Finished Sa 11/1/25
This is one of my ancient trade paperbacks that I had never read.
I loved the book and I had never read anything like it. It really delved into the personal lives of the anit-war movement people in the late 60's and early 70's.
Although the political objectives were explained it was more about the intimate lives of the people themselves.
Vida is married (I guess 'estranged' from her husband. He's a leftist radio host living 'above ground' and she's 'underground'), but welcomes lovers of both sexes. And, I think that it's put in such a way that you could believe that she is striving for something that 'might work'. Vida is definitely revolutionary in her sexual choices. I loved the book.
From THE SUNDAY TIMES-
"Many people consider Vida to be one of the most important American political novels. It may well be, but when I sat down to write this piece I realised that I don’t care about Vida’s politics. (I have an unhappy feeling that Piercy, best known for her feminist sci-fi classic Woman on the Edge of Time, would disapprove, mightily, and wouldn’t want to be friends with me.) Instead, I love this novel for the absorbing details of Vida’s life underground, and the unmatched character development, and the racing narrative, and the sumptuous, sparkling prose. It’s a powerhouse of a reading experience, and I’m wildly jealous of anyone who gets to read it for the first time.
It’s impossible — literally impossible — to read Vida without questioning your own existence. What if you had to run, right now? Who would you turn to and how would you contact them? I have spent untold hours speculating with my husband about emergency meeting plans in the unlikely event that I become a fugitive. We’ll meet in the café in Queens Park. Or we’ll have a “brush contact” in the tunnel under the Finchley Road — the tunnel is perfect because the slight curve prevents visibility from either end. We’ll meet the third Saturday of every month at the Science Museum (down near the Wonderlab in case he has the boys with him and needs to keep them entertained).
What would your life be like if basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing and healthcare became nearly unobtainable luxuries? What if, like Vida, you had to deflect the sexual advances of those who offered you refuge without offending them? What if you had to watch from the shadows as your husband found a new love? What if you had to be constantly vigilant, never allowing yourself to relax totally with a good book or a glass of wine or a delicious meal (not that you could afford those things anyway)? What if you couldn’t visit your mother in hospital or call your sister just to hear the sound of her voice? How would you stay relevant personally and professionally while living a marginalised existence (a struggle still as real for many people today as it was five decades ago)?
It’s also impossible not to sympathise with Vida. Yes, the limits on her life are her doing, but Piercy’s character development is subtle and nuanced. There are throughout hints that Vida doesn’t believe her own propaganda. When her boyfriend suggests that they stop running and get a small house somewhere, Vida reminds him sharply that she didn’t go under to hide, she needs to remain politically active. Yet privately she’s “astonished at the wave of nostalgia” she experiences just thinking about it.
When Vida’s former husband marries his young girlfriend, Vida has a straight-up jealous meltdown about whether her embroidered Cretan tapestry is still hanging above their bed. She wants it back pronto, and never mind that she has nowhere to hang it. Yet Piercy doesn’t make Vida an antihero; she makes Vida a hero, the character whose fate matters most to the reader. And that, my friends, is a dazzling feat of novel writing.
Vida’s politics are questionable at best, her actions criminal, her justifications transparent, her sense of entitlement shocking, yet, oh, how I love her. I love her intelligence and her complexity and even her stubbornness (although she’s wrong about the armed struggle thing). I care about her the way I care about all my loved ones. I want her to find love and happiness and an undocumented yet fulfilling job that will allow her to buy a remote farmhouse with a large hot water tank (Vida loves baths) so she can drink coffee with cream every morning in her pyjamas in her very own kitchen.
If I sound a little possessive, it’s because Vida long ago burst from the confines of the novel and now lives her fringe existence in my world. I see her in every woman who hides her face behind a newspaper in a café, every woman who keeps her head turned towards the window on a bus. It’s not exaggerating to say that my life would be duller without Vida in it, that if I had never read this novel, the loss to my creative life would be incalculable. And that makes one thing very clear: Marge Piercy has talent to spare."
