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The Longings of Women
Her marriage over, her life unraveling, writer Leila Landsman turns to work and finds herself drawn to the sensational story of Becky Burgess, a young woman accused of killing her husband with the help of her teenage lover. Becky thought she'd escaped the grim poverty of her childhood when she married up, but her husband was soon planning to trade her in for a newer model. And that's just what happened to Mary Burke, whose middle-class life ended with her divorce. Now Leila's housecleaner, Mary has a secret: she is homeless.
They are three very different women who share the same longings: to be seen for who they are, to be valued and loved, but most of all, to have a physical and emotional home that can't be taken away....
They are three very different women who share the same longings: to be seen for who they are, to be valued and loved, but most of all, to have a physical and emotional home that can't be taken away....
448 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
273 people are currently reading
982 people want to read
About the author
Marge Piercy
108 books934 followersMarge Piercy is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.
Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family deeply affected by the Great Depression. She was the first in her family to attend college, studying at the University of Michigan. Winning a Hopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction (1957) enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France, and her formal schooling ended with an M.A. from Northwestern University. Her first book of poems, Breaking Camp, was published in 1968.
An indifferent student in her early years, Piercy developed a love of books when she came down with rheumatic fever in her mid-childhood and could do little but read. "It taught me that there's a different world there, that there were all these horizons that were quite different from what I could see," she said in a 1984 interview.
As of 2013, she is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one non-fiction book, and one memoir.
Her novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. While Body of Glass (published in the US as He, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, City of Darkness, City of Light is set during the French Revolution. Other of her novels, such as Summer People and The Longings of Women are set during the modern day. All of her books share a focus on women's lives.
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) mixes a time travel story with issues of social justice, feminism, and the treatment of the mentally ill. This novel is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. William Gibson has credited Woman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace of Cyberpunk. Piercy tells this in an introduction to Body of Glass. Body of Glass (He, She and It) (1991) postulates an environmentally ruined world dominated by sprawling mega-cities and a futuristic version of the Internet, through which Piercy weaves elements of Jewish mysticism and the legend of the Golem, although a key story element is the main character's attempts to regain custody of her young son.
Many of Piercy's novels tell their stories from the viewpoints of multiple characters, often including a first-person voice among numerous third-person narratives. Her World War II historical novel, Gone To Soldiers (1987) follows the lives of nine major characters in the United States, Europe and Asia. The first-person account in Gone To Soldiers is the diary of French teenager Jacqueline Levy-Monot, who is also followed in a third-person account after her capture by the Nazis.
Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personal free verse and often addresses the same concern with feminist and social issues. Her work shows commitment to the dream of social change (what she might call, in Judaic terms, tikkun olam, or the repair of the world), rooted in story, the wheel of the Jewish year, and a range of landscapes and settings.
She lives in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband, Ira Wood.
(from Wikipedia)
Piercy was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a family deeply affected by the Great Depression. She was the first in her family to attend college, studying at the University of Michigan. Winning a Hopwood Award for Poetry and Fiction (1957) enabled her to finish college and spend some time in France, and her formal schooling ended with an M.A. from Northwestern University. Her first book of poems, Breaking Camp, was published in 1968.
An indifferent student in her early years, Piercy developed a love of books when she came down with rheumatic fever in her mid-childhood and could do little but read. "It taught me that there's a different world there, that there were all these horizons that were quite different from what I could see," she said in a 1984 interview.
As of 2013, she is author of seventeen volumes of poems, among them The Moon is Always Female (1980, considered a feminist classic) and The Art of Blessing the Day (1999), as well as fifteen novels, one play (The Last White Class, co-authored with her third and current husband Ira Wood), one collection of essays (Parti-colored Blocks for a Quilt), one non-fiction book, and one memoir.
Her novels and poetry often focus on feminist or social concerns, although her settings vary. While Body of Glass (published in the US as He, She and It) is a science fiction novel that won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, City of Darkness, City of Light is set during the French Revolution. Other of her novels, such as Summer People and The Longings of Women are set during the modern day. All of her books share a focus on women's lives.
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) mixes a time travel story with issues of social justice, feminism, and the treatment of the mentally ill. This novel is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic. William Gibson has credited Woman on the Edge of Time as the birthplace of Cyberpunk. Piercy tells this in an introduction to Body of Glass. Body of Glass (He, She and It) (1991) postulates an environmentally ruined world dominated by sprawling mega-cities and a futuristic version of the Internet, through which Piercy weaves elements of Jewish mysticism and the legend of the Golem, although a key story element is the main character's attempts to regain custody of her young son.
Many of Piercy's novels tell their stories from the viewpoints of multiple characters, often including a first-person voice among numerous third-person narratives. Her World War II historical novel, Gone To Soldiers (1987) follows the lives of nine major characters in the United States, Europe and Asia. The first-person account in Gone To Soldiers is the diary of French teenager Jacqueline Levy-Monot, who is also followed in a third-person account after her capture by the Nazis.
Piercy's poetry tends to be highly personal free verse and often addresses the same concern with feminist and social issues. Her work shows commitment to the dream of social change (what she might call, in Judaic terms, tikkun olam, or the repair of the world), rooted in story, the wheel of the Jewish year, and a range of landscapes and settings.
She lives in Wellfleet on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with her husband, Ira Wood.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
July 19, 2009
Is it possible to like a book when the characters are almost uniformly unpleasant and the writing style can be irritating? Yes! This was a very disorienting book for me, yet I read it compulsively. If there is a category for "feminist soap opera", this title would be in it.
The plot revolves around the lives of 3 women from different generations and social classes whose lives intersect in crisis. Mary is an aging divorcee, formerly part of the more affluent middle class, but thrown into poverty and, eventually, homelessness when her husband leaves her and her children erase her from their lives. Leila is a middle aged professional woman (an academic at a Boston area college) who is in the midst of her own divorce from her chronically unfaithful spouse, Nick. Becky is a younger woman (mid twenties) who has clawed her way out of the working class through hard work and study and. later, through marriage. When Becky's marriage to solidly middle class Terry begins to falter she is thrown into panic at the thought of losing everything she has worked so hard to acquire.
