Spoilers below.
When Lisa Taddeo’s groundbreaking book Three Women was published in 2019, the work of nonfiction was celebrated for its originality. A true story that read like a novel, it painted a raw, nuanced portrait of female sexuality over the course of its 320 pages. And it was a labor of love for the journalist, who spent eight years criss-crossing the country to immerse herself in the intimate lives of her subjects: Lina, an unhappy housewife in Indiana; Sloane, a restauranteur in New England with an unconventional arrangement with her husband; and Maggie, a young waitress who was groomed by—and then sexually involved with—her former high school teacher in North Dakota. Having spent thousands of hours with the titular trio, Taddeo was able to write about each of her subjects’ experiences in intricate detail. Given her impressive reporting—and its impact on the cultural conversation surrounding female desire—it was only a matter of time before Three Women received the Hollywood treatment.
After much anticipation, the steamy Starz series—which is created by Taddeo and was initially slated to air on Showtime, before it was dropped during a network merger—finally premieres on September 13. Despite the book’s NSFW storylines being ripe for the screen, a TV adaptation was never going to be an easy undertaking. For starters, it’s tricky to give three completely separate storylines equal weight on screen, especially when one deals with the heavy material of statutory rape and the others focus on the sexual lives of consenting adults. But Three Women navigates those murky waters as best as it can, bringing the stories of Maggie (Gabrielle Creevy), Lina (Betty Gilpin), and Sloane (DeWanda Wise) to life before our eyes over the course of 10 weekly episodes. Although the show remains largely true to its source material, there are some significant differences between the two projects—and we’re tracking the changes. Here’s how Three Women, the series, compares to the book.
The show introduces a fourth main character, inspired by Taddeo.
Perhaps the most notable difference between the book and the series is the fact that the Starz show introduces Gia, a Taddeo-inspired writer played by Shailene Woodley. As the series’ narrator, Gia acts as the viewers’ link to Maggie, Lina, and Sloane throughout the show—we see her form a particularly close bond with Lina early on—as well as how she met and convinced each subject to tell her story for Three Women. Gia’s own romantic life and past trauma are also a focal point throughout the episodes.
We learn how the book Three Women came to be, following Taddeo’s real-life meeting with writer Gay Talese.
The show opens with Gia, who finds herself at the home of Thy Neighbour’s Wife writer Gay Talese (James Naughton) to discuss her upcoming book. Talese very bluntly tells Gia that, in order to write about sex like he did, she must sleep with married men as research. While this entire scenario was left out of the author’s notes in print, Taddeo has confirmed that a version of this conversation did, in fact, take place. And like Taddeo’s own journey to create what ultimately became Three Women, Gia realizes that she doesn’t need to write a male-centric sequel to Talese’s work, but would rather tell more nuanced stories of female desire.
The events of the book are presented in a different order.
Instead of mirroring the alternating chapters of the book, the series utilizes a different and nonlinear storytelling pace. Fans of Taddeo’s book might wonder when certain revelations will come—and the answer, for many of them, is much later. Whether it’s through flashbacks or Gia’s role as a narrative tool, a great deal of the information that readers learned quickly in print are slowly uncovered as the series progresses. For instance, we don’t learn much about Maggie until episode 4, and most of her story is set in the second half of the series (we won’t spoil changes to her narrative here until they air). You might also notice that the events of Taddeo’s memorable prologue—about her Italian mother’s experience with a serial masturbator—is missing from the first episode entirely, but it does find its way to the screen later on in the series.
The character of Sloane is an amalgamation of the book’s subject and another woman, who spoke to Taddeo for the project but ultimately dropped out.
In the book, Sloane is a self-assured WASP from Rhode Island who’s beginning to understand the link between her submissive nature and her mother’s cold approach to parenting. In the show, she’s been reimagined as a glamorous, wealthy Black woman in Martha’s Vineyard who commands the center of attention at all times—although she still has a fraught relationship with her mother, Dyan (April Grace). In a recent interview, Taddeo explained that the TV character represents not only Sloane from the book, but also another woman who was being profiled for Three Women before ultimately dropping out. Taddeo cited the change as being one of the ways she hopes to keep the real Sloane—a pseudonym for the actual subject—anonymous, in order to avoid speculation about her open marriage.
Because Sloane’s story has been largely changed, she now pursues a different love interest—without her husband’s knowledge.
Both in the book and series, Sloane and her husband, Richard (Blair Underwood) have an arrangement where he chooses men or women for her to sleep with while he watches (or is “present” via texts throughout). But while Sloane never pursued extramarital sex without Richard’s direction or, at the very least, blessing in the book, TV Sloane finds herself tempted to sleep with someone new without his involvement. She meets oyster farmer Will (Blair Redford) on her own in the show—and she quickly becomes infatuated with him, stepping outside the clearly defined rules of her marriage. Wes, the chef who Sloane and Richard decide to bring into their marriage in the book, is nowhere to be found in the adaptation.
Lina appears more controlled and less childlike on screen.
Perhaps it’s because we aren’t privy to her internal monologue the way we are in the book, or maybe it’s because we spend less time experiencing her high school flashbacks, but TV Lina comes across as slightly more mature and grounded. Sure, she’s still high-strung and has no chill as she navigates an affair with her former high school boyfriend, Aidan (Austin Stowell). And she’s as desperate for physical touch as ever (and so obsessed with French kissing that we witness as she makes out with her glass shower door). But her character reads as less juvenile and more rational as a woman who understandably craves intimacy after being rebuffed by her husband, Ed (Sean Meehan) for years (he won’t so much as kiss her when she asks), and her children have a more prominent role in the series than in the book. Aidan, for his part, is also a bit more receptive to Lina’s advances in the show, which makes her entire story feel a bit less…sad. Because even though the man she’s relentlessly pursuing is unavailable, he’s not as downright callous towards her as he is at times in print.
The role of the women’s group that Lina frequents has been largely replaced by her relationship with Gia.
While we still catch glimpses of Lina baring her soul to a women’s discussion group, the meetings aren’t as central to her story in the show. Instead of waiting to emotionally unload during the weekly gatherings at her doctor’s office, she reveals the details about her ongoing affair to Gia—who just so happens to be moderating the group when Lina first joins, and quickly becomes fascinated by her future subject.
This story will be updated.
Samantha Simon is a writer, editor, and pop culture enthusiast living in New York City. She previously served as Features Editor at InStyle. If she’s not in the middle of a Law & Order: SVU marathon, she’s probably on a 4-mile walk with her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Dexter (named after the fictional vigilante serial killer, naturally), shopping, or searching for the best cacio e pepe that the city has to offer. Her favorite topics include celebrity memoirs, emo bands of the early aughts, and the weekly Sakara Life menu.