The French Revolution has been a rich storehouse of material for English-language novelists ever since Dickens, full of compelling characters, operatic plotlines, and thoroughly modern moral dilemmas. The poet and novelist Marge Piercy seems to be trespassing on Dickens' territory with the parallelism of her title (remember "the best of times" and "the worst of times"?) but she creates an even broader canvas and attempts, with varying success, to bring historical characters to life: Robespierre, for instance, is identified simply as Max. The narrative plunges headlong into the Terror, as Piercy spotlights the heretofore neglected women of the Republic. An old-fashioned historical page-turner, this novel could bring the events following the fall of the Bastille to life for a new generation of readers.


From Publishers Weekly
Depicting the experiences of three brave women, Piercy (Gone to Soldiers) explores the human reality of the French Revolution, bringing to life the immense role women played in bringing down the monarchy. Claire Lacombe escapes the grinding poverty of her youth by becoming an actress in a traveling troupe. Beautiful and filled with the determination that can be forged by enduring hardship, she becomes an inspiring symbol as she dares to participate in pivotal events. Manon Philipon, a jeweler's daughter, idolizes Rousseau and the life of the mind. Marrying an austere government bureaucrat, she learns that she has an innate grasp of politics. Pauline Leon, the owner of a chocolate shop, is galvanized when she witnesses the executions of poor people rioting for bread. Their three stories are deftly braided with the lives of three men?the incorruptible Robespierre, the opportunistic Danton and Nicolas Caritat, an academician trying to walk the high wire between old and new. Men may be necessary to drive the plot, but women are its engine. It is women who take to the streets looking for "justice, bread and freedom," and who win concessions on issues like divorce and inheritance rights. Piercy skillfully juxtaposes the political debates, painfully slow reforms and bloody confrontations against the ironies and absurdities of everyday life. Since the novel offers multiple perspectives, events sometimes overlap and readers must pay close attention to the dates listed with chapter headings. This is a minor obstacle, however, in a novel that adds fresh, powerfully grounding perspective to accepted historical fact. QPB featured alternate. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The best-selling author of epic novels, poetry, and short stories (e.g., The Longings of Women, LJ 1/94) here records the fictional exploits of three influential women who helped pilot the French Revolution.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Sally Eckhoff
The French Revolution, a remarkably handy vehicle for exploring modern concerns, has a new set of wheels thanks to the unusually prolific Marge Piercy.


From Booklist
Piercy is prolific: she has a dozen books of poetry and a dozen novels to her credit. Some, such as The Longings of Women (1993), are outstanding, and many have been exceedingly popular. Her newest novel, an up-close and personal dramatization of the French Revolution, may achieve the latter, but it does not meet the criteria for the former. In her author's note, Piercy explains that she has long been interested in the French Revolution as the birthplace of the women's movement, but what finally inspired her to write about it was her experience living without electricity and running water in the aftermath of a hurricane. This taste of preindustrial life induced Piercy to think about how exhausting the routines of daily life were for poor women living in eighteenth-century France, the sort of strong and angry women who started the bread riots and took to the barricades, the sort of women Piercy portrays with great vividness in this lively, sexy, richly descriptive, easy-to-read but flawed tale. The main problem is Piercy's use of too many viewpoint characters. She alternates between Robespierre, Danton, Madame Roland, Condorcet, Pauline Leon, and Claire Lacombe, a technique that dilutes the impact of each individual. Piercy also (inevitably) oversimplifies events, but her heroines are bold, courageous, and entertaining, and that may be enough. Donna Seaman


From Kirkus Reviews
An awkward and agenda-heavy novel, the second this season on the subject of the French Revolution (see Tanith Lee, above). In an author's note, Piercy (The Longings of Women, 1994, etc.), a self-described woman of the left and feminist, declares that she wanted to write about the Revolution and a ``society in crisis''--18th-century France--that might ``illuminate our own situation.'' While the rich in the US may be getting richer and the poor more desperate, however, the US still isn't Royalist France, so the comparisons are less than persuasive. Still, the stories Piercy's six characters--three of them women--tell are vivid, if marred by clich‚s and colloquialisms (``They're guys just like in the neighborhood''). The narrators, all based on prominent historical figures, include ``Max'' Robespierre, the ascetic absolutist who created the Reign of Terror; Georges Danton, the ebullient orator; Nicholas Condorcet, an intellectual inspired by the example of the American Revolution; Claire Lacombe, an actress and activist; Pauline L‚on, a chocolate-maker who organized the women; and Manon Roland, whose famous last words were, ``Ah, liberty, what crimes are committed in your name.'' Alternate chapters describe the characters' early lives and their revolutionary roles. Max, who heard his mother die in childbirth, resolved never to have children; Claire ran away from home to escape becoming a laundress like her own mother; Pauline, who grew up poor, married an affluent army officer; Nicholas was an aristocrat who broke with his class; Manon used her intellectual talents to further her husband's career; and Georges wanted to retire to his native province and raise a family. All six witness or participate in events like the storming of the Bastille. But as the ``Revolution begins to eat its children,'' they are caught up in the violence. Only Claire and Pauline survive in a France that is altered, somewhat improved, but still flawed. Dickens did it better. (Quality Paperback Book club featured alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
"FAST-PACED . . . PIERCY BREATHES LIFE INTO THE ACTUAL HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO SHAPED THE REVOLUTION."
--San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

In her most splendid, thought-provoking novel yet, Marge Piercy brings to vibrant life three women who play prominent roles in the tumultuous, bloody French Revolution--as well as their more famous male counterparts.