Like so much of what I read in my one Women's Studies course in college, in this world men suck. They are all portrayed as losers...or selfish wankers...or brutal...or stupid...or ineffective. Certainly many men do fit the descriptions of the guys in this book. A few prizes exemplify almost all the crap qualities depicted in Piercy's male characters in one big hunk of human garbage. But it has always struck me as very unbelievable when an author portrays a world where 98% of one gender is beyond redemption. What saved this book for me was that, by and large, the female characters were equally awful..
Leila was the central character and, I believe, she was supposed to be the person the reader would sympathize with and relate to in point of view. Leila had some good qualities...she tried to hold her family together and she was a responsible professional woman. But, oh! The yuppie angst! The naval gazing! The boomeresque self-involvement spun as enlightenment. Leila would go on for paragraphs about how much weight she would shoulder for others...and how much the people around her expected/demanded...and how painfully difficult it is to be "the strong one, the stable one." Lord, don''t I know it, lady. But shut up already! Either be the stable one and help your friends or tell them to back off and give you some "me time"! But don't bludgeon us all over the head with how wonderful you are, while giving off the scent of resentment with each do-gooding act you perform.
Becky was portrayed in the fashion my despised Generation X is often characterized by older writers. Becky comes off as a slick materialist...clever and "sharp" more then bright and "intellectual" and ruthless in her ambitions to gain fame and the good life. The persona of Becky is allowed some of the reader's compassion, however, when her back story is revealed -- a hardscrabble childhood in an over crowded and dirty home with the usual downtrodden-but-kindly ethnic parents.
Mary was the most interesting and admirable character, in my estimation. She exemplifies the biggest horror story in America...the unacknowledged concept that is very possible to become downwardly mobile to the point of falling out of the middle class and into abject poverty, through a small series of unfortunate events beyond one's control (especially if you are female.) We just don't believe anyone ever falls down in our society...unless they "make bad decisions" (drugs, booze, being unfortunate enough to pick the wrong spouse at age 22). Mary's character refutes that delusion and offers the reader a nice hot cup of dismal reality.
This book was like a good Woody Allen movie. The characters are neurotic and horrid people. Listening to people like Leila and Nick converse with one another makes you want to withdraw permanently from the human race and embrace misanthropy rather than endure anymore psychobabbling ME-isms disguised as "insight". Yet you watch (and read). You are mesmerized and compelled. And the plot is good! You want to know how it ends. It all ties together. And each chapter leaves you ready for more drama. If you are not such a snob that you cannot admit that a good ol' women-driven soap plot is, at it's best, a wildly entertaining thing, you can admit that this story was a very readable page turner from soup to nuts.
The plot revolves around the lives of 3 women from different generations and social classes whose lives intersect in crisis. Mary is an aging divorcee, formerly part of the more affluent middle class, but thrown into poverty and, eventually, homelessness when her husband leaves her and her children erase her from their lives. Leila is a middle aged professional woman (an academic at a Boston area college) who is in the midst of her own divorce from her chronically unfaithful spouse, Nick. Becky is a younger woman (mid twenties) who has clawed her way out of the working class through hard work and study and. later, through marriage. When Becky's marriage to solidly middle class Terry begins to falter she is thrown into panic at the thought of losing everything she has worked so hard to acquire.
Like so much of what I read in my one Women's Studies course in college, in this world men suck. They are all portrayed as losers...or selfish wankers...or brutal...or stupid...or ineffective. Certainly many men do fit the descriptions of the guys in this book. A few prizes exemplify almost all the crap qualities depicted in Piercy's male characters in one big hunk of human garbage. But it has always struck me as very unbelievable when an author portrays a world where 98% of one gender is beyond redemption. What saved this book for me was that, by and large, the female characters were equally awful..
Leila was the central character and, I believe, she was supposed to be the person the reader would sympathize with and relate to in point of view. Leila had some good qualities...she tried to hold her family together and she was a responsible professional woman. But, oh! The yuppie angst! The naval gazing! The boomeresque self-involvement spun as enlightenment. Leila would go on for paragraphs about how much weight she would shoulder for others...and how much the people around her expected/demanded...and how painfully difficult it is to be "the strong one, the stable one." Lord, don''t I know it, lady. But shut up already! Either be the stable one and help your friends or tell them to back off and give you some "me time"! But don't bludgeon us all over the head with how wonderful you are, while giving off the scent of resentment with each do-gooding act you perform.
Becky was portrayed in the fashion my despised Generation X is often characterized by older writers. Becky comes off as a slick materialist...clever and "sharp" more then bright and "intellectual" and ruthless in her ambitions to gain fame and the good life. The persona of Becky is allowed some of the reader's compassion, however, when her back story is revealed -- a hardscrabble childhood in an over crowded and dirty home with the usual downtrodden-but-kindly ethnic parents.
Mary was the most interesting and admirable character, in my estimation. She exemplifies the biggest horror story in America...the unacknowledged concept that is very possible to become downwardly mobile to the point of falling out of the middle class and into abject poverty, through a small series of unfortunate events beyond one's control (especially if you are female.) We just don't believe anyone ever falls down in our society...unless they "make bad decisions" (drugs, booze, being unfortunate enough to pick the wrong spouse at age 22). Mary's character refutes that delusion and offers the reader a nice hot cup of dismal reality.
This book was like a good Woody Allen movie. The characters are neurotic and horrid people. Listening to people like Leila and Nick converse with one another makes you want to withdraw permanently from the human race and embrace misanthropy rather than endure anymore psychobabbling ME-isms disguised as "insight". Yet you watch (and read). You are mesmerized and compelled. And the plot is good! You want to know how it ends. It all ties together. And each chapter leaves you ready for more drama. If you are not such a snob that you cannot admit that a good ol' women-driven soap plot is, at it's best, a wildly entertaining thing, you can admit that this story was a very readable page turner from soup to nuts.
December 6, 2024
This book has a very poignant story of a homeless older woman as one of a complex group of characters.
September 23, 2012
This is a book I would read over and over and over again, and would add to my list of all-time, have to keep, no matter how obsolete hard copy books become list. Just looking at it makes me happy, reading it makes me happier. It details the universal struggles of three women who could not be more different and has as moving a portrait of the plight of the elderly homeless as you will ever read. And I would never dare comment on Marge Piercy's prose - in my view, flawless.
