Review: Women Within by Anne Leigh Parrish
Anne Leigh Parrish is a contemporary writer based in the Pacific Northwest in the United States. Her novel Women Within contains three case studies, the first dealing with the life of eighty-something feminist professor Constance Maynard, a resident of Liddell Care Home. The second and third are about fifty-something Eunice Fitch and twenty-something Sam Clark, both carers at the same institution. There is little interaction between these three unrelated ladies; three separate storylines switch back and forth, describing their childhood, young adulthood and recent past. All three women come from broken or disharmonious families.
Constance jilts her well-off fiancé, and, after 1946, becomes a university professor for Women’s History, her PhD subject having been fifteenth century English queen Anne Neville (could it be that Parrish herself was intrigued by the notable women brought to life and fleshed out by historical fiction writers of Philippa Gregory’s genre?), yet a glass ceiling prevents her from achieving the status of her male colleagues. A career woman, her love life is restricted to the odd fling and one–night stand. It is difficult to see Constance, who finds a fellow professor “endearing” because of his bad teeth [!], and who continues to see a colleague even after he attempts to rape her, as a role model. It’s like the psychological enigma of philanthropic women who visit, and later marry, imprisoned murderers. Constance’s relationship with her far younger half-sister Meredith, whom she has brought up as a daughter but kept in the dark as to their true relationship, is a strained one. It is heartbreaking to see Constance in old age, cooped up and sedated against her will, but still fiercely independent, within the confines of a retirement home, and losing control over her finances and house, as bankers, lawyers and “daughter” Meredith get ready to incapacitate her.
Eunice gets on better with her docile, beer-drinking layabout of a father than she does with her mother, but it is Grandma Grace whom she respects most. Eunice is so unlucky in her choice of men that I wanted to implore with her not to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. The 1970s she grows up in coincides with the development of the uncompromising, radical Second Wave of feminism, but a multitude of manipulative machos are still on the rampage, and Eunice is one of their victims. A male acquaintance persuades her to speculate with real estate, and cheats her out of the money her grandmother left her, and she is forced to become a carer to earn her keep. Her other relationships are equally disastrous. In the misogynist society in which she lives, she soon, very unfairly, earns a reputation as a “flighty” woman. In reality, Eunice is a good soul who is looking in vain for a lasting relationship. Still, she does possess enough self-respect to evict her unfaithful boyfriend, Carson. Eunice does not believe that she is “college material”, but I can’t help feeling that she is self-deprecating herself as a result of her upbringing. Even today, women are commonly told that they have no need to attend an academic secondary school or university. Ironically, the only erotic moment in the whole book is when Eunice is seduced by another woman, a young student who has chosen to shoot photos of her. Judging by the fact that Eunice is turned on by the French kiss Betty has surprised her with, I can imagine that deep down she is bisexual, and that if she had gone to university and had got involved with a liberally-minded set of friends different to the people she is used to, she may well have opted for a satisfying sexual relationship with another woman, something she would never have dreamt of doing in her present circumstances on account of her conservative upbringing.
Self-conscious, “big-boned” Sam, raised by single mother Flora and unsympathetic grandparents, tries to locate and confront the supposed rapist who fathered her. Not surprisingly, the morbid poems of Sylvia Plath perfectly suit her mood. To her surprise, she is befriended by Timothy, a fraternity boy from university who not only approves of her love of feminist poetry, but accepts her for who she is. Tim tells her that his “pledge”, in other words his initiation ritual for such a student society, consisted of attempting to seduce a young woman who was determined to remain a virgin until after marriage, like in Choderlos De Laclos' Dangerous Liaisons. He tells Sam that “nothing happened”, but there are obvious parallels between this account and what may or may not have occurred between Sam’s parents. Slowly, the story of what happened to Sam’s mother unravels, and we realize that the truth is more complex than the tale Flora related to her daughter.
A recurring, and important, metaphor in the book is that of an ancient tapestry depicting womanhood from the stage of childhood to betrothal to motherhood and finally to widowhood, handed to Constance by an elderly woman during her stay in Europe. Constance’s task is to continue weaving this tapestry, a process which after her death will hopefully be continued by another woman. The disturbing thing is that it is unclear who will take responsibility for the tapestry after she dies. Meredith is not going to do it, but in the absence of further family, the reader is unsure whether this ritual will be perpetuated, or whether the heirloom will be trashed and forgotten. What a way to go. It’s like when you’re thankless kids sell off your highly treasured library of books.
The characters of Women Within are no uplifting Mary Sues, but flawed individuals who for precisely this reason appear as normal, realistic human beings. Eunice and Sam have had some social interaction with some of the more affable residents of Liddell, but never with aloof, standoffish Constance, who dies lonely in her anonymous “old folks' home”, and Meredith, her next-of-kin, does not make her peace with her until it is too late. The tragedy is that the staff of Liddell see Constance as the cryptic, bad-tempered “old bag” who refused her sedatives and who caused them trouble by attempting to escape from the home.
Where there is tragedy, however, there is also hope. Hope for Eunice, whose latest boyfriend supports her “Lillian’s Angels” business venture to allow elderly people to remain semi-independent for as long as possible, and which guilt-ridden Meredith donates money to. Hope for Sam, who has come to terms with her father, and gained a new friend in Timothy, who may encourage her to go on to study the feminist literature she loves. How much more satisfying it would have been, though, if Eunice had struck up a conversation with Constance, and been given advice on her failed relationships? How wonderful it would have been if Sam had been able to consult the professor of yesteryear about the poems of Sylvia Plath
Women Within has a subtle subtext, which is about lost opportunity, respecting the elderly, making one’s peace with relatives, about finding new meaning in life, and perpetuating the torch of womanhood. I enjoyed reading it.
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