The Red Tent

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**Title** **The Red Tent**
Cover of the first-edition hardcover
Author	Anita Diamant
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Historical novel
Publisher	St. Martin's Press
Released	October, 1997
Media type	Print (hardcover, paperback)
Pages	321 p. (hardcover edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-312-35376-6

For the movie The Red Tent which refers to a North Pole rescue expedition, see the article Umberto Nobile.

The Red Tent is a novel by Anita Diamant, published in 1997 by St. Martin's Press. It is a first-person narrative which tells the story of Dinah, daughter of Jacob and sister of Joseph, a talented midwife and proto-feminist. The book's title refers to the tent in which women of Jacob's tribe must, according to the ancient law, take refuge while menstruating or giving birth, and in which they find mutual support and encouragement from their mothers, sisters and aunts.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

According to the Bible's book of Genesis, Chapter 34, Dinah was "defiled" by a prince of Shechem, although it is said the prince was mutually in love with Dinah and offered a bride-price fit for royalty. Her brothers Simeon (spelled "Simon" in the book) and Levi are displeased and trick the men of Shechem into accepting circumcision as a means of uniting Jacob's tribe and the people of Hamor, king of Shechem. In the novel, however, Dinah genuinely loves Shalem, the prince, and willingly becomes his bride. She is horrified and grief-stricken by her brothers' murderous rampage, and escapes to Egypt. In time she finds a second chance for love, and dies in peace and happiness.

[edit] Reception

The book was a New York Times bestseller, and is a perennial book club favorite. According to the Los Angeles Times review, "By giving a voice to Dinah, one of the silent female characters in Genesis, the novel has struck a chord with women who may have felt left out of biblical history. It celebrates mothers and daughters and the mysteries of the life cycle." The Christian Science Monitor wrote that the novel "vividly conjures up the ancient world of caravans, shepherds, farmers, midwives, slaves, and artisans.... Diamant's Dinah is a compelling narrator of a tale that has timeless resonance."

In contrast, some Orthodox Jewish commentators believe that its premises are unfounded and that it promulgates an incorrect stereotypical and negative picture of the Patriarchs (Rothman 2001).