Woman on the Edge of Time

Woman on the Edge of Time is a 1976 utopian science fiction novel by Marge Piercy. Piercy is a poet, writer, and feminist activist, and the novel critiques racism, patriarchal gender roles, and medical abuse. The novel is set in the 1970s and follows Connie Ramos, an impoverished Mexican American woman who is visited by a time traveler from a utopian future. The book’s setting alternates between the psychiatric hospital where Connie is unjustly committed and the future society of Mattapoisett, which embodies many second-wave feminist views about gender, sexuality, and environmentalism. Connie must attempt to change her world to achieve a livable future for everyone, but the odds are stacked against her. Woman on the Edge of Time is considered a classic in the genres of utopian and feminist fiction.

This guide refers to the 2024 Random House Publishing Group e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss racism, sexual violence, addiction, depression, domestic violence, sex trafficking, abortion, wrongful commitment to and medical abuse of patients in a psychiatric hospital, ableism, anti-gay bias, suicide, sexual contact between minors, and murder.

Plot Summary

Woman on the Edge of Time takes place in 1970s New York, where Conseulo “Connie” Ramos lives. Connie is an empathetic and intelligent Mexican American woman who has lived a difficult life and experienced racism and poverty. When the novel opens, Connie has begun receiving visits from Luciente, a visitor from a utopian future who believes that Connie may be the key to helping the world change for the better.

Connie’s niece, Dolores “Dolly” Camacho, visits her. Dolly is being sexually trafficked by her boyfriend, Geraldo, and has come to Connie for help. Dolly became pregnant in hopes that Geraldo would marry her, but he refused and beat her, telling her that she must have an abortion. When he follows Dolly to Connie’s apartment, Connie hits him with a bottle while defending Dolly. Connie is knocked unconscious in the fight and awakens at Bellevue, a psychiatric hospital. With Dolly’s compliance, Geraldo lied and said that Connie attacked him and is a danger to herself and others. She is then committed to the state psychiatric hospital, Rockdale.

Connie is in despair. She was committed to Rockdale once before, after her lover, Claud, died in prison. She developed an alcohol addiction and depression, neglecting and eventually injuring her young daughter, Angelina. The state took Angelina away, and Connie has never emotionally recovered from the loss.

While Connie is at Rockdale, Luciente psychically contacts her to better explain her purpose. Through their mental connection, Luciente takes Connie to visit her village, Mattapoisett, a community reliant on solar power and collective ownership of property. Its inhabitants use the gender-neutral pronoun “per” for everyone, engage in polyamorous relationships, and raise children communally. They are mainly vegetarian and lead a lifestyle sensitive to ecological interests. However, Connie is angered by their use of the “brooder,” a machine that gestates children, and their insistence on decoupling women from biological childbirth, feeling that this disempowers women. Eventually, Connie comes to accept the ideas of Mattapoisett when she sees a little girl, Dawn, who looks a lot like Angelina. She realizes that this society is a healthier and safer place for a child than her own world.

The novel jumps back and forth between Connie’s visits to the future and her time in the hospital. While visiting the future, she comes to learn many things about Mattapoisett, including its customs and how it differs from her world. She befriends Luciente’s lovers, Bee and Jackrabbit, and has a tryst of her own with Bee. She starts to think of these people as her friends and family, and they in turn care for her.

Meanwhile, in the hospital ward, danger gradually increases. Connie, her friends Sybil and Skip, and other patients are selected to be part of an experimental treatment that involves implanting electrodes directly into the brain to control patient behavior. Skip is chosen because his wealthy family committed him for being gay and refusing to conform to gender norms. Sybil believes that she is a witch and has no interest in sex, especially with men. Other patients are chosen for their race and/or low socioeconomic status. Connie and the others are horrified when Alice, the first patient operated on, is reduced to a clownish and childlike figure forced to perform emotions at the press of a button. Connie escapes briefly but is captured and returned to the psychiatric hospital.

Skip undergoes the surgery and becomes angry and depressed. He is allowed to return home for a visit and dies by suicide there. Connie also undergoes the experimental surgery and finds herself increasingly depressed. In Mattapoisett, Jackrabbit signs up to do his turn in militia defense and is killed in action. Connie has more visions of herself—some in the future as she fights alongside Luciente and others and some in her past with Martin. She also visits a dystopia and meets a woman named Gildina, who lives in a polluted and twisted world where huge corporations own everything and where there is no freedom, especially for women.

Connie is briefly allowed to visit her wealthy brother, Luis, and his wife for Thanksgiving. They treat her poorly, but she is unable to escape. She finds poison in Luis’s greenhouse business and hides it in her belongings. She makes one last visit to Luciente, and the last thing she sees in the future is Dawn standing happily in the snow. In the ward, the doctors explain that Luis has given permission for her to have another surgery. Despairing, Connie pours the poison into the doctors’ coffee pot. The novel ends with excerpts from Connie’s medical file, which characterize her as a violent woman of low intelligence and explain that she is committed for life to the psychiatric hospital.