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Original Essays | December 12, 2009

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This title in other formats:

Sex Wars

by Marge Piercy

Sex Wars Cover

ISBN13: 9780060789879
ISBN10: 0060789875
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Post-Civil War New York City was the battleground of the American dream: an era of vast fortunes and crushing poverty; a time notorious for free love and the emerging rights of women, yet one that saw the rise of brutal sexual repression and the enforcement of prejudice. Though life was hard, the promise of change was in the air. Women were agitating for civil rights, including the vote. Immigrants were pouring into the city, bringing with them a new energy.

Embodying the times is Freydeh, a spirited young Jewish woman from Russia. Living in a tiny tenement flat with eight others, Freydeh juggles numerous jobs to earn passage to New York for her beloved family. Then she learns that her younger sister is adrift somewhere in the city and begins a search that carries her through brothels and prison.

Interwoven with Freydeh's story is a vividly wrought account of such real-life heroines — often at odds with the law as well as societal customs — as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president and an activist for sexual freedom. They were tireless fighters who strove to elevate the position of all women. Depicted as well is the fundamentalist crusader Anthony Comstock, who fought to eliminate sexual expression, pushing for the passage of laws that still haunt our legal system.

In the tradition of her World War II epic Gone to Soldiers, Marge Piercy re-creates a turbulent period in American history witnessed through the lives of its most notorious figures and explores the changing attitudes toward women, minorities, religion, and sexuality in nineteenth-century America, a land of sacrifice, suffering, promise, and reward.

Synopsis:

Piercy re-creates a turbulent period in American history witnessed through the lives of its most notorious figures and explores the changing attitudes toward women, minorities, religion, and sexuality in 19th century America.

Synopsis:

Post–Civil War New York City is the battleground of the American dream. In this era of free love, emerging rights of women, and brutal sexual repression, Freydeh, a spirited young Jewish immigrant, toils at different jobs to earn passage to America for her family. Learning that her younger sister is adrift somewhere in the city, she begins a determined search that carries her from tenement to brothel to prison—as her story interweaves with those of some of the epoch's most notorious figures: Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Susan B. Anthony; sexual freedom activist Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president; and Anthony Comstock, founder of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, whose censorship laws are still on the books.

In the tradition of her bestselling World War II epic Gone to Soldiers, Marge Piercy once again re-creates a turbulent period in American history and explores changing attitudes in a land of sacrifice, suffering, promise, and reward.

About the Author

Marge Piercy is the author of the memoir Sleeping with Cats and fifteen novels, including Three Women and Woman on the Edge of Time, as well as sixteen books of poetry, including Colors Passing Through Us, The Art of Blessing the Day and Circles on the Water She lives on Cape Cod, with her husband, Ira Wood, the novelist and publisher of Leapfrog Press.

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
Acemoose, July 10, 2007 (view all comments by Acemoose)
The title almost turned me off, but once I started reading -- I discovered an EXCEPTIONAL book about women trying to make it on their own in Post- Civil War New York City, a time of enormous changes and yet appalling filth and poverty as immigrants filled the dilapidated buildings and tried to make a living in their new country, contrasted with the excessive wealth of those who raced their horses through Central park, ate in fancy restaurants and inhabited their posh mansions on the other side of the city.

This book, part historical and part fiction, depicts the actions, triumphs and tragedies of the female characters as they try to gain control of their bodies and their future as citizens, while the monstrous intervention by the Anti-Porno crusader, Anthony Comstock sends many of those women to jail in the rotting dungeon known as the Tombs, for the "crime" of promoting birth control by lecturing or distributing pamphlets, or manufacturing condoms.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony figure prominently as agents for change -- speaking for and marching for Women's Suffrage, as they try to reform voting laws and draft the Equal Rights Amendment. Their personalities are very well developed and the reader is treated to some wonderful dialogue between the two and their female (and male) following.

Although this novel revolves around the women, men certainly play a part in it -- as catalysts -- effecting action on the part of the women by supporting them, or challenging them by boredom or betrayal, or as cads or criminals.

Victoria Woodhull (who advocates free love and runs for president of the US on the Equal Rights platform, even though women could not yet vote)and her sister Tennie (and their embarrassing and quirky family, which they try to keep in the backgoround), hobnob with Cornelius Vanderbilt and eventually become successful women stockbrokers, with an impressive following and their own newsletter -- and several unfortunate run-ins with Anthony Comstock. Victoria also joins forces with the Suffragettes, despite many of them being scandalized by her many Free-Love affairs.

Woven through this fact-based novel, a fictitious but very believable character, Freydeh, searches for her sister, helps bring up street orphans despite her own impoverished circumstances, and in her own run-in with Comstock, shows an incredibly brave and resourceful attitude in the face of poverty and tragedy.

The gritty and seamy side of late 19th century NY City (the knackers picking up dead animals on the streets, the gang wars, the filth and pollution) as well as the posh, Fifth Avenue mansions, call girls and wealthy socialites who inhabit them are both described vividly. The reader may well wonder "How did the poor survive in such horrible circumstances?!"

Not many pictures, but in a book that so vividly describes that era and keeps the reader imersed in the narrative, not many pictures are really needed.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9780060789879
Author:
Piercy, Marge
Publisher:
Harper Perennial
Author:
by Marge Piercy
Subject:
Historical - General
Subject:
General Fiction
Subject:
Women
Subject:
Suffragists
Subject:
New york (n.y.)
Subject:
Women -- Suffrage.
Publication Date:
December 2006
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
411
Dimensions:
8.00x5.32x1.02 in. .69 lbs.

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