Robespierre and Danton. These are the names that have come down to us as the architects of the French Revolution. Yet there is another story of that glorious, bloody movement that still lies buried: the courageous women who sparked the revolution by taking to the streets. Now, in her most splendid, thought-provoking novel yet, Marge Piercy brings to vibrant life three of the women who played prominent roles in the most tumultuous turning point in European history, and tells the intimate stories of the men whose names we know so well. Claire Lacombe escapes the grinding poverty of Pamiers by joining a traveling theatrical troupe as an actress. Defiantly independent, strikingly beautiful, she will become a symbol to many as she tests her theory: if men can make things happen, perhaps women can too. . . . Manon Philipon, a jeweler's daughter, worships Rousseau and the life of the mind. When she marries Jean Roland, a minor provincial bureaucrat, she finds she has a talent for politics--albeit as the ghostwriter of her husband's speeches, and the hostess of his salon. . . . Pauline Léon, owner of a chocolate shop in Paris, witnesses the torture and executions of common people who riot for bread. As the revolution gathers momentum, Pauline is certain of one thing: the women must apply the pressure, or their male colleagues will let them starve. And so the Revolutionary Republican Women are born. . . . And while the women make their voices heard in every district, the men sit in makeshift assemblies, willing the revolution into being through infighting and intrigue. The incorruptible Maximilien Robespierre, the earthy and opportunistic Georges Danton, and the intellectual Nicholas Condorcet all vie for power as Paris whips itself into a frenzy. History has recorded their political legacies, but in City of Darkness, City of Light Marge Piercy reveals the innermost thoughts and feelings of these three men, their insecurities and vulnerabilities, the way they loved and sometimes lost what was most precious to them. The women's march on Versailles. The haggling of the Committee for Public Safety. The overarching reach of the Terror. All the events of the revolution explode with the urgency of today's headlines, as Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Marat, Tom Paine, Camille Desmoulins, Olympe de Gouges, and many other legendary figures play their parts on the great stage of history. Marge Piercy has done nothing less than capture the entire sweep of the French Revolution, while opening to us the minds and hearts of six people who changed the world, lived their ideals--and were prepared to die for them. Filled with the philosophy, politics, and dreams of these extraordinary women and men, City of Darkenss, City of Light is Marge Piercy's masterpiece. The best-selling author of epic novels, poetry, and short stories (e.g., The Longings of Women, LJ 1/94) here records the fictional exploits of three influential women who helped pilot the French Revolution. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Piercy is prolific: she has a dozen books of poetry and a dozen novels to her credit. Some, such as The Longings of Women (1993), are outstanding, and many have been exceedingly popular. Her newest novel, an up-close and personal dramatization of the French Revolution, may achieve the latter, but it does not meet the criteria for the former. In her author's note, Piercy explains that she has long been interested in the French Revolution as the birthplace of the women's movement, but what finally inspired her to write about it was her experience living without electricity and running water in the aftermath of a hurricane. This taste of preindustrial life induced Piercy to think about how exhausting the routines of daily life were for poor women living in eighteenth-century France, the sort of strong and angry women who started the bread riots and took to the barricades, the sort of women Piercy portrays with great vividness in this lively, sexy, richly descriptive, easy-to-read but flawed tale. The main problem is Piercy's use of too many viewpoint characters. She alternates between Robespierre, Danton, Madame Roland, Condorcet, Pauline Leon, and Claire Lacombe, a technique that dilutes the impact of each individual. Piercy also (inevitably) oversimplifies events, but her heroines are bold, courageous, and entertaining, and that may be enough. Donna Seaman An awkward and agenda-heavy novel, the second this season on the subject of the French Revolution (see Tanith Lee, above). In an author's note, Piercy (The Longings of Women, 1994, etc.), a self-described woman of the left and feminist, declares that she wanted to write about the Revolution and a ``society in crisis''--18th-century France--that might ``illuminate our own situation.'' While the rich in the US may be getting richer and the poor more desperate, however, the US still isn't Royalist France, so the comparisons are less than persuasive. Still, the stories Piercy