Just as she gave voice to the silent women of the Old Testament in The Red Tent, Anita Diamant creates a cast of breathtakingly vivid characters - young women who escaped to Israel from Nazi Europe - in this intensely dramatic novel.

When Kathleen meets Joyce, each woman has come to a turning point in her life. Kathleen, whose sister died of breast cancer 15 years earlier, has just been diagnosed herself and finds her world abruptly thrown into terrifying turmoil. Joyce, increasingly distant from her awkward, adolescent daughter, is taking stock of her marriage and family, and struggling to get to grips with a burgeoning career as a novelist. Neither realizes that their chance meeting will result in a life-altering friendship.

Author of the best seller The Red Tent, Anita Diamant, appears in this edition of Live at the 92nd Street Y. Diamant talks about her place in the unfolding story of America's Jewish renaissance, both as a student of Judaism and as a writer/teacher.

Set on Cape Ann in the early 1800s, The Last Days of Dogtown is peopled by widows, orphans, spinsters, scoundrels, whores, free Africans, and "witches". Nearly a decade ago, Diamant found an account of an abandoned rural backwater near the Massachusetts coastline at the turn of the nineteenth century. That pamphlet inspired a stunning novel about a small group of eccentrics and misfits, struggling in a harsh, isolated landscape only fifty miles north of Boston, yet a world away.

With her trademark wisdom and humor, Anita Diamant (The Red Tent) considers the nature, strength, and necessity of adult female friendship. Good Harbor examines the tragedy of loss, the insidious nature of family secrets, and the redemptive power of friendship.

Passionate, earthy, deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable contribution to modern fiction: a vibrant new perspective of female life in the age that shaped present day civilization and values. If you like The Red Tent, try The Harlot by the Side of the Road, a recounting of some of the most startling and explicit writings from The Old Testament.