July 1, 2009
Just came upon this and it drew me in for a re-read.. with a vague reminiscence..
Then, 20 pages in, it's clear: This is the one! This is the book with the depiction of the woman who is homeless, but who copes with it for years, working as a cleaning women, keeping her homelessness secret. Never getting foodstamps even, never getting housing assistance, her kids don't care much, her ex-husband really doesn't care, no human contact; wear lipstick always, many other daily rules to 'pass' for normal (with home).
Something quietly nerve-wracking about that character, has kind of haunted me ever since.
This was written in '94, with no huge big recession in sight, a time of 'prosperity' here. In this way, this work is historical, as it captures perfectly the class divide in this country during 'good' times.
Also, have to say, the pictures of marriages in this book had their effect on me as well; when the first ended, didn't ever become a goal to quick - get married again!! Hurry! Not. Rather be alone than in a bad marriage (of any kind), and the thinkings these women go through (especially Lelia, the 'happiest' of the 3) has continued to create a level of contentment in my life as it is. Until a clear situation presents itself..
Through it all, Marge's tough-to-read-at-times tones and nuances, but I like her level of detail, so it's all just fine.
Reading this again now is like purging fibrous fear-tumors from my psyche.. Seeing the words on the page that have resonated since last time, coupled with my actual situation today, burn away these accumulations.. have been watching this show that I'd seen as a young child, that I think scared me, burning that away as well. Spring cleaning!
Anyway, here's one of those sentences:
"Her life was always about to tip over like a precarious pile of crockery she must keep balanced." Can so relate.
And the parts with Mary, the main character who's homeless, talking with Beverly who's also homeless (at only her mid-40's) and was attacked, in the hospital, also clang with an especially metallic air:
"although Mary felt their lives had been so different when they were both 'inside the fold' to use Beverly's phrase, that she was never sure what Beverly pictured. 'Sometimes,' she said to Beverly, 'when I'm talking about Cindy or Jaime or my ex-husband, suddenly I feel as if I'm telling you about some woman I work for, or as if I made it all up. It's so far away. Do you ever feel that way?"
"'She hates to think about her life before. (Beverly only speaks of herself in the 3rd person) If she does, she gets mad. Then all she can do is mutter and kick the curb, and then she looks even crazier.' Beverly gave that gaunt gap-toothed grin."
Then, 20 pages in, it's clear: This is the one! This is the book with the depiction of the woman who is homeless, but who copes with it for years, working as a cleaning women, keeping her homelessness secret. Never getting foodstamps even, never getting housing assistance, her kids don't care much, her ex-husband really doesn't care, no human contact; wear lipstick always, many other daily rules to 'pass' for normal (with home).
Something quietly nerve-wracking about that character, has kind of haunted me ever since.
This was written in '94, with no huge big recession in sight, a time of 'prosperity' here. In this way, this work is historical, as it captures perfectly the class divide in this country during 'good' times.
Also, have to say, the pictures of marriages in this book had their effect on me as well; when the first ended, didn't ever become a goal to quick - get married again!! Hurry! Not. Rather be alone than in a bad marriage (of any kind), and the thinkings these women go through (especially Lelia, the 'happiest' of the 3) has continued to create a level of contentment in my life as it is. Until a clear situation presents itself..
Through it all, Marge's tough-to-read-at-times tones and nuances, but I like her level of detail, so it's all just fine.
Reading this again now is like purging fibrous fear-tumors from my psyche.. Seeing the words on the page that have resonated since last time, coupled with my actual situation today, burn away these accumulations.. have been watching this show that I'd seen as a young child, that I think scared me, burning that away as well. Spring cleaning!
Anyway, here's one of those sentences:
"Her life was always about to tip over like a precarious pile of crockery she must keep balanced." Can so relate.
And the parts with Mary, the main character who's homeless, talking with Beverly who's also homeless (at only her mid-40's) and was attacked, in the hospital, also clang with an especially metallic air:
"although Mary felt their lives had been so different when they were both 'inside the fold' to use Beverly's phrase, that she was never sure what Beverly pictured. 'Sometimes,' she said to Beverly, 'when I'm talking about Cindy or Jaime or my ex-husband, suddenly I feel as if I'm telling you about some woman I work for, or as if I made it all up. It's so far away. Do you ever feel that way?"
"'She hates to think about her life before. (Beverly only speaks of herself in the 3rd person) If she does, she gets mad. Then all she can do is mutter and kick the curb, and then she looks even crazier.' Beverly gave that gaunt gap-toothed grin."
physical-tbr
September 7, 2024Found this baby second hand and purchased for three euro, I'm super excited to read more Marge Piercy, even if this is more general fiction (though shelved as chick lit - a label I hate). It even had an interesting personalized bookmark inside!
April 17, 2017
I was first made aware of Marge Piercy’s work when I saw her novel Woman on the Edge of Time listed as one the great feminist classics in a newspaper article a few years ago. At the time I was reading a great deal of science fiction, mostly by women. I’d worked my way through Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin’s work and was looking for more of the same. I was so blown away by Woman on the Edge of Time that I decided to start hunting out more of Marge Piercy’ work. So far I’ve read Vida, Sex Wars and her poetry collection, The Moon is Always Female.
With so many expectations heaped on poor Marge from yours truly, it was perhaps inevitable that I was going to come across one or two that failed to meet my expectations. The Longings of Women was one. I guess I’ve been spoilt by her other books. I don’t want to put others off from trying it. Perhaps I was simply expecting too much, but my overriding impression after finishing the book was one of dissatisfaction. I felt that somehow I’d been short-changed.
The novel enters around the lives of three characters, Leila a semi-successful academic married to a theatre director with a love of sleeping with his leading ladies. Her story intersects with those of two other characters, Becky Burgess, a woman accused of murdering her husband and the subject of a book Leila hopes to write and Mary Burke, a cleaning lady who works for Leila and who, after the breakdown of her marriage, finds herself homeless. Leila is the pivot around which the other two characters circle and it is through her that we meet these women and learn more about their lives.
If you go into this novel accepting that you’re not going to get an intricately plotted ‘who-done-it’ then you won’t be disappointed. After accepting this I was much more able to step back and look again at the way she approaches not only social issues but also feminist concerns. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that explores the issue of homeless in women in the way I did in this novel.
