Fascinating story and appears to be historically accurate. Went on a bit too long for me. ( )

I’ve been a fan of Marge Piercy for years, but I found this book a little rushed and abrupt. It’s a fictionalized account of the post-Civil-War period in the US. Succeeding chapters are from the viewpoint of Victoria Woodhull, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony Comstock, and a young Jewish immigrant named Freydeh.

Piercy tells us what’s going through the minds of these famous people, but in the process, she flattens them. It’s an interesting period, and her characters are all interesting people, but stylistically, they’re the same. Even though they’re thinking about such different things, they all think in the same way. None of them seem particularly passionate.

I felt that Piercy brought the most life to her only completely fictional character. Only when it comes to Freydeh does Piercy let the story itself guide the reader.
( )

I’ve been a fan of Marge Piercy for years, but I found this book a little rushed and abrupt. It’s a fictionalized account of the post-Civil-War period in the US. Succeeding chapters are from the viewpoint of Victoria Woodhull, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony Comstock, and a young Jewish immigrant named Freydeh.

Piercy tells us what’s going through the minds of these famous people, but in the process, she flattens them. It’s an interesting period, and her characters are all interesting people, but stylistically, they’re the same. Even though they’re thinking about such different things, they all think in the same way. None of them seem particularly passionate.

I felt that Piercy brought the most life to her only completely fictional character. Only when it comes to Freydeh does Piercy let the story itself guide the reader.
( )

This was wonderful. I liked getting an idea of what these women's lives might have been like. Piercy does a wonderful job of using facts and her imagination to really flesh out these people who are usually very 2 dimensional subjects of grade school reports. ( )

Sex Wars (novel -- historical fiction)
Marge Piercy.
Harper Collins, NY 2005

When I first started reading this book, I thought it too sensational and sexy. It seemed Piercy was competing with the 50 Shades crowd. Then I realized she was trying to bring blood back into the lives of historical characters. Set in New York City, it is a fictionalized account of some of the leaders of the women's movement of the late 1800s. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Victoria Woodhull, all involved in helping to bring about the vote for women, are three of the main characters; their lives are told like gray wallpaper in historical accounts, but just the opposite here in Piercy's account. Added is a totally fictional character named Freydeh Levin, a working class immigrant woman struggling to survive, support a family, run a business, find her lost sister, and demand the rights afforded to men.

It certainly was a time when women were determined to throw off the shackles that bound them to husbands and fathers and a biased and hypocritical morality. What a time of change! Some of these women were fearless. Just imagine: they had no rights to their children, could not divorce and keep their own inheritance or property, were not allowed to speak in public places, could not vote, were sometimes imprisoned if they bore children out of wedlock or for being raped, were often beaten or disowned for being raped, could be imprisoned for using or owning or dispensing contraception or for printing materials that used explicit sexual terms (even such things as explaining anatomically correct anatomy for medical purposes), had little opportunities for meaningful work and were blasted for espousing or acting upon the basis of rights men took for granted.

While many women were taking to the streets and fighting for equality, men like the Puritanical Anthony Comstock were at work seeking to preserve the religious and moral standards that he felt corrupted men. His crusade against pornography (This included contraceptive materials.) was more about keeping women in their place and under the thumb of their husbands than it was about protecting children. At any rate, it was a time of great upheaval and hypocrisy. Piercy gives us a gritty account of the period, imagining these characters as they might have been in their most private and personal lives. In the end this is a novel about survival. What women must do to survive, regardless of race, class, economics, marital status, education, with and without children.

There are a few weak points in the novel where Piercy glosses the plot rather than allowing it to naturally unwind over time, but it is ambitious and I give Piercy much credit undertaking it. I would definitely recommend it and wish Piercy would now give us her version of the British feminists of the same period, Pankhurst and her daughters to start.