Sarah and After: Five Women of the Old Testament

by Lynne Reid Banks

Relates the lives of four generations of girls who became the matriarchs of the Hebrew nation.

Genres: Short Stories, Historical Fiction

183 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

Lynne Reid Banks is a British author of books for children and adults. She has written forty books, including the best-selling children's novel The Indian in the Cupboard, which has sold over 10 million copies and been made into a film.
Banks was born in London, the only child of James and Muriel Reid Banks. She was evacuated to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada during World War II but returned after the war was over. She attended St Teresa's School in Surrey. Prior to becoming a writer Banks was an actress, and also worked as a television journalist in Britain, one of the first women to do so. Her first novel, The L-Shaped Room, was published in 1960.
In 1962 Banks emigrated to Israel, where she taught for eight years on an Israeli kibbutz Yasur. In 1965 she married Chaim Stephenson, with whom she had three sons. Although the family returned to England in 1971 and Banks now lives in Dorset, the influence of her time in Israel can be seen in some of her books which are set partially or mainly on kibbutzim.

Reviews

[Mbuye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Six Biblical women are chosen for the retelling of these tales - Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel and Dinah. The Old Testament usually is dismissive of women, sometimes not even giving them the dignity of a name. It seems to me that these six women's stories are particularly poignant ones. If the God of their husbands was a jealous God, with the result that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as the founding fathers of their religions were tried above and beyond what was expected of other men, it was these women who carried their men's burdens beyond and above what other women were required to endure in a normal marriage.

If Sarah laughed at the thought of carrying a foetus to term when she was over ninety, if Hagar and her infant son were driven into a hostile desert by Abraham, if Rebekah falsified one son's claim over another's, and so on, it was no doubt the will of God, and no doubt also that He blessed them, but at the time, all of them underwent a period of grief, to overcome which required more than a superhuman degree of faith, belief and courage that matched their husbands' wills.

Lynne Reid Banks in these four vignettes has given us a kindly look at these great women who suffered that their menfolk ratify the Covenant their God made to Abraham. Well imagined and hauntingly told.

[Haley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really struggled with this one. As someone who believes the Bible is true, it was difficult to see it in a novel format. The Bible is interpreted by those who read it, but some parts in this book didn't sit well with me, even from a novel standpoint. There were some parts where faithful Bible women were not just doubting (which happens to everyone), but they were rebellious and even hateful towards God. That was my opinion of this book. Religious topics are always a hot issue. I'd rather not argue about this one. It's not worth it.

[#ReadAllTheBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember checking this book out from my school library all the time and re-reading it. It was one of my favorite books as a teenager.