To read the rest of this review please head over to my blog:
https://simmyandhersimplelife.wordpre...
With so many expectations heaped on poor Marge from yours truly, it was perhaps inevitable that I was going to come across one or two that failed to meet my expectations. The Longings of Women was one. I guess I’ve been spoilt by her other books. I don’t want to put others off from trying it. Perhaps I was simply expecting too much, but my overriding impression after finishing the book was one of dissatisfaction. I felt that somehow I’d been short-changed.
The novel enters around the lives of three characters, Leila a semi-successful academic married to a theatre director with a love of sleeping with his leading ladies. Her story intersects with those of two other characters, Becky Burgess, a woman accused of murdering her husband and the subject of a book Leila hopes to write and Mary Burke, a cleaning lady who works for Leila and who, after the breakdown of her marriage, finds herself homeless. Leila is the pivot around which the other two characters circle and it is through her that we meet these women and learn more about their lives.
If you go into this novel accepting that you’re not going to get an intricately plotted ‘who-done-it’ then you won’t be disappointed. After accepting this I was much more able to step back and look again at the way she approaches not only social issues but also feminist concerns. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that explores the issue of homeless in women in the way I did in this novel.
To read the rest of this review please head over to my blog:
https://simmyandhersimplelife.wordpre...
December 17, 2017
I am rereading some of the novels that had the greatest impact on my life. This taught me how fragile the traditional roles of women can be. It nudged me toward buying my first home. It's haunting characters stayed with me for years. On rereading it, I find the prose a little less masterful than I remembered, but it's themes all too real today.
December 3, 2017
Add me ot the list of people who loved this book. I found the characters so identifiable. The homeless situation was especially well done because while it is not something someone with a good job or husband can imagine, it does happen and her characterization of it stayed with me for days.
Yes, the book is long but I thought it was well worth it.
Yes, the book is long but I thought it was well worth it.
Read
August 27, 2013Have always been moved by Piercy - her poetry and prose. This novel moved me too. To new levels of awareness. And I simply love her descriptions, for example: "the family would close around him, the way an oyster close on a pearl, taking an irritant and coating it into safety;" and "the trees dripped, the houses wept from their roofs..."
May 11, 2013
I can't remember the last time I read a book and felt sad to say goodbye to the main characters when I finished. That was no small feat, considering one of them is a murderer! Piercy's novels are wonderfully readable without being corny.
January 6, 2018
It took me a long time to make it through this book. I think perhaps I had read it before, or parts of it, but of most of it, I had no recall. The author is a great storyteller, that is for sure. The chapters alternated viewpoints among the three main female characters, Leila, Becky and Mary. I think their personalities were well differentiated and their characters were believable. The narrated thought processes of these women were at times long winded, but likely necessary to get a thorough insight into each character. I wasn’t so fond of the sex and murder scenes as such graphic details about each of those things aren’t my bag. What really affected me in this book was the story of Mary’s descent from respectable housewife and mother, to a homeless person. It’s a sad observation, that, although we are 20 yrs further along since this book was published, homelessness ( specially among senior women) is more rampant than ever.
All in all this was a good meaty read, and thought provoking, in many ways.
All in all this was a good meaty read, and thought provoking, in many ways.
July 10, 2018
This book really spoke to me as a woman of a certain age in the sense that it reinforced the knowledge that we are all just a few paychecks away from the street. I am a Marge Piercy fan and always love how she makes you feel you are actually inside each character. An excellent read.
December 19, 2020
If I could give this 4.5 stars I would. I wouldn't say it's 'amazing' but it is a darn good read. Another new author to me and this won't be my last book from her. The story evolves around three women, their separate histories and then their shared history as three separate stories converge, and then the relationships which come out of that melange. It's definitely a book of its time - a feminist insight into how women were still viewed in the early/mid 1990s, and what that meant for women of a certain age with regard to personal advancement (or not), divorce ramifications and attitudes of others towards them, and their subsequent personal relationships. New relationships which may have been less 'conventional' at the time. The story also dealt what it meant for younger women who perhaps towed the traditional line where marriage was concerned; and then how they often felt trapped and dis-empowered; followed by the drastic actions wrought by one of the main female characters to get rid of a husband who had 'outlived his usefulness'. A man who was under the thumb of his mother and who let his wife carry the load of keeping them in home and food when he lost his job - and decided to NOT seek re-employment, mostly because he had things just the way he liked them. With a mistress on the side. The young protagonist enlisted a young man in her measures to get rid of him permanently, and both ended up in prison, she still in denial that she did anything wrong, and he because he admitted his culpability (and condemned her in the process) - for all the good that did him. We're left with filling in the future of all the main characters whose lives were evolving away from their original format and trajectory. A psychologically intense exploration of why those women did what they they did. Excellent writing.
August 25, 2021
as another reviewer noted, this book had repulsive characters in it. While the protagonist's (Leila's) husband was triggering, the author did weave an interesting plot and history of her .characters.
"She was too upset to eat [about her stinking husband's infidelity]. But she felt some satisfaction in the idea of doing a book on a woman who had murdered her husband. She knew that if Nick were there he would get round her, but he wasn't. So often he wasn't. She would digest her own anger, she would manage it as she always had. The fear of losing him had constantly forced her to dispose of her negative reactions towards what he did. Her anger toward him caused her the same sense of shame and secretiveness her mother had trained her to feel toward her sanitary napkins, that must not go into the family garbage, that must not be flushed down the toilet still clogged the pipes, but carried at once outside to the trash."
Becca, the one on trial for killing her husband, has her first boyfriend when she's in college, an ex-professor. Like so many other men, he just wants to use women. When she finds out, she's furious, and she gets her revenge!
"She called up the number on the front of his condo and thus got the agent's name, Nadine bavard, and the address of her office. She worked all the next week on a letter, heartfelt and full of remorse, to Nadine, in which she apologized profusely for getting involved with Ted topper. She had not known about their long-standing affair. He had been her teacher and he had seemed very sincere. She had never been involved with a man before, and she had no idea that this meant nothing to him. When she had gotten pregnant, she had naively expected him to marry her. He had explained then that he was involved with Nadine. She was dreadfully sorry. She had not known. She was having an abortion that weekend and would never see him again, but she wanted Nadine to understand she had not intentionally tried to take away anyone's boyfriend. She felt very guilty about everything and she felt as if her life was over, but she was sure Nadine would understand, as one woman to another, that she had been misled and was more sinned against than sinning."
