For a work of literary nonfiction to thrill readers the way Lisa Taddeo's 2019 best-seller Three Women has done, it must offer more than just rich subject matter. There has to be chemistry between the author and the story; readers have to feel her intimate understanding of its characters and sense the unique perspective she brings to their predicaments.
Taddeo closes the deal by closing the space that separates herself from the women whose sex lives she chronicles. Their minds, hearts, and libidos speak so loudly, you might forget she's even there.
Yet the 10-episode series, created by Taddeo for Showtime then shelved and picked up by Starz, breaks the book's sweaty spell. Like the text spun through a centrifuge, this version of Three Women... suggests that the book might not have been so ripe for TV after all.
Despite bold performances and sensitive directing that centers women's subjective experiences of sex and their bodies, the show's disjointed structure and flimsy frame narrative suggest that the book might not have been so ripe for TV after all.
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