The Red Tent - Anita Diamant

This book is narrated by Dinah; the first section is about her mother and three aunts and the second section about her own story. Although the story has happy and uplifting moments it also has many moments of distress and great upheaval to the main characters.

The story begins with the arrival of Jacob at his uncle Laban’s camp. He marries two of Laban’s daughters (and is given the other two as dowries). Obviously having four sisters as wives leads to jealously but also great bonding and unity. Out of the thirteen living children the four women have, Dinah is the only daughter, and is therefore important to all of them as she will learn their stories.

However, life doesn’t run as smoothly as expected. There is conflict between Jacob and his father in-law and then between Jacob’s sons. This is unsettling to the women and after experiencing both love and tragedy Dinah travels to Egypt where she earns respect and fame from her practise of midwifery.

I admit I found the book confusing to start with as there were so many characters and was glad there was a family tree at the beginning of the book, but the characters soon developed their own personalities, especially the women. The culture of the red tent was fascinating to read about and how attitudes were changing from this old way of life to the new religion of Abraham (Jacob’s grandfather). However it is not the best book I have read this year

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