He, She and It (74 page)

I would particularly like to thank the head of the Research Department of the State Jewish Museum in Prague, Dr. Vladimir Sadek, who was extremely kind to me when I showed up for an appointment that turned out in a mysterious comedy of errors never to have existed. Above all, Jirina Sedinova of the Jewish Museum shared her time and research with me and was very helpful and warm, as well as fun to gossip with about Judah and David and company. I was in Prague in ’68 and in the course of writing this novel returned; like Malkah, I remain in love with that city.

I would like to thank a particular student at Loyola in Chicago, where I put in a week of residency one April shortly after I had started this novel. In the course of a lively conversation about science fiction, he told me that when he read
Woman on the Edge of Time
, he couldn’t believe the date of publication, because the alternate universe that Connie blunders into in Chapter 15 anticipated cyberpunk. What’s cyberpunk? I asked, and he started me off. I enjoy William Gibson very much, and I have freely borrowed from his inventions and those of other cyberpunk writers. I figure it’s all one playground. Donna Haraway’s essay “A Manifesto for Cyborgs” was extremely suggestive also; Constance Penley of
Camera Obscura
was kind enough to send it to me.

I have found the newsletters and meetings of the Artificial Intelligence group of the Boston Computer Society stimulating. Lest anybody think that the experiences in the Net and Base in the novel are fantastic make-believe, be aware that even now
companies are working on sensor nets that permit a person to “walk into” data and experience it as real objects in imaginary space. As for the destruction of the ozone layer and the results of global warming, your local library surely has this information, as mine did.

I would like to thank Arthur Waskow for suggesting to me, at a meeting of the Siddur Project of P’Nai Or on which we both worked, that I might find kabbalah valuable to study. I owe a debt, as does everyone interested in kabbalah or the Golem, to Gershom Scholem and, even more, to Moshe Idel and, in understanding Judah Loew, to André Neher. My interpretations, of course, are very much my own.

Finally I want to thank Lois Wallace, my agent and friend, for her vigorous efforts on behalf of my work; and Sonny Mehta, the editor of this novel, for his valuable tough reading and helpful hints for cyborg makers.

As always with the novels of mine I most enjoy writing, this has been a strange and instructive journey.

About the Author

Marge Piercy is the author of numerous novels, among them
Woman on the Edge of Time, Vida, Braided Lives, Gone to Soldiers
, and
Summer People
. Her fifteen collections of poetry include
The Moon Is Always Female: Circles on the Water
(her selected poems);
Stone, Paper, Knife; My Mother’s Body; Available Light;
and
Mars and Her Children
. She has coauthored a play,
The Last White Class
, with her husband Ira Wood, the novelist and screenwriter, with whom she lives on Cape Cod.

Nationally acclaimed author

MARGE
PIERCY

has written several novels about the devastating effects of our changing society over the years. Each is unique, yet each finds hope in the resilience of the human spirit and courage from the strength of the human will.

Look for these classics in Fawcett paperback wherever books are sold.

WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME

Connie Ramos is labeled insane and is committed to a mental institution, but the truth is that Connie is overwhelmingly and heroically sane and tuned in to the future. She is able to communicate with the year 2137 where two ways of life—one beautiful and one horrific—are competing. In Connie’s struggle to prevent a brain control operation, we find the timeless battle between good and evil, between beauty and terror.

VIDA

She remembered the early fugitive days when half the police in the country seemed to have nothing to do but search for her. No time for anything but running, never sleeping in the same place two nights straight. She had been there and she was Vida—the charismatic red-haired beauty from the pages of
Life
magazine. She was a star and a symbol of the passionate rebellion of the 1960s. And now, years later, the shouting is over, but Vida is still a fugitive on the run and still searching for love and peace.

DANCE THE EAGLE TO SLEEP

A passionate, powerfully imagined novel about young rebels driven underground by a tyrannical society. They call themselves the Indians. Meet Shawn, a rock music celebrity; Corey, part Indian, whose heritage gave the movement its name; Billy, a brilliant young scientist; and Joanna, a runaway “army brat” who survives on pot and sex. Through the experiences of these four young revolutionaries, this macabre and moving adventure brings an all-too-possible future into shattering focus.

SUMMER PEOPLE

Dinah, Willie, and Susan are artists who live year-round in a small resort town on Cape Cod. They have long outlived the scandal associated with their ten-year-old menage-à-trois. Strange as it looks on the outside, each person has needs it takes the other two to satisfy. Then one summer, the balance shifts, and the trio must face the changes brought by their beautiful visitors.

SMALL CHANGES

Intelligent, sensual Miriam Berg trades her doctorate for a marriage and security, only to find herself hungry for a life of her own—but terrified of losing her husband. Shy, frightened Beth ran away from the very life Miriam seeks—to a new world and a different kind of love. Set against the early days of the feminist movement, this is the story of two women and the choices they must make.

THE HIGH COST OF LIVING

Leslie has lost her lover, Valerie, to another woman, and she is questioning her entire life. She becomes involved in a strange erotic triangle with idealistic young Honor and Bernie, a homosexual street hustler trying to settle down. Leslie and Bernie both want Honor, but Honor just wants a little spice in her life.

BRAIDED LIVES

Going to college when the first seeds of sexual freedom are sown, wry, independent Jill thrives in the new free-spirited world of social and sexual awakening, while her beautiful cousin Donna desperately searches for a man to save her from herself. As their futures assume contrary paths, Jill and Donna realize that they may be separated, but they’ll never be truly divided from one another.

FLY AWAY HOME

Successful Boston cookbook author Daria Walker is devastated to learn that her husband Ross wants
a divorce. Now she must put her life back together. As she strives to understand the life she is losing, Daria must face the shocking truth about Ross and recreate her own values, her own sense of family, and herself.

GOING DOWN FAST

The University said that it would bring new life to the blighted neighborhood. And there was nothing people like Anna, the casualty of a broken marriage, or Rowley, the blue-eyed soul singer, could do as the walls began to crack. They watched their friends and neighbors disappear in the dust of the wrecking ball. All they could do was hope for something better, or maybe even love.