessert, these heroic and fanatical men and women thrust t... more »heir roots down through a soil so acid that one would suppose it incapable of supporting life.
"The Giant Joshua" is a magnificent panorama of a stirring period. But its real fascination lies in the character of Clory, whose family turned Mormon when she was a little girl. After her parents die, she if brought up by Abijah, a stern man who loved his God even more than he loved his two wives and six sons. At the outset of Dixie Mission, Clory is "sealed" to Abijah as his third wife. Innocent, tender, courageous, bewildered at the lustiness of Abijah and at the jealousy of this two older wives, Clory is torn between her passionate faith in the stern tennets of Mormonism and her equally passionate desire for beauty and gaiety. This is a deeply moving story of early Mormon settlers in Utah told from a woman's viewpoint.« less