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City of Darkness, City of Light Paperback – August 12, 1997
--San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
In her most splendid, thought-provoking novel yet, Marge Piercy brings to vibrant life three women who play prominent roles in the tumultuous, bloody French Revolution--as well as their more famous male counterparts.
Defiantly independent Claire Lacombe tests her theory: if men can make things happen, perhaps women can too. . . . Manon Philipon finds she has a talent for politics--albeit as the ghostwriter of her husband's speeches. . . . And Pauline Léon knows one thing for certain: the women must apply the pressure or their male colleagues will let them starve. While illuminating the lives of Robespierre, Danton, and Condorcet, Piercy also opens to us the minds and hearts of women who change their world, live their ideals--and are prepared to die for them.
"MASTERFUL . . . PIERCY BRINGS THE BLOOD AND GUTS, THE IDEAS AND PASSIONS, OF THE REVOLUTION TO LIFE."
--The Women's Review of Books
"PIERCY'S STORYTELLING POWERS CAPTURE THE TURBULENCE AND EXCITEMENT OF [THIS] LIBERATING ERA."
--The Boston Herald
- Print length496 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherBallantine Books
- Publication dateAugust 12, 1997
- Dimensions5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
- ISBN-100449912752
- ISBN-13978-0449912751
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From the Inside Flap
--San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
In her most splendid, thought-provoking novel yet, Marge Piercy brings to vibrant life three women who play prominent roles in the tumultuous, bloody French Revolution--as well as their more famous male counterparts.
Defiantly independent Claire Lacombe tests her theory: if men can make things happen, perhaps women can too. . . . Manon Philipon finds she has a talent for politics--albeit as the ghostwriter of her husband's speeches. . . . And Pauline Léon knows one thing for certain: the women must apply the pressure or their male colleagues will let them starve. While illuminating the lives of Robespierre, Danton, and Condorcet, Piercy also opens to us the minds and hearts of women who change their world, live their ideals--and are prepared to die for them.
"MASTERFUL . . . PIERCY BRINGS THE BLOOD AND GUTS, THE IDEAS AND PASSIONS, OF THE REVOLUTION TO LIFE."
--The Women's Review of Books
"PIERCY'S STORYTELLING POWERS CAPTURE THE TURBULENCE AND EXCITEMENT OF [THIS] LIBERATING ERA."
--The Boston Herald
Product details
- Publisher : Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (August 12, 1997)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 496 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0449912752
- ISBN-13 : 978-0449912751
- Item Weight : 1.3 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,793,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #30,986 in Family Saga Fiction
- #166,544 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- #206,457 in Historical Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Marge Piercy has written seventeen novels including the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, the national bestsellers Braided Lives and The Longings of Women, and the classic Woman on the Edge of Time, as well as He, She and It and Sex Wars; nineteen volumes of poetry including The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems 1980–2010, The Crooked Inheritance, and Made in Detroit; and the critically acclaimed memoir Sleeping with Cats. Born in center city Detroit, educated at the University of Michigan and Northwestern, and the recipient of four honorary doctorates, Piercy is active in antiwar, feminist, and environmental causes.
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Danton and Robespierre were both lawyers before the Revolution and worked their way into leadership positions in the various legislative bodies that came into being during the years of the Revolution. Both were at one time considered the most powerful man in the country, and both ended at the guillotine.
The Marquis de Condorcet was primarily a scientist and mathematician. He also somehow got into some of the legislative bodies of the revolution and wrote a complicated Constitution for France which seems not to have been adopted. He seems not to have been a bad sort. Apparently, there is controversy over how he died. In this book, he takes poison as he is about to be caught while running from his political enemies. Other sources indicate that he too went to the guillotine.
Manon Roland was the wife of a provincial bureaucrat. During the Revolution, he was elected to several positions in the government in Paris and
Manon went with him. She was an intelligent woman and a good wife, working behind the scenes to further his career. She wrote his speeches and wrote articles for one of the newspapers. She also ran a politically oriented salon where ideas were discussed, and movements toward power were begun. She too ended her life on the guillotine.
Only Claire Lacombe, an actress who played many roles glorifying moments in the Revolution for various theatrical entities, and Pauline Leon, who was a chocolate maker in Paris and who was prominent in the early bread riots, the attack on the Bastille, and other movements of the people in the early days, managed to survive the Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Both of them were arrested and spent long stretches in various prisons, but history moved on before they could be executed, and they were eventually released and returned to normal lives.
This is almost the first book I have read that gave much more than a thumbnail sketch of the French Revolution and what it was about (besides getting rid of the aristocracy). I confess I am still somewhat confused as to the relationships between the Committee, the Convention, and the Commune, but I now have a somewhat clearer picture of some of the people involved.
A fascinating look from a rather left-leaning but always enormously impassioned author. Her outrage is palpable. Good reading.
If you've ever wondered what being alive during the Terror and the birth of the new republic, the insanity and passion then this is the book for you.
Top reviews from other countries
Piercy wrote this novel partly from the wholly admirable belief that Americans needed to know what can happen in a society where the rich get ever richer and more selfish and the poor poorer. Her socialism can colour the narrative slightly at times. For example, though it's marvellous to have a portrayal of Robespierre where he isn't simply a monster, I doubt he was quite as noble as the 'Max' (everyone in the book is referred to by Christian names, quite an interesting idea) of Piercy's novel. Nor do I think Marie Antoinette was quite so simply villainous, the Desmoulins so silly (Lucile by all accounts wasn't as frivolous as Piercy portrays her, and Camille Desmoulins had greater nobility, I think, than the Desmoulins in this version) or the workers universally so heroic. At times too Piercy doesn't quite manage to make some of the characters as richly complex as she intends. Manon Roland, who in life was much admired while alive and after her death, comes across as rather too self-involved and cold (though her death scene is magnificent) while Pauline Leon, after promising beginnings, becomes chillingly naive, rejoicing in the bloodthirsty executions of the rich, and in the end metamorphosing into a quiet little housewife happy to be dominated by her soldier husband. I suspected I should have found more to like about these two women than I did. However, some of the descriptions of Robespierre (particularly his life away from politics, and his love of Eleanore and of animals) were very moving, and Piercy's Georges Danton, Nicolas Condorcet and Claire Lacombe were all magnificent creations, and very sympathetic. The dialogue, despite the odd clunky Americanism ('Henri was just an ordinary guy' and that sort of thing) flowed convincingly, and there were some fine descriptions of Paris. The book was also very well researched, and though a big tome at 600 pages never felt too long. Although I suspect that Dickens in 'A Tale of Two Cities' and Hilary Mantel in 'A Place of Greater Safety' may have given a slightly less biased view of the Revolution, I found this on the whole a magnificent read, and very absorbing - and it's certainly made me want to read more about the French Revolution, and to read Marge Piercy's other books.

