Well this was a roaring success! Our packed reading group overwhelmingly enjoyed The Glovemaker by Ann Weisgarber. Despite some minor concerns about the title (gloves were a very minor part of the novel), our readers were absorbed with the story.
The story is set in the Utah territory deep in a winter in the late 1880s and is told from 2 perspectives. Deborah is our main character and is a middle-aged woman without children who makes gloves and keeps her homestead. She’s waiting for the return of her husband Samuel, who travels for months at a time mending wheels. He’s late back and she and Nels (our other main narrator) are concerned about him. Nels and Samuel are step-brothers and they all live in a small remote community surrounded by amazing natural beauty (the area is now Utah’s Capitol Reef national park- see the image below), but fairly cut off from the nearest town. The story of Deborah and Nels’ concern for Samuel is woven through the story of them helping a man escape the law, and their interactions with the sheriff pursuing the outlaw.
The context for the story is that Deborah, Samuel and Nels and the rest of the community they live in are members of the Church of the Latter Days Saints (LDS) and as such are brought up to live with polygamy. Although, as one of our readers put it, this community lives a semi-detached life from the LDS ministry, and many of them don’t believe in polygamy. The man that arrives on their doorstep however, is a polygamist and it’s clear that he’s not the first man with multiple wives that they’ve helped. The dichotomy between their developing beliefs and need to help their fellow man is at the heart of the novel.
Readers enjoyed Deborah as the main protagonist and felt that her desire to help both the fugitive and the pursuing lawman despite not agreeing with their lifestyles or motives drew parallels with the ethos of the NHS. Clinical staff are there to help whatever the beliefs or lifestyles of their patients, they protect the vulnerable and care for people whoever they are.
We laughed about the mail service letting Samuel down- Deborah receives and reads some of his letters throughout the book, and it’s clear from them how much love is between the two. Mail is left in a sack before the pass that leads to the settlement, and there were some parallels drawn between that and the recent Royal Mail second class mail issues
The group discussed Deborah and Nels’ suspension of disbelief around whether Samuel was alive or dead- the potential of him having died in a rockslide is introduced early in the novel- and in particular the deals that Deborah was making with the universe. She hoped that if he was in trouble, Samuel would receive the same help that she was giving someone else’s husband.
We felt the characters were well drawn and not at all 2D, and we enjoyed the personality developments that occurred, it kept the storyline believable. As ever we shook our heads at the plight of women, and discussed the expectations that Deborah would put herself in harm’s way because she had no children and so was less valuable to the community. We loved the idea of the landscape and its impact on the book, giving a backdrop of vast, beautiful and at times lethal countryside.
And finally… we talked about what might happen after the books ends. The story was wrapped up enough to be satisfying but left open enough for us to imagine the future for the characters. Interestingly we all came up with the same potential future- we won’t tell you what that is… no spoilers!
Our next reading group will be a double whammy. We have 2 sets of books to choose from, on a first come first served basis. You’re welcome to either test your inner detective with Back of Beyond by C.J.Box or try an witty, feel good family drama with There’s Been a Little Incident by Alice Ryan. Both are available to collect from William Harvey Library.
Find out more about our reading groups here
Take a look at the blog posts for our previous reads here.