Imagine, for a moment, that you're a young girl. A girl living in the Ancient Near East; the only girl born into a family of a dozen sons. A family with four mothers (two of whom also happen to be sisters).
Your father is a distant, mysterious man whose word is law in this, your patriarchal society. Take a step further and imagine that your father is Jacob, the father of the House of Israel, and his sons will spawn the lineage of God's chosen people.
But you, the girl-child, are an afterthought and your story, your remarkable story, will be forgotten in the shadow of this religion-building. Your father and his sons will play vital roles in the Bible, yet your words will never be written, and never be read.
Now…imagine that your name is Dinah.
Your father is a distant, mysterious man whose word is law in this, your patriarchal society. Take a step further and imagine that your father is Jacob, the father of the House of Israel, and his sons will spawn the lineage of God's chosen people.
But you, the girl-child, are an afterthought and your story, your remarkable story, will be forgotten in the shadow of this religion-building. Your father and his sons will play vital roles in the Bible, yet your words will never be written, and never be read.
Now…imagine that your name is Dinah.
In the Jewish tradition, re-tellings of Biblical tales are called midrashim, and at its most basic definition, that is what The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant is: a re-working of the story of Dinah, the only named daughter of Jacob who, in the few Bible chapters in which she appears, is a cursory character, even when she plays a central role in a bloody conflict.
The Red Tent is an evocative epitaph of Dinah’s life. Written in the first-person, this character-driven novel is slow-paced but full of nuance. With deliciously atmospheric story-telling, Diamant transports readers to the ancient societies that fill the Bible; allows us to step inside the red tent, a place strictly reserved for women, a place where they retreat during their menstrual cycles—a place of mystery and uncertainty from the male-oriented perspectives of the Bible, but a place where Dinah begins her journey toward womanhood.
Through Dinah's eyes, discover the strength and resilience of the feminine in a male-dominated society, and follow her as she finds her calling as a midwife, only to experience a heart-breaking tragedy that leads her away from her father and his sons, into a new life in ancient Egypt.
This is not a book about the Bible or the familiar cast of characters who populate its pages; this is a book about the forgotten, the downtrodden, the overlooked and the abandoned. Conversely, it is about self-worth and identity, and about reviving, and naming, Dinah.
~~~~~~~~~
In the all-important social strata of high school, Emi-Lou Kaya, the narrator of Name Me Nobody, by Lois-Ann Yamanaka, falls "somewhere right below the band geeks, and right above the zeroes." Raised by her grandmother, Emi suffers from a common teenage ailment: self-disgust. But her disgust isn't the mild variety; it goes beyond skin-deep; all the way down to her blood, to her bones, to the layer of excess fat that blankets her body--and lies in the unshakable fact that she looks just like her promiscuous, got-pregnant-at-sixteen-years-old mother.
Only fatter.
But it’s not just her weight that makes Emi feel worthless; at school, she’s endlessly harassed by the popular girls, and is hopelessly in love with quintessentially jerky jock, Kyle, who only talks to her when he wants her to do his homework.
The one person who accepts and loves Emi for who she is, is her tomboy best friend Von, whom Emi relies on to fight her battles for her. So, when Emi is publicly humiliated, Von is the one who starts shoplifting diet pills and diuretics, and puts Emi on a tough weight loss plan; and, by the time their freshman year of high school begins, a thin, pretty Emi has replaced “Emi-fat.”
But while Emi is searching for herself amid this new world of boys, make-up, and size seven jeans, she becomes uncomfortably aware that Von already seems to know who, and what, she is—because Von has been spending more and more time with a girl named Babes, and rumors are flying that Von and her new friend are a lot more than friends.
In the fight to get Von back, Emi must decide what secrets to keep, and which to reveal, and how to handle a world that always seems to be rearranging itself. But the more she tries to hold on, the more Emi finds herself losing Von—and herself—as backstabbing and secret-spilling become an uncomfortable part of her new life.
In the end, Emi must decide if this new-and-improved version of herself is really who she wants to be. And, when all is said and done--without Von, and without her fat--who is Emi-Lou, really?
Only fatter.
But it’s not just her weight that makes Emi feel worthless; at school, she’s endlessly harassed by the popular girls, and is hopelessly in love with quintessentially jerky jock, Kyle, who only talks to her when he wants her to do his homework.
The one person who accepts and loves Emi for who she is, is her tomboy best friend Von, whom Emi relies on to fight her battles for her. So, when Emi is publicly humiliated, Von is the one who starts shoplifting diet pills and diuretics, and puts Emi on a tough weight loss plan; and, by the time their freshman year of high school begins, a thin, pretty Emi has replaced “Emi-fat.”
But while Emi is searching for herself amid this new world of boys, make-up, and size seven jeans, she becomes uncomfortably aware that Von already seems to know who, and what, she is—because Von has been spending more and more time with a girl named Babes, and rumors are flying that Von and her new friend are a lot more than friends.
In the fight to get Von back, Emi must decide what secrets to keep, and which to reveal, and how to handle a world that always seems to be rearranging itself. But the more she tries to hold on, the more Emi finds herself losing Von—and herself—as backstabbing and secret-spilling become an uncomfortable part of her new life.
In the end, Emi must decide if this new-and-improved version of herself is really who she wants to be. And, when all is said and done--without Von, and without her fat--who is Emi-Lou, really?
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