Three Women

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!

I loved this book! Piercy does a marvelous job of entering the minds of three woman of different generations and captures them perfectly. I especially appreciated the portraits of women who had children, but perhaps shouldn't have and realize it. Not many writers will acknowledge that motherhood is not for everyone. I recently sat next to Piercy at an author luncheon and got to speak to her about this book. It's a thought-provoking, sensitive, and realistic treatment.

Piercy really knows her characters and lets the reader know them, too. The three women are all extremely interesting, although not always likable, which is what makes them so human. The situation in the book is also realistic. I was pleased with the sense of resolution in the end and glad that Piercy didn't have everyone living happily ever after. The men in the book, as in most of her books, get short shrift. They seem to be around only for sex and to make babies. That's a nice change!

The women of the story each are beautifully representative of their respective generations, not only in the problems they face, but in the struggles they endure to keep relationships alive, despite great differences in personality. Piercy is able to tell an essentially positive story without becoming saccharine or unbelievable. I was readily able to identify with Suzanne, who was a well drawn representative of my "sandwich" generation, pulled and tugged mercilessly in all directions by the older and younger generations of loved ones. Really well done treatment of some tough issues.

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!