The Third Child (35 page)

M
ARGE
P
IERCY
is the author of fifteen novels, including
Gone to Soldiers, The Longings of Women, and Woman on the Edge of Time, as well as fifteen books of poetry,
including
The Art of Blessing the Day, The Moon Is Always Female,
and
Circle on the Water
. She lives on Cape Cod with her husband, Ira Wood, the novelist and publisher of Leapfrog Press.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

“A rich, insightful, and disturbing morality tale….
The Third Child
is Marge Piercy at the top of her form, writing full stream ahead.”

—John Nichols, author of
The Milagro Beanfield War

“Riveting—extraordinarily magnetizing characters—a bold and galvanizing story.”

—
Booklist

“A compulsively readable storyteller.”

—
Library Journal

“A biting, contemporary take on Romeo and Juliet and an acidic commentary on Washington political culture.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Piercy never writes anything less than first-class novels with a great deal to say about how we live now.”

—
Bookaholic

“Promising blend of romance—shallow political commentary, and bang-bang thriller.”

—
People

“Piercy—knows how to keep the reader intrigued.”

—
Hartford Courant

“The pull of the narrative is strong—absorbing.”

—
Los Angeles Times

“A phenomenal story—very provocative and resonates with passions.”

—Bookreporter.com

“The story’s magic takes hold.”

—
Newark Star-Ledger

Poetry

Colors Passing Through Us

The Art of Blessing the Day

Early Grrrl

What Are Big Girls Made Of?

Mars and Her Children

Available Light

My Mother’s Body

Stone, Paper, Knife

Circles on the Water (Selected Poems)

The Moon Is Always Female

The Twelve-Spoked Wheel Flashing

Living in the Open

To Be of Use

4-Telling
(with Bob Hershon,
Emmett Jarrett, Dick Lourie)

Hard Loving

Breaking Camp

Novels

Three Women

Storm Tide
(with Ira Wood)

City of Darkness, City of Light

The Longings of Women

He, She and It

Summer People

Gone to Soldiers

Fly Away Home

Braided Lives

Vida

The High Cost of Living

Woman on the Edge of Time

Small Changes

Dance the Eagle to Sleep

Going Down Fast

Other

So You Want to Write:
How to Master the Craft of
Writing Fiction and the Personal Narrative
(with Ira Wood)

The Last White Class: A Play
(with Ira Wood)

Sleeping with Cats, A Memoir

Parti-Colored Blocks for a Quilt: Essays

Early Ripening: American Women’s

Poetry Now: An Anthology

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE THIRD CHILD
. Copyright © 2003 by Middlemarsh, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub © Edition OCTOBER 2007 ISBN: 9780061970061

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

New Zealand

HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

P.O. Box 1

Auckland, New Zealand

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz

United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

77-85 Fulham Palace Road

London, W6 8JB, UK

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

United States

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

10 East 53rd Street

New York, NY 10022

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com