Good Harbor by Anita Diamant

Good Harbor
Overview and Analysis

After great success of her first novel The Red Tent, Diamant went on to writing a new novel about women’s experiences. This novel was called Good Harbor. The novel takes place in present-day Cape Ann, Massachusetts and explores the lives of two emotional mothers, Kathleen Levine and Joyce Tabachnik. Kathleen is a devoted children’s librarian, a convert to Judiasm, who meets Joyce who is a freelance writer. Both women are experiencing turning points in their lives. At 59 years old Kathleen is diagnosed with breast cancer and desperatley needs a friend to share her painful past secrets to. Joyce who is a little younger and energetic at 42 years old is trying to reconnect with an estranged adolescent daughter and trying to hold onto her marriage. Both women are going through difficult times and realize they can depend on one another for support. Kathleen and Joyce rekindle their histories to help heal the wounds during long graceful walks on Harbor Beach. In this novel Diamant takes the reader through these women lives. She gives us passion, love, friendship, traditions, culture, and turmoil.

The plot of Good Harbor comes from true events that have taken place in Diamant’s life and the lifes of women that she knows. Breast cancer is a big fear for many women and Diamant continues to have friends getting the aweful frighting news that they too have the horrifying disease. She spoke to friends who experienced breast cancer and medical professionals in order to write a first-hand detailed description on the life experiences Kathleen would endure will fighting for her life.

I think Good Harbor is an excellent novel to read. Diamant is so descriptive and poetic. She allows you to imagine every detail and to feel as though you are able to experience the actual walks on the beach. She really illustrates how two women can confide in eachother and develop such a strong relationship. Her novel allows women to relate to their friendships with their girlfriends and enable them to open up and share the same trust as these two women shared. The two women discover, as Diamant writes, "an endless supply of things to talk about. Headlines, bathing suits, books, and story by story, themselves." Everyone needs companionship to get through life, whether it’s in a man or a woman. Diamant demonstrated this in her novel that with great friendship comes with support and love.

Good Harbor relates to the short story “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell, which we read and discussed in class. This short story and Good Harbor relate to the theme of social construction. In “A Jury of Her Peers” Mrs. Peters and Martha came together as women to cover up a crime that the men did not believe a woman was capable of commiting. Both stories show how much faith women have in eachother in order to survive in a day to day life. For example, my bestfriend and I are extremley close. We have been friends for over 10 years and still continue to hold a strong bond that no man will ever break. Women trust other women to confide into and share their deepest, darkest secrets and feelings. Just like Joyce who was going by a fake pen name because her real name was not sufficient enough for romance novels. After purchasing a cottage on Cape Ann, she finally builds up the courage to write five pages a day and publish a “real” book under her real name. Anita Diamant illustrated that in her novel and made a great connection on the importance of friendship.

Some other themes that relate to what we have discussed in class are motherhood and identity. Diamant’s portrayal of identity was expressed in her characters. In the novel, she labels each character as being Jewish. Diamant takes her own beliefs, Judiaism, her female persepectives and relates them to the characters of Kathleen and Joyce. Kathleen and Joyce both go through a time of depression, sadness, mental exhaustion, and loss of identity. The bond of sisterhood the women find in each other becomes a good harbor in itself. Both characters are mothers who have a troublesome relationship with their children and who want to rebuild that void in their lives. 3

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

The Red Tent

Overview and Analysis

The first fiction novel that Anita Diamant wrote explores the lives of women in biblical times. In The Red Tent the main character Dinah, the only daughter in Jacob’s tribe, narrates her perception of life within Jacob’s family. She discusses the roles of the men and women in the community and how the women have had a major impact in her life. As the only female offspring in her generation, Dinah is pampered and given much attention to by her mothers and the women in the tribe. The power of the relationships between the female characters in the novel influenced Dinah’s future.

