Amazon.com Review
The heroine of Marge Piercy's
Three Women is something of a feminist trailblazer: the first woman to teach constitutional law at her big-city university. At five feet three inches, however, Suzanne Blume feels "too small for her role in the world." To compensate, this pint-sized divorcee has transformed herself into a human dynamo, obsessively slicing and dicing the time she devotes to her mother, her two daughters, her students, and her e-mail boyfriend. Yet this rigorously arranged world is turned upside down when her problematic older daughter moves in, followed by her stubborn, ailing mother.
Suzanne's addiction to the clock infuriates her offspring--indeed, Elena has deliberately "chosen to go to the other extreme, exalting spontaneity." And her mother, Beverly, remains a fiery, left-wing activist to the end, spurning such bourgeois amenities as the datebook. It's the ultimate challenge, then, for these three women to peacefully cohabit. What's worse, they're beset by a series of calamities, some shocking, some mundane. Yet this high-tension ménage à trois ultimately learns the value of mutual support and familial love. And along the way, Piercy plunges right into the deepest, most elemental stuff of life: sex, betrayal, aging, illness, and death. She's both brave and compassionate in her exploration of the volatile ground between mothers and daughters--but no less brave than the characters she has created. By the time you finish reading Piercy's 15th novel, you'll find it difficult to leave the Blumes to their own, unmistakably feminine devices. --Laura Mirsky
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Prolific novelist (The Longings of Women) and poet Piercy once more depicts the travails of single, independent women in a multigenerational story that manages to cover most of the feminist issues of the late 20th century. The three protagonists are Beverly Blume, feminist and civil rights activist; Beverly's daughter, no-nonsense Boston attorney Suzanne; and Suzanne's daughter, the beautiful, misguided Elena. A vigorous New Yorker, 72-year-old Beverly has always put political activism before motherhood. Now crippled by a stroke, she is faced with the humiliating prospect of moving in with the daughter she never had time for. Suzanne, at 49, is already coping with rebellious, troubled Elena, who has returned to live at home after being fired from her job. Suzanne is also worried about her younger daughter, Rachel, who is in Israel studying to become a rabbi. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her first relationship in 12 years, after Jake, a sexy environmental activist she has been flirting with on the Internet, appears in the flesh. Though Suzanne's is the primary voice, the story is told from the perspectives of the other women as well. Elena's past is the most dramatic, marked by drug use, a tragic high school experience and a series of obsessive relationships with the wrong men. As the narrative progresses, the three achieve a new intimacy that is put to the test when a second stroke further incapacitates Beverly. Suzanne and Elena must decide whether to acquiesce to Beverly's anguished pleas for them to help her end her life. Piercy keeps the plot humming with issues of motherhood, Judaism, generational tensions, sexuality, and independence. Her pacing is confident, as usual, and she interweaves the three narrative threads with aplomb. Apart from Jake, who remains an elusive sketch, Piercy's insight into her characters' emotional lives is an accurate reflection of intergenerational tensions. 5-city author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
