The Red Tent
Anita Diamant, 1997
Historical fiction Contemporary fiction
A silenced biblical daughter gets a voice, and with it the mothers, rituals and bloodlines that raised her.
Feels like tenderness and awe. About family and memory.
A page from the book
What women know about blood that men have never been told.
The great mother whom we call Innana gave a gift to woman that is not known among men, and this is the secret of blood. The flow at the dark of the moon, the healing blood of the moon’s birth - to men, this is flux and distemper, bother and pain. They imagine we suffer and consider themselves lucky. We do not disabuse them.In the red tent, the truth is known. In the red tent, where days pass like a gentle stream, as the gift of Innana courses through us, cleansing the body of last month’s death, preparing the body to receive the new month’s life, women give thanks — for repose and restoration, for the knowledge that life comes from between our legs, and that life costs blood. Anita Diamant.Anita Diamant was a journalist and author of The New Jewish Wedding, a guide to Jewish wedding rituals, before turning to fiction.
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Questions readers ask
- What is The Red Tent like?
- Feels like tenderness and awe. About family and memory.
- What should I read after The Red Tent?
- If you liked The Red Tent, try The Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan), She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) and The Names (Florence Knapp).
A taste of the feed
A place at the table, handed down whether or not you asked.
My father has asked me to be the fourth corner at the Joy Luck Club.
The Joy Luck Club · Amy Tan
The war between a father's absence and a mother's silence, told by a child.
I wanted my father to be at home laughing with Ma on Saturday afternoons, instead of with Mrs. Masicotte, who had yellowy white hair and a fat little body like Zahra’s. My father called Mrs. Masicotte by her first name, LuAnn; Ma called her, simply, “her.” “It’s her,” she’d tell Daddy whenever the telephone interrupted our dinner.
She’s Come Undone · Wally Lamb
What parents quietly pack away, and never mention afterward.
She suspects that, to be a good parent, she must pack away the mothering part of herself into a box and gently close the lid on it. She had not realised this is what would be required of her, had not seen it coming. And yet she will do so willingly. Would you lay down your life for your child? the world silently asks. Yes, she’s done this. But she hadn’t known there would be a second reckoning, where this would eventually mean laying down the arms of motherhood: caution, foreseeing, checking, reminding, nurturing, openly caring.
The Names · Florence Knapp
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