Three Women

Best book for my life so far. A single mother of young adult daughters who are polar opposites, finally ready to embrace her empty nest with new life of her own, gets caught up in the drama of her dying mother and the daughters' new crises.

This is a story I should relate to: a working woman who is stressed as she deals with her adult daughter returning home and her mother who has a stroke and needs home care. But Suzanne is hyperfocused on her work as an attorney, Elena seems such a spoiled directionless 29 yr old, and too much of the novel consists of people's thoughts. Suzanne thinks too much about her failed relationships and whether to get involved again with a man. There is a lot of drama in the flashback scenes from Elena's youth (in fact, in much of Elena's thoughts, also) and in the scenes of marital infidelity. On the plus side, it depicts dealing with her mother's desire for assisted suicide, which is not your ordinary theme, and Piercy continues to have show more characters who step outside the usual conventions (Beverly was a union organizer & unwed mother in 1950's) and challenge women's cultural roles.
Each chapter is told from a different/alternating woman's point of view, with the character identified in a subheading under the chapter number. I am neutral about the effectiveness of this style.
I haven't decided if I'll keep the book: Piercy became my favorite author when I read Woman on the Edge of Time when it first came out, but this novel isn't as imaginative or perception-stretching. show less

As the title suggests, this book revolves around three women. Suzanne is a lawyer and academic whose very neatly organised life that fits around her career. She has two grown up children: Rachel is training to be a rabbi; Elena...well Elena has always been a troublesome child. She gets sacked and has to move back in with Suzanne, disturbing her mother's peaceful home. The reader is soon told that Elena has been involved in a harrible, tragic event when she was growing up. While Suzanne has to adapt to having her child at home agaian, her mother, Beverly, suffers a stroke. Beverly, in her 70s, is a fierce political activist but now is a prisoner in her own body, forced to move in with her daughter while she tries to re-learn the skills show more she has known since childhood.

Through exploring these women's lives and their often fraught relationships, Piercy explores a number of issues including caring for the elderly and the American healthcare system. I think the main point though is her focus on gender relationships; through these three women, plus Rachel and Suzanne's friend Marta, Piercy is asking a series of questions. To what extent a woman should compromise her needs for a man? Do we use relationships to disguise what is wrong in our lives? And at the end of the day, do sexual relationships mean anything? Beverly has great sex over the years but it is still the women in her life, her family, who care for her right to the end.

I find Piercy's work a bit hit and miss and Three Women isn't my all-time favourite by her but it was a book that gave me pause for thought. show less