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The buzz has been building around Lisa Taddeo's Three Women over the last few months. Never heard of her/the book? Hold tight, because both are about to be on everyone’s lips this summer. As it (finally) hits bookshops, here's why that fruity still life will be ubiquitous in beach bags in the coming months (0h, and here's an excellent essay by Taddeo herself if we've already piqued your interest).
It's like a true crime story – in which the crime is desire
This book follows the lives of three real American women. Lisa is trapped in a dead marriage, who risks everything to have encounters with her high school sweetheart.
Sloane is a well-off, conventionally attractive woman with an enviable marriage to a man who gets off on watching her have sex with other people.
Maggie is a high-school student who falls in love with and has sexual relations with her teacher, which went to trial (not a spoiler; you know this at the beginning of the book).
Lisa and Sloane are kept anonymous, while Maggie’s story is in the public record. Their stories are alternated in a fast-paced way that keeps you turning the pages like there’s no tomorrow.
The writing is absolutely brilliant
It is worth reiterating that this is a non-fiction book: you will likely keep forgetting, because it reads like the most addictive novel. But there is no fluff in this book. Taddeo delivers truths you know in your bones (but have probably never verbalised or made sense of) at breakneck speed.
She makes you see parts of yourself in each of these characters, even if you are sometimes appalled by them. You might find yourself needing to scream into a pillow – it just is that kind of book, the kind that deserves all the hyperbole I’m using right now.
It is infuriating, brutal, eye-opening and reaffirming. Within a day of starting it, I had forced two friends to read it, because it’s impossible not to discuss.
Lisa Taddeo spent eight years researching the book
While the women are all white and the book is quite heteronormative, it's still fascinating not just because of the great writing: the logistics and execution behind it are as interesting as the book itself.
Taddeo spent eight years researching this book. She posted up signs in bars and casinos. She drove across America six times, stopping at diners to read the local papers and see if she spotted any leads. Eventually, she found Maggie, Sloane and Lisa, and she literally moved to the towns in which they lived and shadowed them, interviewed those around them, chatted to them for countless hours.
These women are all in situations out of their control, and pursuing, craving, wanting more – but not sure how to go about that in a world that is not set up for women to do that. This is a book unlike any other you have ever read.