Mary Burke, the homeless cleaning woman who "passes" for a "housed" woman, finds out things about Leila from cleaning her house. She doesn't understand how Leila can put up with her husband's infidelity.
"Mary had far more pride than mrs. Landsman, because she wouldn't take his crap, which was not a nice expression, but accurate. She had been a good wife and a good mother, and she was entitled to a good husband. Sometimes she still went over and over it, trying to understand what she did wrong. Did she pick the wrong man? But they had seemed happy for 20 years. Should she have pretended she didn't know? Should she have said, whatever you want, dear, as mrs. Landsman did, and just hope he wouldn't bring home some disease or get his mistress pregnant?
What had Mary done wrong? As she cleaned other women's houses, she tried to figure out where she had gone astray and how her life had derailed, but she couldn't comprehend it. Watching her ladies' lives fall apart didn't teach her much. The only one of them playing around was mrs. Douglas, and her marriage didn't seem in danger. Every other woman, she thought, lived in ignorance or in fear."
Mary had become homeless little by little, after her husband divorced her. And her heartless kids don't give a s*** about her.
"Before she had been evicted, it had become evident she could afford nothing that existed, and the wait for public housing was forever and a day. Finally they had thrown her few things on the sidewalk in a pitiful pile she had had to walk away from, carrying her two suitcases and her raincoat and winter coat, her quilt. She was too stunned, too numb to cry. She kept looking back at her table, her chair, her bed, her pots and dishes. What would become of her?
There had always been neighborhoods of cheap rooming houses when she was growing up. When had they disappeared? Where did poor people live now? Everything she could find was beyond her income. She wrote to Cindy and she wrote to Jaime. Cindy sent her a letter full of advice on budgeting her income, a check for $200 and a long complaint about the cost of raising children in the Washington area. Two of her kids were in private schools. She simply did not have any discretionary income. What had happened to the settlement Daddy had given her?"
Leila's husband Nick leaves her and gets an apartment in Boston with his actress pregnant girlfriend. Leila and Nick's son David insists that they all get together for a dinner. While Leila is nauseated with the idea, she does it for David's sake.
" 'you're unusually silent,' Nick said suddenly. 'are we boring you? Perhaps you were hoping for an evening alone with your new friend?'
She was so startled that she dropped some Szechuan beef into her lap, staining the new silk dress.
'I'm a little tired,' she said more softly than she had intended. 'finals, my book, the one in production, all that.'
Zak took over the conversation with a rap about how he never had fun when he tried to eat out on the cape, because people would buttonhole him about their pets' symptoms and foibles. She tried to figure out what had upset her. The implied accusation? How dare you be having an affair. No, it was that hard poking voice. In the days when she had sometimes planned to go with Nick for a week or a weekend, when David was a baby and could be packed up and taken, she had realized finally that, before he left, he always managed to quarrel with her and storm out, so that she did not end up accompanying him."
Which reminded me of my machista ex-husband. When we were married and my girls were babies, my ex-husband would pick a fight with me on every occasion, ie Christmas, birthdays, vacations. So he would ruin it and it would not be a happy occasion, instead tears and heartbreak would abound.
I hated some of the characters in this book so much. The most useful part in this book, was letting readers know something of what it's like to be homeless. The author had a fairly good concept of what it actually is like.
I have been homeless before, but I was young then, 30 years difference from the 61 year old Mary Burke. Which makes it a lot easier, because people like you if you are a pretty young woman. I also had a car, that I slept in, and I also had a storage unit that I could rotate clothes in and out of. Still, it's no fun to be homeless, because it's hard to find a safe place to park your car. It's hard to sleep, knowing that someone can just come up and look in your window, and see you sleeping in your car.
"She was too upset to eat [about her stinking husband's infidelity]. But she felt some satisfaction in the idea of doing a book on a woman who had murdered her husband. She knew that if Nick were there he would get round her, but he wasn't. So often he wasn't. She would digest her own anger, she would manage it as she always had. The fear of losing him had constantly forced her to dispose of her negative reactions towards what he did. Her anger toward him caused her the same sense of shame and secretiveness her mother had trained her to feel toward her sanitary napkins, that must not go into the family garbage, that must not be flushed down the toilet still clogged the pipes, but carried at once outside to the trash."
Becca, the one on trial for killing her husband, has her first boyfriend when she's in college, an ex-professor. Like so many other men, he just wants to use women. When she finds out, she's furious, and she gets her revenge!
"She called up the number on the front of his condo and thus got the agent's name, Nadine bavard, and the address of her office. She worked all the next week on a letter, heartfelt and full of remorse, to Nadine, in which she apologized profusely for getting involved with Ted topper. She had not known about their long-standing affair. He had been her teacher and he had seemed very sincere. She had never been involved with a man before, and she had no idea that this meant nothing to him. When she had gotten pregnant, she had naively expected him to marry her. He had explained then that he was involved with Nadine. She was dreadfully sorry. She had not known. She was having an abortion that weekend and would never see him again, but she wanted Nadine to understand she had not intentionally tried to take away anyone's boyfriend. She felt very guilty about everything and she felt as if her life was over, but she was sure Nadine would understand, as one woman to another, that she had been misled and was more sinned against than sinning."
Mary Burke, the homeless cleaning woman who "passes" for a "housed" woman, finds out things about Leila from cleaning her house. She doesn't understand how Leila can put up with her husband's infidelity.
"Mary had far more pride than mrs. Landsman, because she wouldn't take his crap, which was not a nice expression, but accurate. She had been a good wife and a good mother, and she was entitled to a good husband. Sometimes she still went over and over it, trying to understand what she did wrong. Did she pick the wrong man? But they had seemed happy for 20 years. Should she have pretended she didn't know? Should she have said, whatever you want, dear, as mrs. Landsman did, and just hope he wouldn't bring home some disease or get his mistress pregnant?
