The Red Tent - 20th Anniversary Edition - Softcover

Diamant, Anita

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250067995 ISBN 13: 9781250067999

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 2014

Synopsis

Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the New York Times bestseller, The Red Tent, Anita Diamant brings this fascinating biblical character to vivid life.

Told in Dinah's voice, the novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood-the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of Dinah's mothers-Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah-the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past.

With over 3.3 million copies sold, The Red Tent is a modern classic loved throughout the world, and the basis of the A&E/Lifetime mini-series.

This edition of the book is the deluxe, tall rack mass market paperback.

About this title

Review:

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 that 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

Review:

"The wives of Jacob gather in the red tent, and in that image Anita Diamant has found the heart of a pulsing and moving novel. The tent is red because of the falling sun, and because of the flowing blood. The tent is, as the narrator says, 'an earthbound rainbow, ' which is also true of this novel. Dinah, famously a daughter and a sister, finally tells her own story-and the story of that unknown legion, God's women. When the light is refracted through their experience-and through the lens of Anita Diamant's moral imagination-the colors couldn't be more vivid, and the oldest story of all could never seem more original, or more true." --James Carroll, author of An American Requiem

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1250067995
• ISBN 13: 9781250067999
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 416