JR Alila Novels' Blog

Sunset on Polygamy
(Tragedy: Cultural Practices and Disease Epidemic)
ISBN No. 1-4241-6684-5

The Broader View:
In this African anthropological cultural drama, the author (Joseph Alila) explores such universal issues as competitive love and romance, spiritualism, moral conduct and orderliness, farming, fairness, power structure, conflicts and conflict resolution; all within a polygamous Luo home.
Beyond the polygamous home, the author takes us through an anthropological communal tour on the spiritual underpinnings of such issues as farming, death and mourning, marriage, remarriage, courtship, moral law and order, and power within a Luo communal unit. He delicately addresses the conflict of cultural practices and spiritual understanding of a disease versus proven modern medical evidence and understanding of a disease epidemic and its management. And which conflict destined a people to a tragic decimation of its populace. If STDs are difficult to manage among certain groups, STDs become unmanageable when to polygamy, is factored a spiritual interpretation of all diseases.The tragedy worsens when a people’s psyche is intimately tied to a spiritual position on disease or sex.
Sunset on Polygamy is a must read for social workers, anthropologists, and policy makers who are often called upon to work with populations they hardly understand. It also is a light romantic reading for all who are enjoined or must one day be enjoined to someone in marriage. The author teaches that even in a polygamous home, man and woman must communicate, must play, must occasionally visit, mentally, one-on-one, because they are human; and exceptional ones at that.
The book is a feel-good read as you reminisce in your cool-down sunset days, and as you remember your less than noble high-school days.
To order
SUNSET ON POLYGAMY (by Joseph R. Alila) (ISBN No. 14241-6684-5)
go to www.PublishAmerica.com/Bookstore.
Synopsis.
A near-fatal crisis pits polygamous Jim and younger wives against the hyper-jealous Felicia the Nyadendi, a master of intrigues, who engineers a home-wide mutiny. Mutiny ends, and a surge of babies for all but the in-menopause Felicia the Nyadendi. Unable to withstand a childless period in her journey, Felicia suffers a mental breakdown. But she would have the last laugh, thanks to a contagious disease epidemic.
The New Disease ensnares her people as Gina, virus-infected and very beautiful, unwillingly remarries because of spiritual demands placed upon her by the ways of her people. Deceivingly healthy, Gina kills suitor-after-suitor, and shuts down home-after-home, as the society sleeps and nurses a tragic spiritual (Luo: Chira) explanation for a medically well-understood Viral-Killer. Gina’s long life is a tragedy, and so are polygamy, wife-inheritance, and a communal psyche moored on a myriad of taboos.
To order
SUNSET ON POLYGAMY (by Joseph R. Alila) (ISBN No. 1-424-1-6684-5)
go to www.PublishAmerica.com/Bookstore.