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by: Marge Piercy
List Price: $13.95Amazon.com's Price: $12.56 You Save: $1.39 (10%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780060937027
ISBN: 0060937025
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: January 01, 2002
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: December 24, 2001
Sales Rank: 237011
Studio: Harper Perennial
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
The heroine of Marge Piercy's Three Women is something of a feminist trailblazer: the first woman to teach constitutional law at her big-city university. At five feet three inches, however, Suzanne Blume feels 'too small for her role in the world.' To compensate, this pint-sized divorcee has transformed herself into a human dynamo, obsessively slicing and dicing the time she devotes to her mother, her two daughters, her students, and her e-mail boyfriend. Yet this rigorously arranged world is turned upside down when her problematic older daughter moves in, followed by her stubborn, ailing mother.
Suzanne's addiction to the clock infuriates her offspring--indeed, Elena has deliberately 'chosen to go to the other extreme, exalting spontaneity.' And her mother, Beverly, remains a fiery, left-wing activist to the end, spurning such bourgeois amenities as the datebook. It's the ultimate challenge, then, for these three women to peacefully cohabit. What's worse, they're beset by a series of calamities, some shocking, some mundane. Yet this high-tension ménage à trois ultimately learns the value of mutual support and familial love. And along the way, Piercy plunges right into the deepest, most elemental stuff of life: sex, betrayal, aging, illness, and death. She's both brave and compassionate in her exploration of the volatile ground between mothers and daughters--but no less brave than the characters she has created. By the time you finish reading Piercy's 15th novel, you'll find it difficult to leave the Blumes to their own, unmistakably feminine devices. --Laura Mirsky
Product Description:
Suzanne Blume has known success and disappointment in equal measure. A respected lawyer who survived two marriages and put two children through college, she now faces the disquieting prospect of her wayward older daughter moving back home. But more troubling still is the news that her mother, a woman of legendary independence who has never truly accepted her daughter nor approved of her choices, has been felled by age and illness. And, for the first time in her life, she needs Suzanne's help.
Intertwining the lives of three generations of contemporary women, master storyteller Marge Piercy plunges into the deepest, most elemental basics of life -- love, aging, illness, and death -- and emerges with a brave, compassionate exploration of the volatile ground between mothers and daughters.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - It's been over a year ...
... since I finished reading this book, and its intricate story has stayed with me. Each sub-plot worthy of its own work, Piercy weaves them together in an impressively seamless fashion. I felt the narrative voice shift with the chapters as told from each of the three women's point-of-view. I related in some way to each of them -- to Elena's rebellion, to Suzanne's success, to Beverly's activism. Since I began writing & editing professionally, it has been extraordinarily difficult for me to lose ... Read More
Rating:  - Underdeveloped Characters, Shallow Story
I'm a longtime fan of Marge Piercy, ever since I devoured Gone to Soldiers, Woman on the Edge of Time and He, She and It. Another enjoyable read was Ms. Piercy's frank and affectionate memoir, Sleeping with Cats. This effort, however, didn't do much for me. I didn't feel emotionally involved with any of the characters and basically could have cared less what happened to them. I felt this was a superficial read; nothing gripped me at all. It's too bad; was it written in in a hurry? I won't give ... Read More
Rating:  - A very poor choice
Having bought this book after seeing it recommended in one of the amazon e-mails, I was incredibly disappointed.
The writing is poor, and the plot is not sufficiently compelling to encourage finishing the book (and I rarely am so bored that I don't bother). Doubtless this assessment will have its detractors. But if you enjoy good literature, don't bother with this book.
Rating:  - In-Depth Portraits of Women
Piercy's novel delves into the intertwined lives of three women: Suzanne, a successful lawyer; Beverly, her unconventional, activist mother; and Elena, her troubled daughter. Suzanne finds herself in the middle of a storm of emotions as she copes with her daughter returning home and her mother, incapacitated by a stroke, also joining the household. There are events in the past, layers of conflict and guilt, that bind these three women together. Gradually, the novel uncovers this history.
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Rating: - COMPELLING
This novel is as compelling as any of Piercy's work and a little more ambitious than most. The issues it deals with are intense and disturbing and will likely stay with the reader for a long time. My one criticism was that the denoument of the subplot concerning Elena, Evan and Chad was SO fascinating that I thought the rest of the book paled a little in comparison.
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