Breakaway Books

Authored by Anita Diamant; Published 2014; Historical Fiction

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️

The Red Tent is unique among novels that I’ve read this year. A creative re-imagining of a Bible story, it both honors and sets aside the tradition from which it comes.

The Red Tent retells the story of Joseph, with which many of us are familiar, from an entirely different perspective. Instead of focusing on the twelve sons of Jacob, of whom Joseph is one, we hear about Jacob’s wives and his only daughter Dina. In many ways, her life echoes Joseph’s, but the emphasis in this retelling is not on the providence of God but the sisterhood of women.

I’m not sure I understand the intended audience for this novel. It’s a deep cut of an Old Testament story—not the part about Joseph, which has already entered into popular culture, but the story of Dina, who merits little more than a line or two in the Bible. At first, I assumed that this story would be crafted for those religious readers already familiar with the tragedy of Dina, but I quickly began to doubt that theory. Instead of the author painting a picture of a God-fearing family, alternately blessed and cursed with shows of God’s power, we see a polytheistic clan for whom God plays no special role among the many gods and goddesses worshipped in the ancient Near East. Nearly every event related in the Bible is turned on its head in this narrative, with emphasis given to the goddess worshipped by women, and every man who is praised in the Bible coming off more villainous than you might expect. 

The whole novel is centered on the community of women, living lives often completely separately from their male counterparts. It is empowering to see the way that they are able to, at times, exercise their agency, and, at other times, what they are put through. This is not a book to read if childbirth intimidates you, because there are quite a few gory birth stories. But it is a book to read if you think often about the traditions passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter, and the special connection that exists among sisters. I found it a little strange to read a novel in which four sisters are married to the same man without it devolving into full-on soap opera, but if you can get past that premise, the community is the selling point. 

The Red Tent is not like other historical novels you’ve read—I can guarantee it. It might be right up your alley!