The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Beth wrote a review for this book a couple of months ago and it convinced me to give it a second chance. A few years ago I started it and after the first couple chapters I had to stop. I didn't like the image that it gave me of Jacob and others in the bible. This time I started it with a different attitude - that this is just a FICTIONAL story that the author imagined up - and I really enjoyed it. I found it a little hard to separate the two at times. The story is GREAT though. I loved the writing and enjoyed the characters. When I finished I had to get out my bible and read the actual story. I'm glad that it's fiction - I prefer to put our Old Testament prophets on a pedestal and not know their faults. Some of the sex parts made me a little uncomfortable but all in all this was a great book.

Review from Amazon:

Amazon.com
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