"The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant

The is the story of Dinah, the only girl born to Jacob who also fathered Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Isaachar, Zebulun, Joseph (of the coat of many colours, yes, it gets a mention) and later Benjamin, the twelve tribes, by his two wives (sisters) and their slave-girls. When she grows up, Dinah falls for a handsome Hivite prince call Shechem and they sleep together. Simeon and Levi demand that all the Hivites be circumcised, which they agree to, and then "two days later, while they were still in great pain" Simeon and Levi massacre the Hivites, including Shechem, and take Dinah back. That seems to be the last of Dinah in the Biblical account but in this book she curses her family and flees with her husband's mother to Egypt where she has her husband's child and more adventures until she dies. All in all it is not a flattering portrait of the start of the chosen people.

There are bits of this book which are a bit blockbuster-like: there is a large cast, many of whom cannot be fully characterised, and a lot of action. Dinah becomes a midwife, like her aunty Rachel, and there is a lot of menstruation and childbirth; there is a strong femininist perspective about this book. It was well written but there were parts where I struggled to stay interested.

July 2016; 384 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God