The Living Dolls and Other Women is a book with a mission: to remind us all (especially women) of How Things Used to Be. In this world, female artists can’t get shown in galleries, pornography is everywhere, and men routinely harass women on the street. Harried working mothers expect themselves to be superwomen and, unable to do the impossible, inevitably let their children down. Young female college students are exploited by their male professors, and — irony of ironies — women taking a self-defense class to protect themselves from attack are raped by their male instructor.

In the novel’s opening scene, a group of women artists in costume — the living dolls of the title — are putting up posters to protest the lack of female representation in New York City galleries. Their protests recur regularly throughout the novel, at rallies, on new posters decrying the galleries that won’t show them, and in disruptions of gala events. As the story develops, ominous things occur in tandem with their protests. Severed fingers are attached to the posters. There is one murder of an artist, then two.

But Living Dolls is not a traditional murder mystery. Rather, it is a portrait of a time and place in transition — as New York City is always in transition — and of the women who live there, struggling for rights, fair treatment, and their very identities.

The characters range from young newcomers to middle-aged and established types. We spend the most time with Maria, a wife, mother, and lawyer at a high-powered firm. Having returned to work against her husband’s wishes, Maria fights a losing battle to “do it all” — to perform well at work while meeting the demands of her children and her husband. Although her life appears full, Maria struggles with inner emptiness. Others in her orbit are similarly hamstrung. Her au pair, Jackie, is an ambitious math student; she dates Gregory, a professor who expects her to support him emotionally through his divorce. Meanwhile Sandra, one of the titular living dolls and an art teacher of modest means, seethes at the misogyny she sees all around her; and Kim, a young secretary at an art gallery, suffers the condescension of her male boss, professor, and boyfriend.

If you lived in New York City during the 1980s, you may feel a wave of recognition wash over you while reading this book. When Sandra takes the subway, for instance, she is

surrounded by teenagers with headphones, yelling to each other over the competing tapes. She glances over towards the newsstand to see that the dailies have yet another Brooklyn shooting plashed across their front pages. This time a nine-year-old was caught in the line of fire, walking across the street on her way to school. She’s touted as an honors student, liked by everyone.

The level of detail and shifting perspective — the narrative often takes us, mid-paragraph, from one character’s life to another’s — expertly evokes the fast pace of city life. It also reinforces the idea that misogyny is everywhere: an architecture professor flashes a slide of a girl in a bikini “just to wake the class up”; a group of men laughs at a woman surrounded by boys holding sticks; a girl picks a counterfeit bill off the sidewalk and finds, on the back, an ad for a sex worker. An avalanche of such details paints a convincing picture of a world in which women are denigrated wherever they turn.

Having lived in New York City in the 1980s myself, I recognized a lot. I was in my 20s, and I see myself in characters like Kim, the secretary at an art gallery who is surrounded by the boys with sticks and treated condescendingly by her boyfriend. Was it that bad? I kept asking myself as I read. Upon reflection, I would have to say: Yes, it was that bad.

But where I found Living Dolls most thought-provoking and rewarding was in its depiction of gradual inner change. While most of the female characters develop a feminist awareness as the story progresses, the change is starkest in Maria. For most of the book, Maria is in constant motion — off to a meeting, fielding a client’s call, making herself to-do lists, getting a haircut to keep up her professional appearance. Every time Maria stops to reflect, the result is dissatisfaction. She needs to lose weight, get a haircut, improve in some way. She confesses her misgivings to her friend, Roberta, but seems at a loss as to how to change. Towards the end, however, Maria enters a new relationship and begins to see herself in a new light:

Silence falls around Maria as she revels in a new sensation coursing through her body… She utters a few random words out into the open space of her office. She hears the difference. The words move from the inside out, not a kind of vision that seeks her own reflection from an external point. Maria knows she is transforming into an integrated person. That she will no longer move about in the world feeling that constant, yet indeterminate lack.

The author’s point — that liberation, for women, must include a revolution in self-regard — is well-taken. Each of the female characters in Living Dolls wishes to move from “doll” status to “living.” Many succeed.

+++

+