Marge Piercy – Three Women

If I never read any books ever again, except those recommended by Thomas from On My Porch, then I would be in very safe hands. He came to London last year and unfortunately I wasn’t able to meet up with him – but he was still kind enough to send me a book he thought I’d like. And he was right. It’s almost spooky how well he knows what I would like. If he started a book cult, I would totally join.

These aren’t three random women, but a grandmother, mother and daughter within the same family. Beverly has been a radical social activist for much of her life and is finding it extremely difficult to cope with the loss of her fiery independence after a stroke. Suzanne is a lawyer and professor who is trying to hold her family together and start up a new, fragile relationship. Elena has never recovered from a tumultuous adolescence and is drifting aimlessly through life with a massive chip on her shoulder. Neither Elena nor Beverly understand Suzanne – it is that classic family dynamic where each generation rebels against the next.

My main thought when reading was, how am I ever going to manage a teenager? And then I thought, well, there are many, many ways in which I could fail as a parent before then, so better at least get through the rest of the pregnancy first.

Elena really is an irritating and selfish character – she is a 27 year old who still behaves like a 16 year old and blames Suzanne for all her problems. You don’t understand me! It’s all your fault! But in the meantime, me and my massive sense of entitlement are going to move in and completely disrupt your life! And Suzanne really didn’t help. She kept taking responsibility and blaming herself for Elena’s choices. You wanted to shake her and say ‘ELENA IS A GROWN WOMAN LET HER SORT HERSELF OUT’.

I’m not quite sure I bought all the dialogue (do people really start their sentences with ‘understand’ or continually say ‘I’m really overextended?’) or Beverly’s career (a little bit social activist by numbers). But I really enjoyed the story and the writing. There’s no squeamishness here. Some pretty tough issues about justice and aging and betrayal which Piercy is not afraid to stare in the face. She doesn’t put a nice watercolour on things, but neither does she over-dramatise. In fact, I couldn’t put this down, and was really gripped in the middle, though I felt that it tailed off towards the end. I definitely want to check more Piercy out.

Thank you again Thomas!

Jen and Erin, if you are reading this – it would totally be your thing.