The Red Tent Introduction
In a Nutshell
After reading Anita Diamant's novel The Red Tent, you can finally answer that age old question: "Where do babies come from?"
Finally, a book that answers childhood's biggest question without any birds or bees in sight.
Okay, so The Red Tent isn't exactly about where babies come from; it's actually a deeply religious text about a woman's life and her experiences giving birth, becoming a woman, and suffering love and loss. But it's not just that. It's a New York Times Bestseller. This book is huge, and The Boston Globe sums up its importance by saying:
It is tempting to say that The Red Tent is what the Bible would be like if it had been written by women, but only Diamant could have given it such sweep and grace (source).
Yeah, this thing is legit.
By the way, if you happen to be a fan of that book called the Bible, you might even recognize the main character. Her name is Dinah, and she's a minor character in the Book of Genesis. You might even recognize the plot as well, since Diamant pretty much expands on the story we get in Genesis, but from a totally different perspective.
It's always so interesting to delve into the lives of minor characters, because really, all minor characters could be major characters—it just depends on how you look at them. And Diamant was apparently like, "Hey, the women in Genesis kinda seem like minor characters. Let's see what they're actually all about."
So, yeah, this book was huge when it was published in 1997. It's no wonder it was adapted into a miniseries by Lifetime TV in 2014. It even stars Minnie Driver as Leah and Rebecca Ferguson as Dinah.
Seriously, folks: this book has everything.