Three (edition 2012)

I’ve always loved T.S. Eliots’s "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" for it’s yearning, rueful melancholy. So the back cover copy of Annemarie Monahan’s Three had me immediately hooked when its seventeen year old protagonist asks herself, "Do I dare to eat the peach?"

Her decision will take her on one of three very different paths. On the right we have the suburban soccer mom Kitty dealing with the deteriorating health of her dictatorial father while at the same time questioning her sexuality after twenty years of marriage. Somewhere in the middle is Katherine, a no-nonsense, unattached holistic doctor taking stock of her past relationships. And, on the far left is Antonia, a radical feminist involved with the charismatic leader of a separatist utopian community of women living on an abandoned oil rig off the coast of Connecticut.

There’s really so much to love here. Monahan’s writing is smart and insightful. The book’s unique structure - each version of the main character presented in alternating chapters, creates a nice tension and allows each storyline to slowly reveal itself in relief against the others while illuminating different aspects of them at the same time. The characters are all extremely well rendered, particularly the three incarnations of Katherine/Kitty/Antonia. Despite her living these radically different lives, the reader can always recognize her as the same person underneath it all - wry, clever and introspective.

And funny. Did I mention funny?

While the high quality of the writing was somewhat unexpected, the real surprise to be found here is the humor. Whether it’s Kitty’s swinging professor’s unforeseen proposition, Katherine’s dry responses to her thickheaded patients or Antonia versus the horde of breatharians out to sabotage the self-sufficiency of the feminist homeland, Monahan manages to skewer halfwits on both sides of the socio-political spectrum with some truly laugh-out-loud moments. All this while still presenting a work that is rich in real human emotion.

Three is that rare find, a work of literature that keeps you on your toes intellectually but also makes feel something. It certainly had me examining my own life. And ultimately what I took away from it is that no matter how one chooses to live one’s life, everyone has regrets and what ifs. Like that old Buddhist saying goes, "Wherever you go, there you are." ( )

This is an alternative look at the road not taken genre. Instead the story alternates among 3 women who may be alternatives of one woman had she taken 3 separate roads. Admittedly, it's a little confusing, but there's a quotable line or idea on almost every page. One woman, Kitty, an intellectual who is always up for new experiences, tries out sex with her boyfriend, gets pregnant so gets married and must turn her back on the college of her dreams, Fernhurst, which apparently is a lesbian paradise. The other two, Antonia and Katherine both do attend Fernhurst and make some life long relationships. Antonia's life is the most radical and bizarre. She joins a woman's separatist movement that sets up a colony in the ocean named Atlantis. She a scientist, a willing worker for the good of the community, which is started by the charismatic Josephine. This is a quote from one of Josephine's early recruitment lectures: There are those who say, 'Josephine, we've moved beyond gender. I'm not a woman, I'm a person who can't be defined by gender.' Well. Have men moved beyond gender? Are we safe yet? Do skinheads drop their tire chains if you say, I'm not black, I'm a dark-skinned human being, equal citizen of the world?...An oppressed group cannot decide to move beyond their oppression. Only the oppressor gets to decide that.
There are those who saw that separating from men is hatred. There are those who say,'Oh, not all women are good. I know terrible women. Women are just as bad as men.' As bad as men? Tell me, if women act the same as men, where are the bodies piled? Where are the masses of men murdered every single day by women? In what other oppression do we equate nastiness or selfishness or just plain anger with murder? Of course not all women are good? But are women honor-killing men? Are women abducting 6-year-old boys for rape? Have women built an international, multi-billion-dollar industry selling films where women gag men with their genitals, ram fists up their asses until they prolapse, shit on their bodies?

Strong words, and worth pondering. But as with many major revolutions, revolutionaries can make their ideal into a religion. When that happens logic goes out the window. Look to Mao's China or Stalin's USSR. What follows is misery and destruction.

Three is a very good exploration of religion, ideals, sexuality, parenting, health care, timidity, courage, and decisions. Highly recommended to anyone interested in these ideas. ( )