"The Love Children is valuable in its exploration and depiction of the many ways in which gender can still be a limitation, even within a supposedly more enlightened society."—Bust Magazine

Marilyn French's 1977 novel The Women's Room epitomized the feminist movement and became one of the most influential books of our time. Now, in her last novel, she has captured the complexities of life for the daughters of The Women's Room generation in her highly anticipated new novel The Love Children.

It is the late 1960s in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Grateful Dead is playing on the radio and teenagers are wearing long hair and blue jeans. Jess Leighton, the daughter of a temperamental painter and a proto-feminist Harvard professor, is struggling to make sense of her world amid racial tensions, Vietnam War protests, and anti-government rage. With more options than her mother's generation, but no role model for creating the life she desires, Jess experiments with sex and psychedelic drugs as she searches for happiness on her own terms. In the midst of joining and fleeing a commune, growing organic vegetables, and operating a sustainable restaurant, Jess grapples with the legacy of her mother's generation.

Marilyn French is the author of The Women's Room, In the Name of Friendship, and From Eve to Dawn, a four-volume series of women's history throughout the world.

"[Marilyn French] draws on a vast body of research and help from consultants in all sorts of fields, to open out areas that are rarely accessible."-Guardian

"As a reference work it's invaluable: the bibliographies alone are worth the price. And as a warning about the appalling extremes of human behavior and male weirdness, it's indispensable."-Margaret Atwood, The Times (London)

In her powerful and bold writing style, best-selling author Marilyn French synthesizes women's history from our pre-historical roots through the rise of states across the globe to the onset of state-backed religions in this first of four readable volumes.

Praise for the previous volumes:

"French gives us grand theory at its best. . . . Highly recommended."-Library Journal

"Beautifully sourced and referenced. . . . Filled with fascinating detail and powerful arguments . . . massive and valuable."-Publishers Weekly

Writing about what she calls the "most cheering period in female history," international best-selling author Marilyn French recounts how nineteenth century women living under imperialism, industrialization, and capitalism organized for their own education, a more equitable wage, and the vote.

"The issues [French] raises cannot be ignored. . . . No history you will read, post-French, will ever look the same again."-The Times (London)

From the author of The Women's Room, the best-selling novel that defined the issues that ignited the women's movement, comes a vibrant history of the political revolutions of the twentieth century, ending with a thoughtful investigation into feminist movements throughout the world and into the future.

Marilyn French received her PhD from Harvard and taught at Harvard University and Holy Cross College.

Margaret Atwood is best known for her novels The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin.

Analyzing feudalism in Europe and Japan and European expropriation of lands and peoples across the globe, Marilyn French poses a provocative question: how and why did women, with no power or independence, nourish and preserve the family unit and their own culture?

Marilyn French's The Women's Room crystallized the issues that ignited the women's movement and was translated into twenty languages. She received her PhD from Harvard and taught English at Hofstra University, Harvard University, and Holy Cross College.

Internationally acclaimed author and critic Margaret Atwood is the author of numerous works of fiction, including The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin.