Customer Reviews

Three Women: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I'm always amazed at Marge Piercy's ability to enter characters of so many different nationalities, periods of history, even time/space dimensions. I can't think of a contemporary American novelist whose range is so vast and quality so consistent. But Three Women, set in the here-and-now, and dealing with issues that are so domestically and frighteningly real, hit home with me in a very personal way. In Piercy's typical style, she had me turning pages until dawn and sneaking peaks at work. The attorney, Suzanne, who finally has her house to herself -- and a hot sexual relationship to boot! - has to grapple honestly, painfully and at times quite hilariously with a troubled daughter who moves back home and a very strong mother, Beverly, independent all her life and suddenly now, at seventy-something forced back into Suzanne's care. Piercy is not a sentimental writer (bless her heart) and these are not weepy TV types whose sugary relationships melt into icing, but fiercely real women with amazing life experiences, agile minds and strong desires. Something like Larry McMurty's Terms of Endearment, this is a novel I'll share with my mother and daughter...and demand they give it back!

Poor Marge Piercy, her novels are so serious, and so political, and yet they are so often saddled with the most ridiculous cover art! Piercy has no equal in weaving multiple characters and plot lines into an intellectual page-turner. She's been doing it for thirty years. The central plot of this novel, although there are many side plots, concerns mom/grandma/daughter all living together after grandma has a stroke and daughter loses her job. It's quite a page-turner as we discover a mystery from the daughter's past, a relationship unfolding for the mother, and the difficulties encountered by the grandmother.

My only complaint with the book was that the portrait of the attorney's work did not ring true to me as an attorney, and I found the anecdotes of the grandmother's career as a union organizer to be rather cliched. (This character has been beaten up by Union bosses AND has been firebombed by the Klan AND....okay, we get the point, Marge.) However, this is still a first class read.

an absolutely wonderful story - touching and emotional and nothing less than I expected from Marge Piercy. Once I started the book, I couldn't put it down! Everyone should read it!

The women of the story each are beautifully representative of their respective generations, not only in the problems they face, but in the struggles they endure to keep relationships alive, despite great differences in personality. Piercy is able to tell an essentially positive story without becoming saccharine or unbelievable. I was readily able to identify with Suzanne, who was a well drawn representative of my "sandwich" generation, pulled and tugged mercilessly in all directions by the older and younger generations of loved ones. Really well done treatment of some tough issues.

I loved this book! Piercy does a marvelous job of entering the minds of three woman of different generations and captures them perfectly. I especially appreciated the portraits of women who had children, but perhaps shouldn't have and realize it. Not many writers will acknowledge that motherhood is not for everyone. I recently sat next to Piercy at an author luncheon and got to speak to her about this book. It's a thought-provoking, sensitive, and realistic treatment.

It took awhile to get into this book, but once i did I thought it would be a pleasant enough read. But once I got to the part of Elena and Jim getting caught in their affair, the book took on a sense of the ridiculous in its unreality. Would a woman react with such acceptance if she discovered her daughter was having an affair with her best friend's husband? I think not. And why weren't the psychological ramifications looked at -- that Elena may have been seeking a father in Jim? The dialogue at times was false. I'm sorry to give this such a gloomy review, but it just didn't cut it.

Marge Piercy's books stay with you long after you've put them down. There are segments of many of her past books that have never left me, and "Three Women" has already joined the ranks of her finest, in my opinion. Piercy is a writer of such power that it is impossible to read her work and stay unmoved or uninvolved. In this case, her brilliant, poignant, and yet somehow defiant portrait of Beverly, the aging activist suffering the indignities of a stroke, are simply unforgettable. It made me explore another way of thinking...to look beyond my own sensibilities and dearly held beliefs into another area. But don't be put off. Like all of her books, Piercy's Three Women is a fast, fascinating, and worthwhile read. I would like nothing more than to sit in a quiet, cozy corner with Marge and just listen to her talk. She is a gift.

I almost didn't read Three Women, because Piercy's last five or six books have been disappointing to me; she almost seems to hate her characters. But with this book she is moving back on track. She feels genuine emphathy and respect for each of the three, very different female "archtypes", which is really what they are more than actual characters.

The three generations of women live together, each with their own unique sets of cultural and societal baggage, getting on each other's last nerve, and finally being forced to accept and finally love each other. This is a book about a profoundly moving and important topic for many of us baby boomers: what will happen when our parents cannot take care of themselves anymore? If they are still mentally active but physically unable to live alone anymore? This is an extremely sensitive and thoughful examination of how a driven career woman, not at all close to her mother, must make very difficult choices. This is a book about dignity, family ties, and the right to die.

By never letting her characters lapse into self-pity, Piercy has allowed me to respect each of them as individuals, even when I wanted to slap them upside the head. By the end of the book I was deeply moved and a little bit better able to face some of the difficult decisions facing these women.

This is not a slick story or a particularly fashionable one. It is about growing up and letting go. It is both unstinting in its analysis of feminist types and gentle in its treatment of them, with all their flaws. In the end these are just ordinary people trying to live their lives in the best way they can.

I'm a longtime fan of Marge Piercy, ever since I devoured Gone to Soldiers, Woman on the Edge of Time and He, She and It. Another enjoyable read was Ms. Piercy's frank and affectionate memoir, Sleeping with Cats. This effort, however, didn't do much for me. I didn't feel emotionally involved with any of the characters and basically could have cared less what happened to them. I felt this was a superficial read; nothing gripped me at all. It's too bad; was it written in in a hurry? I won't give up on Ms. Piercy, though, and will keep an eye out for her future works.

Piercy's novel delves into the intertwined lives of three women: Suzanne, a successful lawyer; Beverly, her unconventional, activist mother; and Elena, her troubled daughter. Suzanne finds herself in the middle of a storm of emotions as she copes with her daughter returning home and her mother, incapacitated by a stroke, also joining the household. There are events in the past, layers of conflict and guilt, that bind these three women together. Gradually, the novel uncovers this history.

The great strength of this book is in the respect and space it gives to each of these three very different people. Beverly was a radical who worked for civil rights and unions. She was a powerful, dramatic figure. Now, following her stroke, she does not know how to cope with the loss of her vibrant energy.

Elena seems to exist on pure emotion, living for the thrill from one moment to the next, but her love for her grandmother brings out another side of her. As she cares for Beverly, she discovers that can find the strength in herself to help someone she loves.

Suzanne seems to be the hardest character to relate to. She is busy all the time, consumed with her career and household tasks. Her family feels burdensome to her, though she loves them. She wants badly to reconcile with her mother, Beverly, and find some point of connection, but time to do so is running out.