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Necessary Lies: A Novel
Author:
Chamberlain, Diane
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Class:
Fiction
Age: Adult
Language: English
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LC: PS3553
Print Run: 150000
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ISBN-13: 9781250010698
LCCN: 2013013951
Imprint: St. Martin's Press
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Pub Date: 09/03/2013
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $26.99
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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343 pages ; 25 cm
H 9.43",
W 6.43",
D 1.22",
1.19 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's Insight Catalog: Adult
Brodart's TOP Adult Titles
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Bibliographies:
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Fiction Core Collection, 18th ed.
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Awards:
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Library Journal Starred Reviews
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Starred Reviews:
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Library Journal
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TIPS Subjects:
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Domestic Fiction
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BISAC Subjects: |
FICTION / Women
FICTION / Historical / General
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LC Subjects:
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Domestic fiction
Friendship, Fiction
North Carolina, Fiction
Social workers, Fiction
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SEARS Subjects: |
Domestic fiction
Friendship, Fiction
North Carolina, Fiction
Social work, Fiction
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Reading Programs: |
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| Annotations |
| Brodart's TOP Adult Titles | 06/01/2013 |
| It's amazing the secrets a small tobacco farm can hold, especially with an orphaned 15-year-old in charge. Ivy Hart looks after her aging grandmother, her mentally ill sister, and her nephew while dealing with her own epilepsy. Social worker Jane Forrester can't help but get attached to the Harts. Stunned by the secrets the tobacco farm family hides, Jane faces a difficult choice. 352pp., 150K, Auth res: NC |
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| Starred Reviews: |
| Library Journal | 08/01/2013 |
| In this powerful novel, Chamberlain (Secrets She Left Behind) peels back the disturbing truths about the eugenics sterilization program implemented in North Carolina during the 1960s. Two voices reveal the heartbreak of the state-mandated program, which sterilized the mentally ill, African Americans, those with disabilities, and women on welfare. At 15, Ivy Hart does her best to hold together family life with her diabetic grandmother; her older sister, Mary Ella, who is mentally challenged; and Mary Ella's baby. They live and work as tenants on a tobacco farm in rural North Carolina. In 1960, Jane Forrester marries a doctor and, against his wishes, takes a job as a social worker with the Harts as clients. She's idealistic and shocked to learn that social workers have the power to petition to have clients sterilized. Jane narrates the story of two young women on a collision course with tragedy. VERDICT Chamberlain brings to light the horrors inflicted for years on victims of the eugenics sterilization program. By allowing Ivy and Jane to tell their stories, Chamberlain humanizes the survivors. This is a troubling account, considering how recently involuntary sterilization occurred in this country. Book groups and fans of Jodi Picoult should appreciate this work. [See Prepub Alert, 3/11/13; recently released, The First Lie (ISBN 9781466839403) is an e-original short story that introduces Ivy Hart at age 13.--Ed.]. Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN. 352p. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2013. |
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| Journal Reviews |
| BookPage | 09/01/2013 |
| From 1929 until 1975, North Carolina sterilized more than 7,000 of its citizens, targeting inmates in mental institutions, epileptics and others whose sterilization was considered "for the public good." Diane Chamberlain has based her latest novel on this controversial procedure, the Eugenics Sterilization Program. It is 1960, and Jane Forrester has just been hired as a social worker for the Department of Public Welfare and is newly married to Robert, a pediatrician. They live in a wealthy neighborhood in Raleigh. Ivy Hart is a 15-year-old who lives in a small tenant house on a tobacco farm in rural Grace County. Her father died when she was small; her mother was committed to a mental hospital; and her older sister, Mary Ella, left school at 14 when she became pregnant with baby William. Mary Ella, labeled "feebleminded," has been sterilized without her knowledge, told she was hospitalized for an appendectomy. In the alternating voices of Jane and Ivy, we learn how Jane becomes immersed in the Hart family's dire circumstances, raising doubts in the minds of both her boss and her husband that she's tough enough for the job. Robert is embarrassed by the fact that Jane is working rather than fitting into the Junior League role embraced by the wives of his colleagues, but he's especially bothered by her sincere attachment to these poor families, which is starting to make her question the Eugenics Department's plans for the Harts. Chamberlain weaves an element of suspense throughout this emotional story as these differing views eventually collide in a powerful denouement. Necessary Lies is a poignant and perceptive novel zeroing in on a hidden social issue--reminiscent of the work of Jodi Picoult and A. Manette Ansay. Deborah Donovan. 352pg. BOOKPAGE, c2013. |
