Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy is a notable American author known for her diverse body of work, which includes poetry, prose, memoir, and drama. Growing up in a middle-class Detroit family during the 1950s, she faced societal constraints that discouraged women's aspirations in writing. Despite these challenges, Piercy became the first in her family to attend college, ultimately earning a master’s degree. Her literary voice emerged prominently during the transformative period of the 1960s and 1970s, as she explored women’s experiences, cultural changes, and class issues.
Her notable works include the best-selling novel *Gone to Soldiers*, which portrays the lives of women during World War II, and *Body of Glass*, which combines dystopian themes with Jewish mysticism. Piercy's writing is characterized by its psychological depth and cultural relevance, allowing her characters' struggles to resonate with readers. In addition to her literary achievements, she co-founded Leapfrog Press, highlighting her commitment to independent publishing. Throughout her career, Piercy has remained an influential voice in feminist literature, continuing to address women's lives and societal challenges well into the twenty-first century.
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Subject Terms
Marge Piercy
- Born: March 31, 1936
- Birthplace: Detroit, Michigan
Author Profile
Marge Piercy grew up in a Detroit middle-class neighborhood during the 1950s. She was reared in a typical patriarchal family in which her father worked away from home, and her mother was home to care for the house and the children. As a child, she loved to write stories and poetry, although she was told by her family and her culture that she was wasting her time. The message was that girls and women could not become serious writers because of their predestined role as wives and mothers.
Piercy’s persistence became stronger as she grew up; she became the first in her family to attend college after winning a scholarship to the University of Michigan, then went on to earn a master's degree at Northwestern University. Her character Miriam, in the novel Small Changes, seems to be a fictionalized account of the young Piercy. After the completion of her formal education she became one of the most prolific writers to chronicle the massive changes that were happening to women and the world during the 1960s and 1970s—and onward into the twenty-first century.
Piercy used her own experiences as background for her characters. In the timeframe she wrote, society was just beginning to understand the realities endured by White, middle-class women. Her work has become one of the foremost records of women’s history of that time—although she had difficulty finding a publisher due to the overt feminism of her works. Piercy uses psychological and cultural language to tell her story and examined the effects that cultural and political changes had on ordinary people. As a result, her work can be understood and related. Piercy is a master at using the power of language to describe herself and, as a result, her characters as well. Her writings include poetry, prose, memoir, and drama, and the settings range from the French Revolution to the distant future, but all her works share a concern with women's lives and the struggles they face in society. Piercy also deals with class issues, environmentalism, and Jewish themes. Her 1987 novel Gone to Soldiers, which relates the experiences of women of various backgrounds during World War II, was a New York Times best-seller. Her 1991 novel Body of Glass (also known as He, She, and It), weaves elements of dystopian science fiction and Jewish mysticism into the story. The book tells of a woman's quest to regain custody of her son. It won the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award, given annually to the best science fiction novel to be published in the previous year.
In 1996 she and her third husband, Ira Wood, founded the independent publishing company Leapfrog Press, which has published some of Piercy's work. They sold the company in 2008. Piercy continued to write novels and publish poetry through the 1990s and into the twenty-first century. In 2005, Piercy published Sex Wars, which detailed the life of a Jewish woman living in post-Civil War New York City. This novel was representative of the author’s growing interest in Judaism. In 2015, she published the poetry collection, Made in Detroit, and in 2020, she published a collection of poetry titled, On the Way Out, Turn Off the Light.
Bibliography
Bernardo, Susan M., ed. Environments in Science Fiction: Essays on Alternative Spaces. Jefferson: McFarland, 2014. Print.
Bolton, Judy. “Marge Piercy: Q&A at New England Jewish Poetry Festival.” Jewish Boston, 16 Feb. 2021, www.jewishboston.com/read/marge-piercy-qa-at-new-england-jewish-poetry-festival. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.
Cooperman, Jeanette. The Broom Closet: Secret Meanings of Domesticity in Postfeminist Novels by Louise Erdrich, Mary Gordon, Toni Morrison, Marge Piercy, Jane Smiley, and Amy Tan. New York: Lang, 1999. Print.
Doherty, Patricia. Marge Piercy: An Annotated Bibliography. Westport: Greenwood, 1997. Print.
Godwin, Michelle Gerise. “Marge Piercy.” The Progressive 65.1 (2001): 27–30. Print.
McManus, Terry. “Bio — Marge Piercy.” Marge Piercy, margepiercy.com/bio. Accessed 26 Apr. 2023.
Michael, Magali Cornier. Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction. Albany: State U of New York P, 1996. Print.
Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. Oxford: Lang, 2014. Print.
Piercy, Marge. Sex Wars: A Novel of the Turbulent Post-Civil War Period. New York: Morrow, 2005. Print.
Piercy, Marge. "There Is No Silence: An Interview with Marge Piercy." Interview by Elton Furlanetto. Utopian Studies 25.2 (2014): 416–30. Print.
Robinson, Lillian S., ed. Modern Women Writers. Vol. 3. New York: Continuum, 1996. Print.
Rodden, John. “A Harsh Day’s Light: An Interview with Marge Piercy.” The Kenyon Review 20.2 (1998): 132–43. Print.
Seed, David. Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print,
Shand, Kerstin. The Repair of the World: The Novels of Marge Piercy. Westport: Greenwood, 1994. Print.
Wainer, Nora R. “Women Writers of the Left: Le Sueur, Piercy, and Lessing.” Against the Current 3.3 (1985): 17–21. Print.
Walker, Sue, and Eugenia Hamner, eds. Ways of Knowing: Essays on Marge Piercy. Mobile: Negative Capability, 1992. Print.