The female persuasion, by Meg Wolitzer

Faith Frank is described in Wolitzer’s novel, as “a couple steps down from Gloria Steinem in fame,” but the similarities are clear.  Faith is blond, tall, and still stunningly beautiful in signature high suede boots, even into her early seventies.   She is the author of The female persuasion a seminal feminist book written in 1984, and editor of Bloomer, which is also a couple of steps down from Ms.  When freshman Greer Kadetsky’s new college friend, Zee, urges her to come with her to hear Frank speak on campus, it is life-changing for Greer.  Greer’s hippy-dippy parents have been too stoned to fill out her financial aid forms correctly and she is stuck at a small New York liberal arts college rather than with her high-school boyfriend, Cory, at Princeton where they both were accepted but only Cory received aid.  An incident at a frat party, where she is groped by a senior, also contributes to Greer’s budding feminism, which is sealed when she accompanies another friend to a back street abortion and the friend nearly bleeds to death.  Ultimately, Greer will come to work for Faith after college on a new women’s foundation, funded by the morally-dubious hedge fund owner, Emmett Shrader, after Bloomer goes under.  Cory’s life goes off the rails not long afterwards because of a family tragedy which will drive Greer and him apart. Although the characters are fully realized and the multiple plots are engaging, this reads rather like a long exposition on feminism.  By the book’s end, we are in the present day when many if not most of the gains made by earlier women are under threat on all sides, even from some women (the friend who had an abortion becomes an influential pro-life senator, as does her daughter).  Although by the end of the book Greer and Cory find successful places in life, the future of feminism seems less hopeful.  454 pp.