Book overview -
Dinah opens the story by recounting for readers the union of her mother Leah and father Jacob, as well as the expansion of the family to include Leah's sister Rachel, and Zilpah and Bilhah. Leah is depicted as capable but testy, Rachel something of a belle but kind and creative, Zilpah as mature and serious and Bilhah as the gentle and quiet one of the quartet. The book also downplays the rivalry between Leah and Rachel that is prominent in the Biblical account (see especially Genesis 30: 8 - 15).
Dinah remembers sitting in the red tent with her mother and aunts, gossiping about local events and taking care of domestic duties between visits to Jacob, the patriarch of the family. A number of other characters not seen in the Biblical account appear here, including Laban's second wife Ruti and her feckless sons.
According to the Bible's account in Genesis 34, Dinah was "defiled" by a prince of Shechem, although he is described as being genuinely in love with Dinah. He also offers a bride-price fit for royalty. Displeased at how the prince treated their sister, her brothers Simeon (spelled "Simon" in the book) and Levi treacherously tell the Shechemites that all will be forgiven if the prince and his men undergo the Jewish rite of circumcision so as to unite the people of Hamor, king of Shechem, with the tribe of Jacob. The Shechemites agree, and shortly after they go under the knife, while incapacitated by pain, they are murdered by Dinah's brothers and their male servants, who then rescue Dinah.
In The Red Tent, Dinah genuinely loves the prince, and willingly becomes his bride. She is horrified and grief-stricken by her brothers' murderous rampage. After cursing her brothers and father she escapes to Egypt where she gives birth to a son. In time she finds another love, and reconciles with her brother Joseph, now prime minister of Egypt. At the death of Jacob, she visits her estranged family. She learns she has been all but forgotten by her other living brothers and father but that her story lives on with the females of Jacob's tribe.
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