Three Women is a work of nonfiction written by acclaimed journalist Lisa Taddeo. Published in 2019, Three Women topped the New York Times nonfiction best seller’s list. Three Women is based on interviews which Taddeo conducted over eight years of immersive reporting, primarily with Three Women: Maggie, Lina, and Sloane. Taddeo’s stated aim is to explore and document female sexuality and desire. Please note that the study guide addresses suicidal ideation, suicide, and sexual assault that includes rape and sex with minors.

Summary

Three Women is bookmarked by Taddeo’s documentation of her mother’s terminal illness and death. The comments and confessions which Taddeo’s mother makes about her love life and her desires shock Taddeo, causing her to examine her own feelings and reflect on the way that female sexuality and desire is ignored and dismissed by society. This conversation causes Taddeo to reconsider the non-fiction book which she is writing on male desire. She becomes more interested in the comparatively secretive world of female desire, and travels around the United States in search of subjects.

She finds three: Maggie, Sloane, and Lina. Lina is an unhappily married housewife from Indiana who becomes sexually involved with a man she knew in high school, Aidan. In this affair, Lina experiences fierce desire and sexual fulfilment, things which are absent and which she desperately craves in her marriage. Lina desperately hopes that Aidan will leave his wife for her, but he remains aloof and non-committal.

Maggie is a 23-year-old woman from Fargo, North Dakota, who is traumatized by an illicit affair she had with her high school teacher when she was 17. Her teacher, Aaron Knodel, is found innocent of all wrongdoing in court and is reinstated as a teacher. Maggie remains in Fargo, where she has dropped out of college and works as a waitress. She continues to struggle with the trauma caused by the affair.

Sloane is a glamorous and wealthy 42-year-old woman who owns a restaurant with her husband on Rhode Island. Her husband is sexually aroused by watching her sleep with other men and women, and they frequently invite third parties into their marital bed to sleep with Sloane, Richard, or both. Sloane sometimes enjoys these encounters, but ultimately takes part in them to please Richard. She is denounced in her community for sleeping with a married colleague and feels powerless and unhappy.

Taddeo explores the way the Three Women’s sexual and romantic desires shape their lives, how their sexuality is condemned or denied, how they experience desire, and the ways they suppress that desire to accommodate and please others.