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| Booklist | 07/01/2013 |
| Employing accessible characters and compelling language, Chamberlain deeply mines the appalling, little-known history of North Carolina's Eugenics Sterilization Program, in effect from 1929 to 1975. As worker-tenants on a tobacco farm in 1960, 15-year-old Ivy Hart lives with her faltering, temperamental grandmother, mentally slow yet breathtakingly beautiful 17-year-old sister, young nephew "Baby" William, and her own epilepsy. Jane Forrester, an idealistic social worker, whose status-conscious doctor-husband isn't convinced his wife should hold a job, feels smothered by the social niceties of the early '60s South and starts to question the boundaries and mutual respect in her own marriage. When Jane becomes Ivy's family's social worker, she encounters the state program that seeks to sterilize "mental defectives," among others with supposedly undesirable characteristics. Through every choice she makes from then on, Jane triggers an inescapable series of events that thrusts everything either she or Ivy ever held to be true into a harsh light, binding them together in ways they do not immediately comprehend or appreciate. Absorbing and haunting, this should strongly touch Chamberlain's fans and draw those who enjoy Jodi Picoult and Barbara Delinsky. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Chamberlain is the best-selling author of 21 novels, and her latest will have a 150,000-copy first printing and be supported by a major marketing campaign. Trevelyan, Julie. 352p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2013. |
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| Kirkus Reviews | 08/01/2013 |
| An idealistic North Carolina social worker defies her employers to save impoverished children from overzealous social engineering in Chamberlain's well-researched page-turner. Chamberlain's author's notes point out that from 1929 to 1975, North Carolina's state-fostered Eugenics Sterilization Program sterilized thousands of women and men. Her novel, set in 1960, examines the impact of such interventions on a tiny, almost feudal enclave of tobacco farmers. Two narrators represent opposite poles of Southern society. Against the wishes of her doctor husband, Jane Forrester, a recent college graduate, has taken a job in Raleigh with the Department of Public Welfare. Ivy Hart, 15, is struggling to keep what is left of her family intact. Her father, Percy, was killed in an agricultural accident. Davison Gardiner, who owns the farm where the white Harts, and their black neighbors, the Jordans, live and work, allows Ivy, her diabetic grandmother, and her beautiful and mentally challenged sister, Mary Ella, to continue occupying their shack rent-free. Gardiner regularly supplements their paltry wages (and welfare checks) with food donations, presumably out of guilt over Percy's accident, although Ivy's mother, who is institutionalized, scarred Gardiner's wife in a fit of rage and grief. As the Harts' newest caseworker, Jane soon finds herself in an ethical quagmire. At DPW's instigation, Mary Ella, mother of 2-year-old William (father unknown), was involuntarily sterilized in the hospital after his birth. Ivy is sneaking out at night to meet Gardiner's son, Henry Allen. By the time Jane realizes that Ivy is several months pregnant, she has succumbed to departmental pressure to petition for Ivy's sterilization on the grounds of childhood epilepsy and low IQ. Once Ivy delivers her child, she will suffer the same fate as her sister, unless Jane is willing to buck the system at the expense of her career. The stakes mount to dizzying heights (even for such an isolated pocket, Gardiner's unbridled sway over his tenants seems extreme); Chamberlain certainly knows how to escalate tension. Socially conscious melodrama at its best. 352pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2013. |
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| Library Journal Prepub Alert | 03/11/2013 |
| Chamberlain has published nearly two dozen novels, many best sellers and one a RITA Award winner. But this work, which has the house jumping, is being billed as her breakout. A half-century ago in rural North Carolina, 15-year-old Ivy Hart finds herself responsible for her grandmother, mentally ill sister, and nephew after her parents' deaths. Newly minted social worker Jane Forrester wants to help but creates waves with her special devotion to the family. The story of a friendship in a time of rising racial tension and state-mandated sterilizations; with a reading group guide and big promotion that will include an original e-story. 352p. LJ Prepub Alert Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2013. |
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| Publishers Weekly | 07/08/2013 |
| In this heart-wrenching historical fiction, prolific author Chamberlain focuses on a time in North Carolina's history that most people would rather forget. It's 1960, and Jane is a 21-year-old newlywed who's just accepted a job as a social worker, though her husband, Robert, would rather she stay home like the other country club wives. Her clients--poor tobacco farmers in Grace County, like the Hart family--live in the harsh reality of the rural South, with too many mouths to feed and not much to feed them. Jane is eager to help, until she discovers that part of her job is deciding whether young girls like the vivacious Ivy Hart should be sterilized, in order to keep them from having babies that depend on the state. A captivating look at the little-discussed eugenics program that was responsible for sterilizing more than 7,000 American citizens--some without their knowledge--this engrossing novel digs deep into the moral complexity of a dark period in history and brings it to life. Agent: Susan Ginsburg, Writers House. (Sept.). 352p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2013. |
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