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Title: The Third Child : A Novel by Marge Piercy ISBN: 0-06-621116-6 Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 25 November, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.22 (9 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Come on, Marge!
Comment: My 7-day check-out of Marge Piercy's new book, The Third Child, expired today. Although I was only 1/3 through the book, I took the unusual (for me) step of returning it, unfinished, rather than pay the fine, because there were some things about the story that I just couldn't get past.
The heroine of the story is Melissa. Melissa is the daughter of a Republican senator; she attends Wellesley. She meets an adopted boy of unknown racial descent and begins a love affair with him.
Melissa hates her parents who are cold and bad, presumably because they are Republican. On the other hand, she is obsessed with "Blake", who is distant, secretive, at times surly, and who nearly forces her to have sex with him the first time they are alone together, saying "I'm only taking what's mine." Hmmmmmmmm. Wow.
But perhaps the hardest thing for me to get past were Blake's comments about his parents. Or rather, lack of them. Although he was adopted by his parents at birth, when asked about his parents for the first time, Blake says that he doesn't have any, because he was adopted. His adoptive parents raised him and are sending him to an expensive college; but he *doesn't have any parents because he was adopted*. Then who are the people who raised him?
I have said elsewhere that I would read Marge Piercy's grocery list. I have to amend that statement. I could not bring myself to finish this book. I found the heroine ditzy; the "hero" was a *complete* jerk; and the "villains" (Melissa's Republican parents) painted with broad, stereotypical strokes (cold-hearted, racist, want-to-kill-your-grandma kind of people).
Marge, I hope you were going somewhere with all of this; but I won't be finishing the book to find out.
Rating: 5
Summary: Pure Piercy
Comment: One doesn't pick up a Marge Piercy novel for some mindless entertainment. Piercy, a deeply committed and passionate author and poet, has something to say--and she has done so strongly and well in her many novels.
So I knew going in that I was going to have an unforgettable experience, as many of Piercy's novels have never left my consciousness, most notably, "Vida" and "Braided Lives," among others. Nevertheless, I was not prepared for the brutal read that is "The Third Child."
When I say "brutal," I am not referring to violence or mayhem, although one could certainly make a case for psychological violence in this plot ... Melissa Dickinson, who considers herself too tall, too fat, and altogether lumpish, thanks to her shrew of a mother, is the third of four chidren in the picture-perfect family of her father, Senator Dick Dickinson. We gather that the senator is an arch conservative, whose wife (and Melissa's uncaring mother), Rosemary, a small-boned, brittle beauty, is the power behind the throne. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will stop Rosemary in her constant and obsessive push to further her husband's career all the way to the presidency. Every aspect of Melissa's life is a photo op. Otherwise, she sees nothing of her father, and her mother only communicates to criticize.
So it is no wonder, then, that when Melissa finally escapes to college, she falls heavily and hard for just the "wrong type of boy" in her mother's eyes, had her mother known about the romance. Blake is 19, like Melissa, a gorgeous black man who was adopted and raised by a prominent Jewish famiy and who considers himself Jewish as well. A double whammy for the oh-so-WASP Dickinsons. But Melissa is besotted with Blake, madly passionately in love as only a first love can be. Too bad the reader is not--there is something just a bit off with this boy, and the reader is at a loss to know what it is.
Here is Piercy's genius coming through. The Dickinson matriarch is such a horrible, manipulative and terrible person, that the reader is loathe to take any opinion that would in any way coincide with hers. And yet as a mother of a 19-year-old daughter, all I could think as a reader was, "get away from this boy! He's no good!" And yet I didn't know why.
This sense of unease grows throughout the book to an almost unbearable level as we see the insidious manipulation of Melissa from all sides, even when we can't figure out what it's about. The ending is explosive and troubling in the extreme.
This is a scathing indictment of politics in America, no matter what the political party. It makes any reader stop and think, especially in an election year...I recommend it to everybody, no matter how liberal or conservative they may be. Another triumph for Piercy, who simply gets better and better with every book she writes.
Rating: 5
Summary: An intriguing story of ambition and love
Comment: Marge Piercy's The Third Child is a coming-of-age story tells of a prominent family where ambition comes first and third child Melissa has always felt she comes last. Her freedom at college leads her to Blake, a man of mixed race and unknown parentage, and a fiery affair which hides a secret which could destroy both their families. The Third Child is an intriguing story of ambition and love.
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Title: Sleeping with Cats : A Memoir by Marge Piercy ISBN: 0060936045 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 24 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Amateur Marriage: A Novel by ANNE TYLER ISBN: 1400042070 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: So You Want To Write by Marge Piercy, Ira Wood ISBN: 0967952026 Publisher: Leapfrog Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Colors Passing Through Us : Poems by Marge Piercy ISBN: 0375415378 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 04 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: Islands by Anne Rivers Siddons ISBN: 0066211115 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 06 April, 2004 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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