Listen to Me - by Cordelia Frances Biddle (Paperback)

About the Book

Cordelia Frances Biddle's Listen to Me vividly reinterprets biblical women as complex, resilient figures, uniting across centuries to challenge misogyny and inspire solidarity and equality.

Book Synopsis

"Irreverent in a deliciously feminist way... Had me laughing out loud and wanting to share and discuss it with my closest girlfriends." Maria Leonard Olsen, author of the Amazon bestseller 50 After 50: Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life

Cordelia Frances Biddle's Listen to Me: The Women of the Bible Speak Out envisions a feminist perspective for well-known narratives. Blending fire and humor, she reveals Eve, Ruth, Bathsheba, Queen Vashti, Delilah, et al, as real people possessing complex and turbulent inner lives.

Using contemporary language, she invites the reader to challenge assumptions and shibboleths while the women gather in pairs and as a group to recount their personal histories. From Babylon to the "dicey and pricy burgs" of Sodom and Gomorrah to 21st Century Manhattan, Eve and her companions' longing and rage, trauma, hope, outrage and empathy create a sisterhood that is readily transferred to modern society.

A nonbinary God makes an occasional appearance, chastising the men who crafted the tales. Adam, Abel and Cain also attempt to reconcile their created images with the emotional truths of their existences.

Listen to Me is a story of solidarity and strength as the women of the Bible stand together and confront millennia of misogyny.

The novel is a vital shout for equality.

Review Quotes

"Irreverent in a deliciously feminist way... Had me laughing out loud and wanting to share and discuss it with my closest girlfriends." Maria Leonard Olsen, author of the Amazon bestseller 50 After 50: Reframing the Next Chapter of Your Life

"The ignored point of view of biblical women and all of us who followed. Bravo!" Mary Haverstick, author of A Woman I Know, film director of Home and Tipping Point PA

"Her lens is a feminist one with God as an occasional interloper, protesting that he did not write a word of it... will make you, by turns, smile and shake your fist at the hijinks and misogyny that we are heir to." Paula Marantz Cohen, author of Of Human Kindness: What Shakespeare Teaches Us About Empathy

"Want to hear Eve's side of the Eden story? Or Bathsheba's view of David? And what really went on with Naomi and Ruth? Timely and thought provoking, sometimes anger-inducing, heart-breaking and humbling." Merry Jones, author of The Woman in the Cupboard

"I wish Cordelia Biddle had been my Sunday-school teacher back when I was kid - church would have been a hell of a lot more fun." Louis Bayard, author of The Wildes