Sex and the married woman

The epigraph of Three Women comes from Baudelaire’s ‘Windows’: ‘What one can see out in the sunlight is always less interesting than what goes on behind a windowpane.’ Inspired by Gay Talese’s 1980 reportage on the sexual revolution, Thy Neighbour’s Wife, Lisa Taddeo, a journalist and Pushcart prize-winning short story writer, peered into the windows of three ‘ordinary’ American women to illustrate their ‘erotic lives and longings’. We meet Lina, a suburban housewife straying from her sexless marriage with an old flame; Maggie, a young woman who has brought charges against a high-school teacher with whom she allegedly had an affair as a student; and Sloane, an elegant restaurateur in her early forties, living out her husband’s cuckold fantasies with partners of his choosing.

Taddeo set out to ‘register the heat and sting of female want, so that men and other women might more easily comprehend before they condemn’. We watch as Maggie — whose story gets the most airtime — is ostracised by her community, while the man she has accused of misconduct thrives as state teacher of the year. Lina’s confidantes cluck about her infidelity, but we see her suffering from her husband’s repeated rejection. Sloane faces the consequences of her actions firsthand when she is confronted by the wife of one of the men with whom she has been involved.

The most poignant parts of Three Women concern class more than desire. Taddeo delicately describes the last days of Maggie’s father’s life before he committed suicide, having sunk into depression after losing his blue-collar job. Pre-#MeToo, Maggie’s experience on the witness stand raises ‘the all too familiar question of when and why and by whom women’s stories are believed’.