The Red Tent

Written by Anita Diamant

321 pages

Published by Picador USA

Review by Paula Day

Receives:

I have been an avid reader all of my life, but it has been years since I have had such a strong connection to a novel. Weeks after I finished reading The Red Tent , the characters, the scenes, the biblical connections, have stayed with me. I knew the book would have to end, so I stopped reading it for a week because I didn't want it to.

The Red Tent tells the biblical story of Dinah, the only daughter in Jacob's family of four wives and twelve sons. With the poetry of the Bible breathing beneath the words, Diamant whisks us into this world from long ago and far away, and we join the women of Jacob's family as they come together in the red tent, their place of connection in their unfriendly world. Dinah, as she herself says in her narration, has become only a whisper of a memory, a brief aside in the Bible where it mentions her rape and how her brothers avenged her honor. Dinah has a different view of those events, and in poetic simplicity she tells the story of her struggles through the violence and the inequality of her world.

One need not be knowledgeable of the Bible or even interested in it to be swept away by this novel. Diamant paints Bible scenes so real you can smell the herbs and feel the cooking pots and see the red tent. The Red Tent is a history lesson, a spiritual lesson, and a remarkable, compelling story.

The Red Tent has immediately won for itself a place high on my list of all time favorite novels. Although she is known primarily for her non-fiction books about Jewish life, with The Red Tent Diamant has shown herself to be a literary talent of the highest rank. Blessings on you, Anita Diamant.

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Paula Day is a contributor to The Copperfield Review. She lives in Los Angeles, California.