Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group as an appropriate shorter female oriented follow- up to the much longer and very male-oriented previous  book we’d read, The Count of Monte Cristo.

Summary in 3 Sentences: An autobiographical novel written in the first person by a woman living in biblical, pre-Judaic times telling her life’s story.   The author chose Dinah, an obscure person in The Book of Genesis, a great granddaughter of Abraham, and gives her a voice to tell a novelized version of her life’s story, which reveals much about life in the Near East several thousand years ago. The first half of the book Dinah coming of age as the daughter of Jacob and one of his  wives, but since polygamy was normal in those times, Dinah had several other “mothers” – other wives of Jacob, who lived in the red tent who took care of each each other as sisters, and each other’s children. As Dinah matures into womanhood – which in that day meant child bearing age – her life changes rather surprisingly and dramatically, and the remainder of the book is about her transition into becoming a woman and a mother and her later adult life, which includes trauma and several unexpected turns of events, as she has to move to Egypt. 

My Impressions: Powerful book.  Fascinating context and glimpse into life in an era so much different from our own.  Dinah, the narrator and protagonist in this book, is a quiet and precocious young girl who shares with us her feelings and impressions of the world in which she lives and the extended family of which she is a part. She is believable and likable.  Most of the key characters in the book are women; her father Jacob is described in affectionate terms, but he is distant and busy with the work required to care and feed his large family.  

Dinah is the only daughter of the four wives of Jacob and as such she has a special status in the red tent of Jacob’s wives. As she grows up she becomes close with one of Jacob’s other wives who is a midwife. Dinah eventually accompanies her “auntie” in delivering babies, and over the years, she becomes skilled in midwifery herself.   She has favorites among Jacob’s other wives – her other “mothers,” as well as favorites among her many male siblings.   Her “milk-brother” Joseph was her close pal growing up – milk brother meaning they both nursed from the same woman at the same time frame.  A couple of her half-brothers tormented her, others she was indifferent and not particularly close to her.  As soon as the boys were old enough to follow adult guidance, they were out with their father helping with the sheep and goats, while Dinah helped the women in women’s work.

The first third to half of the book is Dinah describing her child hood and life in and around the red tent.  We follow Jacob’s large family as they move to another area to reconnect with Jacob’s brother Esau, and we are exposed to a different culture, a number of new characters in Esau’s family, and the challenges of travel in those days.  Here we meet another strong figure, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother, Isaac’s wife, a stern and shamanistic old woman known as The Grandmother.  She was the keeper of traditional values, possessed para-normal powers of healing and clairvoyance, and had a retinue of women servants known as ‘the Deborahs’ – as they all had the same name, and were virgins, committed only to her service.   

The Red Tent refers to the women’s tent and the menstrual cycle that is required to be a full fledged member of that tent. Pre-menstrual girls were only rarely allowed in, and the red tent was where the society of women kept secrets from men, and it was a major breach of trust for a woman to share with men what she’d heard and learned in the red tent.  A sense of mystery was cultivated. 

When Dinah finally has her first menstrual cycle, there are rituals and ceremonies that go with that key transition, and she becomes a full fledged member of the red tent.  A woman’s monthly cycle gave her the privilege of three days of being idle in the tent, to relax, and celebrate.  Naturally all the women’s cycles synchronized, so this was a special period of communion among the women.

Soon after Dinah’s first menstrual cycle, the book takes a sharp turn as Dinah falls in love, becomes pregnant and tragedy ensues which forces Dinah to move to Egypt.  The next phase of the book is her life in Egypt – a very different culture and life than she had lived in Canaan.   She joins a different family group, and her experiences as an adult woman and mother take a number of different turns.   This is a fascinating period and Dinah indeed lives the rest of her life in Egypt, but we see some of the earlier characters reappear.  In order to avoid a spoiler alert, I’ll leave it at that.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the Dinah character and immersing myself in the culture of that part of pre-western history,  well before Christian times.  As different as those times, customs and cultures were from our own, one of the key takeaways was how the humanity of the people of that time shines through as not so different from our own. Most of the key characters of the book – Dinah, her mothers, her mentors, close friends women;  men did not play a major role in the story, except for a few key scenes and incidents that indeed drove the story.  The author noted in her notes at the end of the book, that though most of the feedback she’d gotten on the novel had been from women, she had also gotten positive feedback from men, one of whom she quoted as saying he “enjoyed a sense of getting ‘fly-on-the-wall’ insights into women’s hearts.”  That describes my response as well.  I believe I got some important insights into women’s perspectives on a number of things that surprised me.  

I think men and women both would enjoy this book, but will get different lessons and takeaways.