Distance and circumstance have put a strain on Greer and Cory's relationship. Looking back, Faith recalls her very first meeting with Emmett Shrader in the 1960s.

Greer Kadetsky is a shy college student in Connecticut when she meets Faith Frank, a dazzlingly persuasive and charismatic activist who has been a pillar of the women's movement for decades. The meeting is made more resonant since she has just been the victim of a sexual assault on campus.

As Greer moves into her independent adult life, Faith is to become her mentor figure, someone she looks up to and respects, until she is forced re-evaluate.

Meg Wolitzer's The Female Persuasion is a book written before the seismic shift in American politics and the advent of the #MeToo movement but it illuminates the complexities of what it is to be a young woman coming of age in the early decades of the 21st century. But as well as the relationship between Greer and her 'role model', the story explores how a young man copes with devastating loss and attempts to rebuild his life, and poses searching questions about feminism and the painful realities of love and loyalty.

Meg Wolitzer is the author of The Interestings, The Uncoupling, The Ten-Year Nap, The Position, The Wife, and Sleepwalking.

Omnibus of the last five of ten-parts read by Tanya Moodie.

Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters and The Waters Company for BBC Radio 4 and first broadcast in 2018. Show less