Three Women (35 page)

M
ARGE
P
IERCY
is renowned as both a poet and novelist. Her fiction includes
City of Darkness, City of Light; The Longings of Women; He, She and It; Woman on the Edge of Time
; and
Gone to Soldiers
. She is the author of fifteen books of poetry, including
The Art of Blessing the Day
and
Early Grrrl
. She lives on Cape Cod with her husband, Ira Wood, the novelist and publisher of Leapfrog Press. Visit the author at www.margepiercy.com.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

“Piercy keeps the plot humming with issues of motherhood, Judaism, generational tensions, sexuality, and independence. Her pacing is confident and she interweaves the three narrative threads with aplomb.”

—P
UBLISHERS
W
EEKLY

“Every new novel by Marge Piercy is a cause for celebration.”

—A
LICE
H
OFFMAN
,
N
EW
Y
ORK
T
IMES
-
BESTSELLING AUTHOR

“Marge Piercy holds up a mirror to modern life….
Three Women
is a passionately told story, an uninhibited and combustible mix of politics, protest, and pain, a searing treatise on the tenuous situation of women, and if you look deeper—and rest assured, this book will force you to—it’s all that and more.”

—C
HICAGO
T
RIBUNE

“Vibrant…heartbreaking…. This book draws the reader in.”

—N
EWARK
S
TAR
-L
EDGER

“In
Three Women
, Piercy reveals the feel and grit of contemporary family life with all the sweep, intensity, and high drama that are her trademarks. I expect that all three of these bold, fascinating women will remain with me for a long time.”

—A
LIX
K
ATES
S
HULMAN, AUTHOR OF
A Good Enough Daughter: A Memoir

“Make sure that seat is comfortable as well as sturdy.
Three Women
will draw you in and make you toss your datebook in the trash, while you forget the laundry, the extra work you’ve brought home from the office, the necessities of eating and sleeping and even—until their protests grow fangs—feeding the cats. Be warned. You will forget all else. But when you put the book down, closed with the weekend and the final page read, you’ll not forget this book. Not for a long time.”

—M
ETRO
T
IMES
(Detroit)

“A lovely and unforgettable novel, filled with wisdom and deep complexities of love between three women in the same family. It will break your heart…fascinating, painful, rich in texture and personality, and very exciting. Piercy has written dozens of wonderful books throughout a distinguished career but this is surely one of her very best.”

—J
OHN
N
ICHOLS, AUTHOR OF
The Milagro Beanfield War
AND
The Sterile Cuckoo

“Refreshing…compelling…. Piercy has taken on a story line many families will recognize.”

—K
ANSAS
C
ITY
S
TAR

“Marge Piercy puts her life into her literature.”

—A
RIZONA
R
EPUBLIC

“Like all of Piercy’s work,
Three Women
stretches ordinary thinking…. Vividly imagined and deeply satisfying.”

—M
ARILYN
F
RENCH, AUTHOR OF
A Season in Hell: A Memoir

“
Three Women
moved me profoundly. It could be a mirror for many women today in all its authenticity and compassion. Marge Piercy’s work is always wonderful and this is Piercy at her very best.”

—E
LIZABETH
M
ARSHALL
T
HOMAS, AUTHOR OF
The Hidden Life of Dogs

P
OETRY

Early Grrrl

The Art of Blessing the Day

What Are Big Girls Made Of?

Mars and Her Children

Available Light

My Mother’s Body

Stone, Paper, Knife

Circles on the Water

The Moon Is Always Female

The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing

Living in the Open

To Be of Use

4-Telling
(with Bob Hershon, Emmett Jarrett, Dick Lourie)

Hard Loving

Breaking Camp

F
ICTION

Storm Tide
(with Ira Wood)

City of Darkness, City of Light

The Longings of Women

He, She and It

Summer People

Gone to Soldiers

Fly Away Home

Braided Lives

Vida

The High Cost of Living

Woman on the Edge of Time

Small Changes

Dance the Eagle to Sleep

Going Down Fast

O
THER

The Last White Class: A Play
(with Ira Wood)

Parti-Colored Blocks for a Quilt: Essays

Early Ripening: American Women’s Poetry Now: An Anthology

The Earth Shines Secretly: A Book of Days
(with paintings by Nell Blaine)

An excerpt from this novel appeared on the netzine NERVE, nerve.com.

THREE WOMEN
. Copyright © 1999 by Middlemarsh, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

First Perennial edition published 2002.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

Piercy, Marge.

Three women / by Marge Piercy.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-688-17106-0

I. Title.

PS3566.I4094    1999

813'.54—DC21    99-13324

CIP

EPub Edition © August 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-203138-9

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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