Rating: 
Summary: Come on, Marge!
Review: 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: 
Summary: A very enjoyable page turner
Review: Okay, so maybe there are a lot of cliches in this book, but the writing is good and there's a real plot! Omigod! After about 200 pages, the end was predictable, but so what? I actually lay on the couch for 90 minutes reading because I really wanted to know how it would end anyhow. I think Piercy did admirably well for an older adult writing from the point of view of an 18-year old in 2000. Sometimes I cringed at the conversations, but not too much, as I am also an older adult. Piercy is true to her "lefty" beliefs, applying them even now long after the sixties have ended. I admire that. And some of her metaphors and analogies are excellent. She has the right balance of description and conversation. Blake was believable and not predictable. I liked his parents and his story. All in all, a satisfying read.
Rating: 
Summary: Pure Piercy
Review: 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:
Summary: A fabulous, sexy melodrama about politics, lies and betrayal
Review: The Third child is an absolutely riveting and sensational melodrama. I just loved this book. Nothing about this story can be taken seriously, but this doesn't really matter because you will be enormously entertained by the over-the-top scenario. Yes - The Third Child is a literary thriller, a love story and a saga of espionage, but the novel also offers us some insights into political corruption and the ramifications of family lies and betrayal. Melissa Dickinson is the neglected, needy third child of Republican senator Dick Dickinson and his cold, scheming wife, Rosemary. In her first year at Wesleyan College, she meets Blake Ackerman, a classmate who is both dark-skinned and Jewish, qualities sure to distress her parents. They fall into an intensely symbiotic relationship fueled by sexual compatibility as well as by Melissa's resentment of her emotionally inaccessible family who are "over-the-top" in their conservatism and their efforts to keep up appearances. Blake's desire for vengeance for his dead father, which includes hacking into Melissa's parents' computer to find evidence that might destroy her father's career, has ramifications that destroy almost everyone in the novel. As the narrative is told from Melissa's view, we get an emotional roller coaster of thoughts and views, as she shifts alliances and realizes that her family are stifling her and not giving her the emotional support that she wants. Rosemary the archetypal control freak, never bothers to give Melissa affection; " she monitors Melissa - "she puts up fence posts and strings barbed wire." And as the story progresses we get a feeling of inevitable doom as Blake and her start to meddle in political cover-ups that spiral out of their control. The effects of lies, deceit and betrayal are at the thematic core of this novel. Melissa lies to her mother and father, her best friend Emily, her lover Blake, and her siblings. And Blake, in turn, lies to Emily and his family, the consequences of this are that no one is ever as they seem, as loyalties of friends and family shift and blur. This is a terrific piece of work, and is almost reminiscent of Donna Tartt's A Secret History in tone and content. You won't be able to put The Third Child down. Michael
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