What had Mary done wrong? As she cleaned other women's houses, she tried to figure out where she had gone astray and how her life had derailed, but she couldn't comprehend it. Watching her ladies' lives fall apart didn't teach her much. The only one of them playing around was mrs. Douglas, and her marriage didn't seem in danger. Every other woman, she thought, lived in ignorance or in fear."
Mary had become homeless little by little, after her husband divorced her. And her heartless kids don't give a s*** about her.
"Before she had been evicted, it had become evident she could afford nothing that existed, and the wait for public housing was forever and a day. Finally they had thrown her few things on the sidewalk in a pitiful pile she had had to walk away from, carrying her two suitcases and her raincoat and winter coat, her quilt. She was too stunned, too numb to cry. She kept looking back at her table, her chair, her bed, her pots and dishes. What would become of her?
There had always been neighborhoods of cheap rooming houses when she was growing up. When had they disappeared? Where did poor people live now? Everything she could find was beyond her income. She wrote to Cindy and she wrote to Jaime. Cindy sent her a letter full of advice on budgeting her income, a check for $200 and a long complaint about the cost of raising children in the Washington area. Two of her kids were in private schools. She simply did not have any discretionary income. What had happened to the settlement Daddy had given her?"
Leila's husband Nick leaves her and gets an apartment in Boston with his actress pregnant girlfriend. Leila and Nick's son David insists that they all get together for a dinner. While Leila is nauseated with the idea, she does it for David's sake.
" 'you're unusually silent,' Nick said suddenly. 'are we boring you? Perhaps you were hoping for an evening alone with your new friend?'
She was so startled that she dropped some Szechuan beef into her lap, staining the new silk dress.
'I'm a little tired,' she said more softly than she had intended. 'finals, my book, the one in production, all that.'
Zak took over the conversation with a rap about how he never had fun when he tried to eat out on the cape, because people would buttonhole him about their pets' symptoms and foibles. She tried to figure out what had upset her. The implied accusation? How dare you be having an affair. No, it was that hard poking voice. In the days when she had sometimes planned to go with Nick for a week or a weekend, when David was a baby and could be packed up and taken, she had realized finally that, before he left, he always managed to quarrel with her and storm out, so that she did not end up accompanying him."
Which reminded me of my machista ex-husband. When we were married and my girls were babies, my ex-husband would pick a fight with me on every occasion, ie Christmas, birthdays, vacations. So he would ruin it and it would not be a happy occasion, instead tears and heartbreak would abound.
I hated some of the characters in this book so much. The most useful part in this book, was letting readers know something of what it's like to be homeless. The author had a fairly good concept of what it actually is like.
I have been homeless before, but I was young then, 30 years difference from the 61 year old Mary Burke. Which makes it a lot easier, because people like you if you are a pretty young woman. I also had a car, that I slept in, and I also had a storage unit that I could rotate clothes in and out of. Still, it's no fun to be homeless, because it's hard to find a safe place to park your car. It's hard to sleep, knowing that someone can just come up and look in your window, and see you sleeping in your car.
September 28, 2007
I've read this book before--I love Piercy's writing, the way she delves into her main characters--there are three in this book. Leila is a college professor who has been married for years to an openly cheating husband; Becky is a young girl fromo a working class home with fierce ambitions; Mary is a woman who is not at all who she seems to be. This is excellent.
November 3, 2022
I love Marge Piercy. I loved this book. Although sometimes on the depressing side, it was engaging to the end.
August 17, 2009
Not as good as Gone to Soldiers-that's her best!
September 9, 2025
I bought this because Piercy normally writes SF (or what can be interpreted as SF) but this is a contemporary mainstream novel – for 1998 values of contemporary.
This is the intertwined tale of three women living in Boston, Massachusetts; Leila Landsman, Mary Burke and Becky Burgess. Leila is a professional woman, a college teacher whose theatre director husband has an ongoing philandering streak, serially having affairs with his – always younger – leading ladies. Mary is Leila’s cleaner but had lived a reasonably comfortable existence until her marriage broke down: she is now homeless but conceals this from her cleaning agency employers and the clients whose houses she cleans. Becky is a working-class woman who has pulled herself up from her origins by getting an education, for which her family made sacrifices, a desk job at a media company and a marriage to Terry, a man of rather better off means but who is lazy as a result and suffers from an unjustified sense of entitlement.
Leila’s and Becky’s lives intersect when Leila is asked to write a book about the court case in which Becky is accused of murdering her husband with the assistance of her teenage lover, Sam Solomon. Becky’s treatment by the press has been unrelentingly critical.
Leila’s and Mary’s stories are unfolded in the present of the novel (with flashbacks memories of their origin stories,) Becky’s is given to us in chronological order as it occurred. This has the effect of presenting us with different pictures of Becky from the two time streams. At first Mary’s story also seems to be divorced from that of Leila but does give us an alternative perspective on her life.
Mary’s is a salutary tale, about how easy it is to fall from security, how necessary it is not to appear homeless - especially when you are. She sleeps where she can - airport lounges, empty buildings - but preferably in her client’s houses when they are away from home and is eternally grateful to the (black) woman who showed her the ropes of homelessness, the ways to avoid danger, when she first arrived on the streets.
There is a degree of character development to Leila as her marriage disintegrates slowly then precipitously. Mary, perhaps hardened by the streets, undergoes less change. Becky’s descent into murderousness is not quite so convincing, though.
This is a decent enough novel which doesn’t reach the heights of Piercy’s earlier books Body of Glass and Woman on the Edge of Time.
This is the intertwined tale of three women living in Boston, Massachusetts; Leila Landsman, Mary Burke and Becky Burgess. Leila is a professional woman, a college teacher whose theatre director husband has an ongoing philandering streak, serially having affairs with his – always younger – leading ladies. Mary is Leila’s cleaner but had lived a reasonably comfortable existence until her marriage broke down: she is now homeless but conceals this from her cleaning agency employers and the clients whose houses she cleans. Becky is a working-class woman who has pulled herself up from her origins by getting an education, for which her family made sacrifices, a desk job at a media company and a marriage to Terry, a man of rather better off means but who is lazy as a result and suffers from an unjustified sense of entitlement.
Leila’s and Becky’s lives intersect when Leila is asked to write a book about the court case in which Becky is accused of murdering her husband with the assistance of her teenage lover, Sam Solomon. Becky’s treatment by the press has been unrelentingly critical.
