Noah's Women

About the Book

Noah's Women This novella is a tale of mass murder, attempted rape, fratricide, and both filial devotion and rebellion. It is an attempt to rectify some omissions in a well-known story. Who were the women who participated in the Flood? What was the life they led on the famed Ark? There are six chapters--one telling Noah’s own thoughts of rebellion against an unfair God, one by his silently suffering wife, and four by each one of the sons’ wives. (The fourth son, Aaron, has not been recorded in Jewish folklore. Noah banished him from memory.) These four wives--the mythological forebears of all who came after that Deluge--are as different as human beings can be: the first, like Noah’s own wife, is a quiet, submissive person who believes in male dominance. The second is an out-of-step egalitarian with the good fortune to find a similar husband. The third is a secretive, manipulative bisexual; and the last, a spoiled child bride who brings misfortune on herself through pride and a belief in caste superiority no longer functional in times of disaster. TRAMONTANE This is a mythic tale of a giant wanderer who is telling the story of his continuing search for his people, for acceptance, and for love. Over the years the first of these continues to evade him, but finally he finds both acceptance and love in the person of a stranger whose tragic end propels the old story-teller to revenge and the acceptance of his own death.

About the Author

Elizabeth Léonie Simpson has published nonfiction books (Norton, Ballinger, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, and Jossey-Bass), novels (Smith Publications; Xlibris), chapters in various books by others, articles in professional journals including book reviews, and short stories and poetry in a number of literary magazines. She is a University of California (Berkeley) Ph. D. who lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains in northern California with her husband, John Wurr.