I
never give book reviews. You may see me
write about a book and share thoughts about its contents, usually a non-fiction
book. But I can’t recall in over 3,300
posts, over eight years, of ever reviewing a book that wasn't about publishing, writing, language, or free speech, but I would do a disservice if
I didn’t endorse my favorite book of the year, Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo.
It
reads like a novel, filled with stories about three women, each sexually
dysfunctional and representative of millions of women. It’s the kind of book women read but men like
me would enjoy.
Why
did I love – not just like – this book?
It
is so well written and filled with a vibrancy rarely seen. It is not quite Gone Girl, Girl on
a Train or the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Those were thrillers, fueled by violence and
complex lives. Those were great in their own way. Three Women finds a way to
reveal a person’s soul while allowing you to either relate with pity or be
entertained the way one likes to gawk at a terrible car accident and say from a
distance, ‘What a shame.’
The
string of stories certainly have things in common, with commentary about how
women define themselves by their relationships, how men mistreat women on so
many levels, and how sometimes one simply can’t start fresh after a bad
past. But the stories are distinctive –
a woman who desperately desires love, mistaking sex from an affair with someone
who took advantage of her when in school years earlier as that of love; another
who needs affirmation that her high school teacher really cares for her while
an inappropriate sexual relationship ensues; and a woman who readily agrees to
sleep with any man or woman her husband chooses for her, sometimes with him in
the room watching or other times on her own with a promise to immediately share
the details with him. What appears to be
a liberated woman is really a slave to his controlling fantasies.
They
may not represent every woman, but they certainly seem to depict what a certain
percentage of women put themselves through – psychologically and
physically. The book does not depict men
in a favorable light but that doesn’t mean the author is anti-male. She just didn’t focus on relationships that
are healthy or thriving, which are probably in the minority, but she did
explore how bad relationships damage women as well as how damaged women put
undue pressure on themselves to make a relationship work.
The
book is extremely well written, combining dialogue, thoughts, and astute
observations to provide a feeling of being any of these three women thrust into
their drama, from their perspectives. Are
they victims? Are they really the strong
ones? Can they be both?
The
author fascinates me. I wonder, after
joining her for 306 intense pages, if she was an amalgamation of these women,
defined by the men in her life. She’s
definitely someone I’d like to have a drink with. The jacket copy for this $27
hardcover book says it all:
“Based
on years of immense reporting, and told with astonishing frankness and
immediacy, Three Women, is a groundbreaking portrait of erotic longing
in today’s America, exposing the fragility, complexity and inequality of female
desire with unprecedented depth and emotional power. It is both a feat of journalism and a triumph
of storytelling, brimming with nuance and empathy, that introduces us to three
unforgettable women – and one remarkable writer – whose experiences remind us
that we are not alone.”
I
can’t quite describe Taddeo’s writing style except that it speaks with blunt
statements for the reader, ones that are seemingly familiar
or truthful to them. She truncates time
and finds a way to consolidate many thoughts and emotions into a singular
moment or experience.
I found myself underlining various lines that resonated with me…
“She
gives the impression of not knowing she’s being looked at.”
“It
was typical of Sloane to see the promise of something before everyone else
did.”
“It’s
more like sexuality without boundaries.”
“Don’t
men like him wish they could tell their wives what sort of pornography they
like? Wouldn’t he feel so wonderful to
be completely known?”
“A
husband who desires to enter another body, to hold another breast. A wife who wants to see her husband want
someone else, so that she may want him as much as she’d like to.”
“Sloane
always found it alluring to mess around with a girl. Even more that it was alluring, it was easy.”
“Sloane
was confused; it had been a fantasy of hers to watch her husband fuck another
woman, one she’d never quite expressed out loud, but something she often went
to in her head...”
“Like
any young girl who has a crush on someone older, she doesn’t know what she
wants to happen. She doesn’t know if she
wants sex or no sex or to undress in her room while he watches from the
sidewalk.”
“Her
desire to talk about the man she loves is stronger than her understanding that
talking about it can hurt the relationship.
She realizes in some part of herself that talking about it will make her
more receptive to its potency.”
“There
is always something you take for granted, Sloane knew, that somebody else is
starving for.”
“Lina
understands that some women , like her mother and her sisters, truly care for
another woman only when that woman is in pain, especially in a kind of pain that
they have already felt, and then overcome.”
“We
don’t remember what we want to remember.
We remember what we can’t forget.”
“Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
--David Foster Wallace
“Action is the thing. We are what we do and do not do.”
--Ralph Ellison
“…EASY. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.”
--Mark Twain
“Always write as if you are talking to someone. It works.”
--Maeve Binchy
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Brian Feinblum’s insightful views, provocative opinions, and interesting ideas expressed in this terrific blog are his alone and not that of his employer or anyone else. You can – and should -- follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels much more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog ©2019. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester. His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s Independent. This was named one of the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs and recognized by Feedspot in 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. Also named by WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.” He recently hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America.
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