Later in the novel Dinah falls in love with the Prince of Shechem, named Shalem. This is the famous biblical story known as the “Rape of Dinah.” But in this fiction novel, Diamant portrays that Dinah is in love with the prince and that she was not a victim of a horrible crime. Two of Dinah’s brothers murder Shalem. This upsets Dinah so much that she curses her family and moves to Egypt with her mother-in-law. There she gives birth to Re-mose, son of the prince. After a time, Dinah remarries to a carpenter named Benia. Dinah becomes happy with her new family and is also a renowned midwife in the town. She lives out her days and dies a happy woman.

This novel holds many themes that relate to our course. It addresses patriarchy and the male-centric perspective of the Bible, gender roles in that society, and essentialism. The book, even though it was not an attempt to fill in the gaps in the Bible, provides the woman’s viewpoint of the stories in the Bible. This avoids the male-centric narrative by replacing it with the narrative of Dinah, the only daughter in Jacob’s tribe. Within this patriarchal society, Dinah found refuge with the women in the family. She escaped from the male canon to explore the female relations that helped hold the family together. This can be related to the gender roles that were present in the Biblical times. In the story and in the Bible, the female members of the community were required to cook and run the family camps while the males tend to the flocks or farms and provide the income for the family. The women also cared for the girls in the family while the men cared for the boys. The boys would play games that were meant for boys and they would learn how to tend to the flock or become an apprentice in their father’s line of work. The same process was used to rear the girls. They would follow their mothers around and learn the trade secrets of keeping the camp and cooking for the family, much like Dinah did in the novel. This also plays into the concept of essentialism. Women were supposed to give birth and care for children, while men were supposed to be source of income for the family. The idea was that the women had the personality and skills for being at home to be caring and loving for the household while men had the strength and capacity for gaining financial and political success. It was biologically imprinted into the society for the separation of gender within the community.

These multiple themes can fall into the broader category that has been studied throughout the course. This is social construction. All of these ideas came out of the social construction of the authors of the Bible. Diamant takes these ideas and transforms them through the eyes of a female character who must follow those rules of society. It is an interesting book because it takes the this female perspectives and gives an interpretation of Biblical stories. It is another way to view the Bible and is an innovative and influential piece in literature. 2

Bio

Anita Diamant has been active in society in many ways in addition to her involvement to the literary realm, but her most recent and most prolific contribution has been the creation of Mayyim Hayyim, a Jewish community center. This is a traditional Mikveh, which is a place where members of the Jewish faith go to study and celebrate Jewish spirituality. She founded the Mayyim Hayyim in 2004. Diamant’s goal was to create a place where individuals could go reflect and meditate for as long as they pleased. This was inspired by her personal experience with other Mikveh’s. Many people were lined up to commence in rituals but they seemed less meaningful to Diamant because the spiritual seekers had little time to fully experience the ceremonies. They were being pushed through in order for the rabbis to provide service to the entire line of people. This is not the experience that Diamant wanted for herself or others. Thus the Mayyim Hayyim was established to avoid such hasty procedures of the Jewish faith. 1

Bio

Anita Diamant is a Jewish-American fiction and non-fiction writer. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. A Master’s Degree in English soon followed from Binghamton University in upstate New York. Diamant started her career as a freelance journalist in Boston in 1975, writing for many magazines and newspapers including the Boston Globe, the New England Monthly and Self magazine. Diamant wrote about issues ranging from celebrities and popular culture to politics and medical ethics. Soon after her experience in journalism, Diamant transitioned into self-help books. Her specialty focused on Jewish life guidebooks that embraced the Jewish community, especially supporting the female members of the society. After gaining success with the guide books, Diamant decided to try her hand at fiction novels. Her first book was called The Red Tent, and became a New York Times Bestseller. This book addresses female roles and perspectives in the male-centric world of the Bible and how the women in the novel were able to maintain friendships. This theme continued throughout the next three of her novels, all of which contain women supporting each other and using their friendships as a source of strength and happiness. Diamant’s popularity grew and now she has books in 25 countries world-wide. 1