“The Red Tent” is a novel written by Anita Diamant, an award-winning journalist and author. The book gives a first-hand narrative of women from the book of Genesis, relaying their stories from a decidedly female perspective.

Actually a two-part tome, the first focuses on sisters Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah, all sprung from the same father and later married to Jacob, one of the prominent male figures in the Old Testament. The second part focuses on Dinah, the only daughter out of thirteen children delivered to Jacob, whose role in the Bible consists of a microscopic and highly pessimistic couple of lines from the book of Genesis. Diamant demonstrates rich storytelling skills as she forms a novel based on the ancient and complex culture before the rise of Christianity.

Dictated by women, one of the key features of “The Red Tent”  is the markedly different outlook it gives to key Biblical stories. Playing backseat roles to men like Jacob in the Bible, Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, Bilhah and Dinah now experience their time in the limelight, giving a fresh and realistic take on the social mandates of the time, the archaic custom of polygamy, and female experiences with male dominance, friendship, and childbirth. By giving these women their own voices in which they relate their own roles, Diamant enables readers to feel personally connected to Biblical times and characters by giving them an interesting and relatable back story.

While we buy into their descriptions and immerse ourselves in their stories, however, “The Red Tent” is still a novel. Its accounts are different than those of the Bible, and some readers may be offended by the portrayal of such men as Jacob and his sons, who are not heralded as Christian heroes but shown as humans with serious flaws.

While I personally celebrate the novel’s empowerment of female characters, this is a book clearly meant for women readers. One of its main themes is the bond formed between women, and the red tent that gives the book its name is the place where female family members congregate when menstruating or givingbirth. Childbirth is another big component of the book. Rachel and Dinah are both midwives, and the novel, especially in the first part, is filled with graphic and descriptive scenes of birthing, sometimes ending with the death of the child or mother. While such scenes were a primary concern of the times, Diamant perhaps includes a few too many, causing attention to focus more on the explicit detail than her rich narrative.

The second part of the book, narrated by Dinah, is when the plot deepens and becomes more focused, sharing her childhood in the family of Jacob, her marriage to Egyptian prince Shalem and the murder of he and his family by Dinah’s own father and brothers. When Dinah and Shalem’s mother Re-nefer escape to her family in Egypt, another emotionally stirring scene occurs when Dinah gives birth to Shalem’s son and has him taken from her by the family.

Though ‘The Red Tent” in summary sounds depressing, the true message of the story is one of perseverance and strength, bettering life and accepting the challenge of dealing with uncontrollable changes. Dinah grows into a self-actualized woman through the tragedies she faces and the book ends with her death in the midst of loved ones. Diamant’s first novel displays the strength of her storytelling skills and grants the reader a glimpse into the compelling and realistic world of Biblical times.