Leila’s and Mary’s stories are unfolded in the present of the novel (with flashbacks memories of their origin stories,) Becky’s is given to us in chronological order as it occurred. This has the effect of presenting us with different pictures of Becky from the two time streams. At first Mary’s story also seems to be divorced from that of Leila but does give us an alternative perspective on her life.
Mary’s is a salutary tale, about how easy it is to fall from security, how necessary it is not to appear homeless - especially when you are. She sleeps where she can - airport lounges, empty buildings - but preferably in her client’s houses when they are away from home and is eternally grateful to the (black) woman who showed her the ropes of homelessness, the ways to avoid danger, when she first arrived on the streets.
There is a degree of character development to Leila as her marriage disintegrates slowly then precipitously. Mary, perhaps hardened by the streets, undergoes less change. Becky’s descent into murderousness is not quite so convincing, though.
This is a decent enough novel which doesn’t reach the heights of Piercy’s earlier books Body of Glass and Woman on the Edge of Time.
February 24, 2022
Very mixed feelings about this book.
It's very dated, (1994) I hope. The thinking of the women and the attitudes I thought, have gone the way of the dodo. All the women are depicted as victims and act like it. The women are all so dreary and frustrating.
The main character Leila has a philandering husband she mostly financially supports. She caters to his every whim even turning a blind eye to his sleeping with other women.
The second woman Mary, is a divorced older woman is homeless bc of a bad settlement with her ex husband. She has two grown children who don't care about or know the extent of her situation since she is not honest with them. A theme in the book is women holding in truths to save face or to make themselves more attractive to others.
The third is a character based on a real person. The book/movie To Die For was based on the story of Pamala Smart who seduced a teen aged boy into killing her husband.
I think we're supposed to feel sympathy at the beginning and pride at the end. But I just found the women infuriating. Yes, judgmental. But I think part of the problem was the writing. Very cliched, very unbelievable dialogue.
I wanted to like it and stayed with it till the end even though it's huge.
It's very dated, (1994) I hope. The thinking of the women and the attitudes I thought, have gone the way of the dodo. All the women are depicted as victims and act like it. The women are all so dreary and frustrating.
The main character Leila has a philandering husband she mostly financially supports. She caters to his every whim even turning a blind eye to his sleeping with other women.
The second woman Mary, is a divorced older woman is homeless bc of a bad settlement with her ex husband. She has two grown children who don't care about or know the extent of her situation since she is not honest with them. A theme in the book is women holding in truths to save face or to make themselves more attractive to others.
The third is a character based on a real person. The book/movie To Die For was based on the story of Pamala Smart who seduced a teen aged boy into killing her husband.
I think we're supposed to feel sympathy at the beginning and pride at the end. But I just found the women infuriating. Yes, judgmental. But I think part of the problem was the writing. Very cliched, very unbelievable dialogue.
I wanted to like it and stayed with it till the end even though it's huge.
February 26, 2020
About women evolving without men
There are many ways in which a woman finds herself alone after a marriage ends. Whether she has been cast out and replaced, or she decides that she would rather make choices not based on the needs of others, the characters in this novel grapple with great loss as well as great gains as they evolve in middle age. Leila, the main character, finds fulfillment without as much pain as do the others. I was sorry not to learn the ultimate fate of Mary, a homeless woman who survived a fire and the turning away of her own grown children. Another gives in to violence to fashion her way forward. The characters are believable and I enjoyed learning about their lives.
What I didn’t enjoy was the lack of editing in the Kindle version. Poor sentence structure, lack of punctuation, words erroneously substituted! Who edited this- a fourteen year old? It took away from the writing by this experienced and acclaimed author, Marge Pierce. Shame on you, Amazon.
There are many ways in which a woman finds herself alone after a marriage ends. Whether she has been cast out and replaced, or she decides that she would rather make choices not based on the needs of others, the characters in this novel grapple with great loss as well as great gains as they evolve in middle age. Leila, the main character, finds fulfillment without as much pain as do the others. I was sorry not to learn the ultimate fate of Mary, a homeless woman who survived a fire and the turning away of her own grown children. Another gives in to violence to fashion her way forward. The characters are believable and I enjoyed learning about their lives.
What I didn’t enjoy was the lack of editing in the Kindle version. Poor sentence structure, lack of punctuation, words erroneously substituted! Who edited this- a fourteen year old? It took away from the writing by this experienced and acclaimed author, Marge Pierce. Shame on you, Amazon.
August 19, 2024
I have taught "Barbie Doll," a great poem by Marge Piercy several time in the past. The theme of having to bend like a pretzel to please the other in your life is a theme both in the poem and in the novel "The Longings of Women."
What strikes me about the novel is that Piercy breaks several "rules" about writing, and yet the book still works. She mostly tells rather than shows and her characters are largely unsympathetic. Becky is the clearly the least sympathetic, but Leila, the novel's protagonist, is such a masochist for much of the novel that her finally throwing off the confines of a god awful man takes up a big part of the book. Mary, then other main character, is probably the most admirable, but Piercy does little to make her overly sympathetic.
Some might claim that all the men are worst, but that isn't necessarily true. This one takes a while to read, but it is definitely worth your time.
What strikes me about the novel is that Piercy breaks several "rules" about writing, and yet the book still works. She mostly tells rather than shows and her characters are largely unsympathetic. Becky is the clearly the least sympathetic, but Leila, the novel's protagonist, is such a masochist for much of the novel that her finally throwing off the confines of a god awful man takes up a big part of the book. Mary, then other main character, is probably the most admirable, but Piercy does little to make her overly sympathetic.
Some might claim that all the men are worst, but that isn't necessarily true. This one takes a while to read, but it is definitely worth your time.
June 13, 2025
Highly recommended. It's a shame the title of this book is so dreadful as the book itself is so much better than 95% of contemporary women's fiction. Sure, the details are a bit dated (I think this was first published in 1994), but the motivations, concerns, and challenges of the three women are not, especially Mary who endures homelessness and Leila with her sorry excuse for a marriage to a highly professional, intellectually and professionally respected, but cheating man. I did not care for the narrative about Becky as we are positively swamped by weird True Crime stories, but she's still very much an ambitious, undereducated woman struggling just to get by (until she goes sideways). Frankly, she's a creepy augury of Jodi Arias! YEARS before Jodi Arias emerged on the scene. Anyway, it's a shame that this author, who is also a gifted poet, has lost her popularity over the years. This novel really should be resurrected from the bargain bin.
