"... A Weave of Women is an astonishment.... I know of nothing else quite like it." —John Leonard, New York Times
"... an extraordinary novel, an original and beautiful work.... It is an extended epic poem which should become a classic." —The Nation
This magical, powerful, musical book creates a modern liturgy around the lives of fifteen very different women who come together in Jerusalem, a male-dominated culture, in 1972.

A Weave of Women

Literature & Fiction

Broner, Esther

United States

Indiana University Press

E.M. Broner brings us a wonderfully comic and moving novel about the interwoven lives of a group of restless Midwestern grad students in the 1960s. Forty years later, gray-haired and spread around the country, they learn that they were under surveillance during their activist days. At the center is Anka, a lively professor at an Ohio university, who receives an unsolicited Freedom of Information file charting her younger life as part of an eccentric crew who came together around politics and passion. She’s plunged into suspicion (who sent the file and why?), but also into rollicking memories of her compatriots in the “bullpen” of graduate school back in those days: Kevin, the sweet young priest in the process of formally leaving the church, who was her protector and secret crush; “The Farmer,” the only married man among them; the gay poet named Noble and his intimate, Ron, the black professor of Victorian studies; the irrepressible Bernstein, who yearned to start again in the promised land of Israel. One of them becomes a spy, the other a fugitive. Filled with the rich details of the personal and political actions that solidified the group for a time and then splintered it into the l970s, the plot is animated by Anka’s longings for love and justice, and by the unfolding mystery of the Bullpenner who went underground. When their long lost comrade resurfaces, his plight brings all the pen-mates and some of their once prized students together at the glorious finale of this picaresque adventure. Wise, funny, written in quicksilver prose, The Red Squad reminds us how relevant the lessons of the past still are today, and brings us a timeless message of community and hope.

The Red Squad: A Novel

Pantheon

A wonderfully comic novel about the interwoven lives of a group of 1960s grad students who, forty years later, learn that they were under FBI surveillance during their activist days. There’s Anka, who enraged the right-thinking newspaper with her outspoken politics; Kevin, a priest in the process of formally leaving the church; “The Farmer,” an unhappy father and husband; Noble, the gay poet; Ron, the black professor of Victorian studies; and the irrepressible Bernstein, who yearned to start again in the promised land of Israel. One became a spy, one became a fugitive. And when their long lost comrade resurfaces, his plight reunites them in a glorious, unexpected finale that collides past and present.

The Red Squad

Dramas & Plays

Anchor

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Broner, Esther. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Broner, Esther