A man without a name who called himself Pan wanted something more, something better. For as long as he could remember, something or someone was gnawing at him, calling him, draining him, making him hungry, making him strive for more, more of everything. Living the life and pursuing the happiness, Pan lived the "American Dream." Like so many cheerleaders, Pan worked hard to climb the ladder and he bought almost everything that "they" sold. Avoiding the questions and numbing the pain, Pan turned to drink and did drugs, he listened to loud music and had meaningless sex. He was a true consumer and a glutton until all the hedonism and all the materialism could no longer fill the void and help fulfill his life, his liberty and his pursuit of happiness. The sports cars and white picket fences of the picturesque dream were now blurry and misshapen. His dream was shattered and the cracks revealed. Now he waits and watches and fears for the future that he knows is so near. Living in the shadows and preparing for tomorrow, he hopes that he is wrong, but knows that he is right.

Hailed as a classic of speculative fiction, Marge Piercy’s landmark novel is a transformative vision of two futures—and what it takes to will one or the other into reality.

Harrowing and prescient, Woman on the Edge of Time speaks to a new generation on whom these choices weigh more heavily than ever before. Connie Ramos is a Mexican American woman living on the streets of New York. Once ambitious and proud, she has lost her child, her husband, her dignity—and now they want to take her sanity.

After being unjustly committed to a mental institution, Connie is contacted by an envoy from the year 2137, who shows her a time of sexual and racial equality, environmental purity, and unprecedented self-actualization. But Connie also bears witness to another potential outcome: a society of grotesque exploitation in which the barrier between person and commodity has finally been eroded. One will become our world. And Connie herself may strike the decisive blow.