The first third to half of the book is Dinah describing her child hood and life in and around the red tent. As soon as the boys were old enough to follow adult guidance, they were out with their father helping with the sheep and goats, while Dinah helped the women in women’s work. A couple of her half-brothers tormented her, others she was indifferent and not particularly close to her. Her “milk-brother” Joseph was her close pal growing up – milk brother meaning they both nursed from the same woman at the same time frame. She has favorites among Jacob’s other wives – her other “mothers,” as well as favorites among her many male siblings. Dinah eventually accompanies her “auntie” in delivering babies, and over the years, she becomes skilled in midwifery herself. As she grows up she becomes close with one of Jacob’s other wives who is a midwife.
Most of the key characters in the book are women her father Jacob is described in affectionate terms, but he is distant and busy with the work required to care and feed his large family.ĭinah is the only daughter of the four wives of Jacob and as such she has a special status in the red tent of Jacob’s wives. Dinah, the narrator and protagonist in this book, is a quiet and precocious young girl who shares with us her feelings and impressions of the world in which she lives and the extended family of which she is a part. Fascinating context and glimpse into life in an era so much different from our own. As Dinah matures into womanhood – which in that day meant child bearing age – her life changes rather surprisingly and dramatically, and the remainder of the book is about her transition into becoming a woman and a mother and her later adult life, which includes trauma and several unexpected turns of events, as she has to move to Egypt.
The first half of the book Dinah coming of age as the daughter of Jacob and one of his wives, but since polygamy was normal in those times, Dinah had several other “mothers” – other wives of Jacob, who lived in the red tent who took care of each each other as sisters, and each other’s children. The author chose Dinah, an obscure person in The Book of Genesis, a great granddaughter of Abraham, and gives her a voice to tell a novelized version of her life’s story, which reveals much about life in the Near East several thousand years ago. Summary in 3 Sentences: An autobiographical novel written in the first person by a woman living in biblical, pre-Judaic times telling her life’s story.
Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group as an appropriate shorter female oriented follow- up to the much longer and very male-oriented previous book we’d read, The Count of Monte Cristo.
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