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AuthorsReading Marge Piercy
Any other Marge Piercy fans here? I have started rereading Vida, and she is so damn good at the overt and covert power struggles between women and the "nice guys" in their lives.
For those who have not read it, Vida is a political fugitive in the US, facing 20 years in prison if she is caught. She was the most visible (female, red-haired, attractive) member of a radical cell adjacent to the Weathermen. But that was 10 years ago, and she has been surviving underground by moving from place to place, using a network of current activists, former political allies gone respectable, old friends and old lovers. The book starts with a dinner between herself and Hank, one of the former activists gone respectable, in Hank's apartment with a view of the New York skyline. "Like a bad date" thinks Vida, smiling and fending off his insistence on refilling her wine glass, and planning how to evade his sexual expectations while still getting what she needs to survive from him--a place to stay, discretion, money to live and move on, information about others in their circle, and his company on a walk to the nearby pharmacy (because the area is dangerous for women and she can't afford an incident) to get hair dye and tampons.