BOOK REVIEW
by Anita Diamant
Most Recent Publisher: Scribner
Genre: Historical Fiction
# of Pages: 288
Rating(1-5): 4
Anita Diamant's The Red Tent was so spectacular, I was fearing this book would be a disappointment. While it didn't rise to the magnificence of that first novel, it was still well worth the read and highly entertaining. The story revolves around several diverse and marginal characters who are the last surviving residents of a dying town on New England's Cape Ann around 1800. Diamant does a wonderful job creating genuine people that I could easily relate to and like or dislike, though even the less appealing individuals had redeeming qualities, as in real life.
The book transitions from the story of one Dogtown resident to another and doesn't present a main character or a chief challenge or dilemma to be resolved. If someone had described this to me I may have been put off reading the book, but Diamant manages to use this lack of traditional structure to add to the overall feel and theme of the story... the slow dwindling of the hardscrabble last inhabitants of a bleak little village. Nevertheless, the book has both heart-breaking and warm and fuzzy moments that combined to leave me with the feeling of attachment to the people in the story and a sadness for the dying village.
I would recommend this read to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, particularly about New England, as this engaging book is spiced with the flavor of life in this region of the new nation.
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