The red tent is the place where women gathered during their cycles of birthing, menses, and even illness. Like the conversations and mysteries held within this feminine tent, this sweeping piece of fiction offers an insider's look at the daily life of a biblical sorority of mothers and wives and their one and only daughter, Dinah. Told in the voice of Jacob's daughter Dinah (who only received a glimpse of recognition in the Book of Genesis), we are privy to the fascinating feminine characters who bled within the red tent. In a confiding and poetic voice, Dinah whispers stories of her four mothers, Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, and Bilhah--all wives to Jacob, and each one embodying unique feminine traits. As she reveals these sensual and emotionally charged stories we learn of birthing miracles, slaves, artisans, household gods, and sisterhood secrets. Eventually Dinah delves into her own saga of betrayals, grief, and a call to midwifery.
"Like any sisters who live together and share a husband, my mother and aunties spun a sticky web of loyalties and grudges," Anita Diamant writes in the voice of Dinah. "They traded secrets like bracelets, and these were handed down to me the only surviving girl. They told me things I was too young to hear. They held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember." Remembering women's earthy stories and passionate history is indeed the theme of this magnificent book. In fact, it's been said that The Red Tent is what the Bible might have been had it been written by God's daughters, instead of her sons. --Gail Hudson
Reviews:
SONIC (Japan) (2008/05/23): I loved this book with it's details about the life of women.The concept of a Red Tent is intriguing and the cutoms of marriage, pregnancy and child birth were all interesting.I couldn't put it down! Heather McKinney (USA) (2008/08/13): This is absolutely one of my favorite books. I loved it so much that I forwarded quotes to my friends. It made me appreciate being a woman and the companionship that we share with other women. Beverly T (USA: NY) (2009/01/02): The author had these richly layered, wise, heroic-women narratives to work with, but gave us only ordinary women, obsessed with sexual relations, menses, gossip - women seeing very little virtue in the men around them, and little intimate knowledge of the God of ancient Judaism. There's nothing else. Aside for an abbreviated subplot involving the main character becoming (of course) a midwife and herbalist, and her father having his way with the livestock,I couldn't find any sort of a plot at all.
