Numerous Females, Three Ages, That Much-Getting together with The newest Novel
From inside the synagogue kid’s pageants, Esther’s royal ed just like the an effective Cinderella tale, however the biblical account was faster relatives-friendly: Esther is selected to exchange the newest disgraced queen Vashti, which refuted a regal order to help you procession – nude, certain scholars argue – prior to a pals out of drunken boys.
“The book regarding V.,” this new engrossing, very readable, darkly naughty 3rd book because of the Anna Solomon, interweaves the story away from Esther and you can Vashti having those of a few almost every other ladies: Lily, an excellent 40-anything spouse and mom within the latest Brooklyn, and Vee, an early senator’s girlfriend within the Watergate-day and age Arizona.
Vee try a 20th-100 years Vashti. Whenever, on an flingster Jak poslat nД›koho na effective boozy family people during the Georgetown, the lady husband requires the girl to strip down facing a group off Arizona strength agents, Vee refuses – and you will, particularly Vashti, is actually banished. Solomon performs hard to make this patch change credible. One to she does not totally create is close to incidental; subscribers whom discover the Bible will find just what this woman is right up to, and you can cheerfully suspend disbelief. Vee’s next work – she reconnects that have a classic friend whose own relationships is coming aside – leads sooner to Lily, the newest emotional center on the moving book.
Lily try an enraged blogger, a stay-at-house mom who seems caught within beliefs of their feminist mom, Ruth (“I’m hoping they fulfills you, taking care of college students all day long,” Ruth even offers dryly), additionally the lofty standard of parenting adopted for the Park Mountain, along with its “lake regarding other female and you may strollers and kids with the 8th Method, oriented to that school or that, or household out-of school, or even laundromats otherwise cello classes otherwise nit-pickers or playdates.”