Defiantly independent Claire Lacombe tests her theory: if men can make things happen, perhaps women can too. . . . Manon Philipon finds she has a talent for politics--albeit as the ghostwriter of her husband's speeches. . . . And Pauline Léon knows one thing for certain: the women must apply the pressure or their male colleagues will let them starve. While illuminating the lives of Robespierre, Danton, and Condorcet, Piercy also opens to us the minds and hearts of women who change their world, live their ideals--and are prepared to die for them.

"MASTERFUL . . . PIERCY BRINGS THE BLOOD AND GUTS, THE IDEAS AND PASSIONS, OF THE REVOLUTION TO LIFE."
--The Women's Review of Books

"PIERCY'S STORYTELLING POWERS CAPTURE THE TURBULENCE AND EXCITEMENT OF [THIS] LIBERATING ERA."
--The Boston Herald


From the Inside Flap
"FAST-PACED . . . PIERCY BREATHES LIFE INTO THE ACTUAL HISTORICAL FIGURES WHO SHAPED THE REVOLUTION."
--San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

In her most splendid, thought-provoking novel yet, Marge Piercy brings to vibrant life three women who play prominent roles in the tumultuous, bloody French Revolution--as well as their more famous male counterparts.

Defiantly independent Claire Lacombe tests her theory: if men can make things happen, perhaps women can too. . . . Manon Philipon finds she has a talent for politics--albeit as the ghostwriter of her husband's speeches. . . . And Pauline Léon knows one thing for certain: the women must apply the pressure or their male colleagues will let them starve. While illuminating the lives of Robespierre, Danton, and Condorcet, Piercy also opens to us the minds and hearts of women who change their world, live their ideals--and are prepared to die for them.

"MASTERFUL . . . PIERCY BRINGS THE BLOOD AND GUTS, THE IDEAS AND PASSIONS, OF THE REVOLUTION TO LIFE."
--The Women's Review of Books

"PIERCY'S STORYTELLING POWERS CAPTURE THE TURBULENCE AND EXCITEMENT OF [THIS] LIBERATING ERA."
--The Boston Herald

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Marge Piercy brings to vibrant life three of the women who played prominent roles in the most tumultuous turning point in European history, and tells the intimate stories of the men whose names we know so well. Claire Lacombe escapes the grinding poverty of Pamiers by joining a traveling theatrical troupe as an actress. Defiantly independent, strikingly beautiful, she will become a symbol to many as she tests her theory: if men can make things happen, perhaps women can too...Manon Philipon, a jeweler's daughter, worships Rousseau and the life of the mind. When she marries Jean Roland, a minor provincial bureaucrat, she finds she has a talent for politics - albeit as the ghostwriter of her husband's speeches, and the hostess of his salon...Pauline Leon, owner of a chocolate shop in Paris, witnesses the torture and execution of common people who riot for bread. As the Revolution gathers momentum, Pauline is certain of one thing: the women must apply the pressure, or their male colleagues will let them starve. And so the Revolutionary Republican Woman are born...

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Depicting the experiences of three brave women, Piercy (Gone to Soldiers) explores the human reality of the French Revolution, bringing to life the immense role women played in bringing down the monarchy. Claire Lacombe escapes the grinding poverty of her youth by becoming an actress in a traveling troupe. Beautiful and filled with the determination that can be forged by enduring hardship, she becomes an inspiring symbol as she dares to participate in pivotal events. Manon Philipon, a jeweler's daughter, idolizes Rousseau and the life of the mind. Marrying an austere government bureaucrat, she learns that she has an innate grasp of politics. Pauline Lon, the owner of a chocolate shop, is galvanized when she witnesses the executions of poor people rioting for bread. Their three stories are deftly braided with the lives of three menthe incorruptible Robespierre, the opportunistic Danton and Nicolas Caritat, an academician trying to walk the high wire between old and new. Men may be necessary to drive the plot, but women are its engine. It is women who take to the streets looking for "justice, bread and freedom," and who win concessions on issues like divorce and inheritance rights. Piercy skillfully juxtaposes the political debates, painfully slow reforms and bloody confrontations against the ironies and absurdities of everyday life. Since the novel offers multiple perspectives, events sometimes overlap and readers must pay close attention to the dates listed with chapter headings. This is a minor obstacle, however, in a novel that adds fresh, powerfully grounding perspective to accepted historical fact. QPB featured alternate. (Nov.)

Library Journal

The best-selling author of epic novels, poetry, and short stories (e.g., The Longings of Women, LJ 1/94) here records the fictional exploits of three influential women who helped pilot the French Revolution.

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