June 7, 2020
Do you need a reminder not to text your ex? Because this is it in abundance.
I have mixed feelings about this book. It's paced well and the characters are interesting. But ultimately this book feels... Didactic and the meaning can be boiled down to, "women, count on each other and not on men, and get a room of one's own."
Should we read this book in 2020? Eh, I think that Piercy has better books that don't feel quite as dated. And as a novel about contemporary Boston in the early 1990s, it feels it. It's also almost painfully white, with a few Black homeless characters in cameos and an Asian American woman who exists only offscreen. At least the white lesbian representation stands up.
Was it worth the dollar I paid for a used copy? Yes. Was there a reason why it ended up in the dollar bin? Also yes. That said, even a meh Piercy is 4 stars.
I have mixed feelings about this book. It's paced well and the characters are interesting. But ultimately this book feels... Didactic and the meaning can be boiled down to, "women, count on each other and not on men, and get a room of one's own."
Should we read this book in 2020? Eh, I think that Piercy has better books that don't feel quite as dated. And as a novel about contemporary Boston in the early 1990s, it feels it. It's also almost painfully white, with a few Black homeless characters in cameos and an Asian American woman who exists only offscreen. At least the white lesbian representation stands up.
Was it worth the dollar I paid for a used copy? Yes. Was there a reason why it ended up in the dollar bin? Also yes. That said, even a meh Piercy is 4 stars.
July 16, 2023
I really loved this, picked up on a whim from a free table. I’d never heard of the author before. It was a strange experience reading it as Leila was not an overly likeable character and Becky was a side character really but I loved the story of Mary (would’ve preferred more backstory and no Becky really) and I just sat and read and read which was so relaxing. I loved the writers style, just like picking up a phone and hearing a long lovely story from a friend. I will definitely read books by this author again. In a way they put me in mind of Maeve Binchy, just that lovely relaxed intertwining style. If this book were a film it would one to watch on a Sunday afternoon with a hot chocolate and a blanket, it’s that type of thing. Absolutely loved this and look forward to reading more.
July 9, 2024
I LOVE Marge Piercy!
She was a a visiting professor at my collage in a year before I was there. She left her indelible mark. TJC had a healthy Woman's Study program that became my minor. That said, 50 years later I'm catching up on all the bountiful number of books I never read. This book is one of her best! I highly recommend it as a book of its time in the 1950's and 60's. She is a true feminist addressing the endless inequality of men and women in relationship and all levels of society. Sadly, our current fragile political atmosphere seems aimed at putting over 1\2 of the US population back to the dark ages with no empowerment over our own bodies.
She was a a visiting professor at my collage in a year before I was there. She left her indelible mark. TJC had a healthy Woman's Study program that became my minor. That said, 50 years later I'm catching up on all the bountiful number of books I never read. This book is one of her best! I highly recommend it as a book of its time in the 1950's and 60's. She is a true feminist addressing the endless inequality of men and women in relationship and all levels of society. Sadly, our current fragile political atmosphere seems aimed at putting over 1\2 of the US population back to the dark ages with no empowerment over our own bodies.
April 21, 2019
As usual, the extraordinarily talented Piercy has created memorable, living characters. A homeless woman, once an educated housewife displaced by divorce, a professor and wife of a narcissistic theater director, a young woman who clawed her way out of poverty in New Bedford's working class Portuguese community and was clawing still to create her Cosmo Magazine illustrated life. All lose what they've built, face lethal challenges and somehow intertwined, come out where they didn't think they'd be but where they belong. Another wonderful novel from Piercy, whose brilliance stuns me every time
June 12, 2019
Read at the recommendation of my sister in law, Lorrie. I am ashamed to say that I did not know about Marge Piercy and her reputation as a feminist writer. I liked this story — three different women whose lives intersect. It was the story of the middle-aged homeless woman that gripped me the most. One woman was patterned after Pamela Smart, the New Hampshire woman accused and convicted of convincing her young lover to kill her husband. I had hoped Piercy’s fictional account would add more to the story. It didn’t. This was the character most disappointing.
April 19, 2020
Stories of many women converge
Through one... I wondered at times how it would happen, though I knew it would. This is a masterful piece of literature that you may not recognize as feminist. It is, as it weaves together and shows how class differentiates us, how money can separate us and even break apart families in our self-centered needs-driven society. Where would you place yourself? Who do you relate to? You might find yourself wondering in the twists and turns of this well-turned series of interwoven tales. Thoroughly enjoyable and heart-wrenching!
Through one... I wondered at times how it would happen, though I knew it would. This is a masterful piece of literature that you may not recognize as feminist. It is, as it weaves together and shows how class differentiates us, how money can separate us and even break apart families in our self-centered needs-driven society. Where would you place yourself? Who do you relate to? You might find yourself wondering in the twists and turns of this well-turned series of interwoven tales. Thoroughly enjoyable and heart-wrenching!
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October 3, 2023I found this book more compelling than Piercy's more famous Woman on the Edge of Time. Not knowing whether anything in that one was real or not became a bit tiresome. Here, things are simpler, a classic 3-character setup with intersecting narratives. I was pleased by the mundanity of their endings. At some point, it would have been very easy to have them all move in together and live happily ever after, but that would have been rather too utopian given the circumstances. Their ultimate stopping points are much more boring but weirdly satisfying.
March 17, 2020
Excellent book!
This book was quite a read on several levels. The characters were heartfelt and unique. The story line was unpredictable. I’m not usually a fan of books written from different perspectives but I felt that approach really enhance this book. The story tapped on women’s hidden fears that I could relate to. I was very caught up in the book. Really recommend you read this one!
This book was quite a read on several levels. The characters were heartfelt and unique. The story line was unpredictable. I’m not usually a fan of books written from different perspectives but I felt that approach really enhance this book. The story tapped on women’s hidden fears that I could relate to. I was very caught up in the book. Really recommend you read this one!
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