Three Women (Hardcover)

~ Marge Piercy (Author) "Suzanne Blume finished up her day's lecture on the First Amendment in the cavernous auditorium and shook off the students who immediately surrounded her..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, Elena Elena, Beverly Beverly (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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

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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (September 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688171060
• ISBN-13: 978-0688171063
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,998,212 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like Terms of Endearment! A family saga to cherish!, September 29, 1999

By A Customer

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!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Novel, Awful Cover!, January 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Three Women (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a typically wonderful Marge Piercy book, November 10, 1999

By A Customer

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!