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Title details for The Myth of Surrender by Kelly O'Connor McNees - Available

The Myth of Surrender

by Kelly O'Connor McNees
ebook
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What if the most important decision of your life was not yours to make? This vivid and powerful novel follows two women whose paths intersect at a maternity home in the "Baby Scoop Era."
In 1960, free-spirited Doreen is a recent high-school grad and waitress in a Chicago diner. She doesn't know Margie, sixteen and bookish, who lives a sheltered suburban life, but they soon meet when unplanned pregnancies send them to the Holy Family Home for the Wayward in rural Illinois. Assigned as roommates because their due dates line up, Margie and Doreen navigate Holy Family's culture of secrecy and shame and become fast friends as the weight of their coming decision — to keep or surrender their babies — becomes clear.

Except, they soon realize, the decision has already been made for them. Holy Family, like many of the maternity homes where 1.5 million women "relinquished" their babies in what is now known as the Baby Scoop Era, is not interested in what the birth mothers want. In its zeal to make the babies "legitimate" in closed adoptions, Holy Family manipulates and bullies birth mothers, often coercing them to sign away their parental rights while still under the effects of anesthesia.

What happens next, as their babies are born and they leave Holy Family behind, will force each woman to confront the depths and limits of motherhood and friendship, and fight to reclaim control over their own lives.

Written by the acclaimed author of The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott and Undiscovered Country, The Myth of Surrender explores a hidden chapter of American history that still reverberates across the lives of millions of women and their children.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 1, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781643139319

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781643139319
      • File size: 3238 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      February 1, 2022
      In 1960, Doreen and Margie are very different yet share the same problem: unwed pregnancy. Sicilian Doreen is a young but worldly Chicago waitress who dreams of fame as a singer. At a concert, she meets Mosel, a quiet, studious Black man who's heading off to college; she enters the relationship with eyes wide open. Meanwhile, 16-year-old Margie, a rule-following good suburban girl is raped by a family acquaintance. She is so na�ve she doesn't even realize how "babies come out." Both end up at Holy Family Home for the Wayward, a Catholic facility allowing a "noble choice to make up for the sinful one." Room, board, and medical care are provided, but only if the young women give up their babies for adoption. One keeps her child; the other does not. The novel examines the psychological manipulation of the young women, family dynamics, lack of agency, and issues engendered by adoption legislation privileging adoptive parents' privacy over all other considerations. Drawing on oral histories, McNees (Undiscovered Country, 2018) convincingly dramatizes the consequences of what is now known as the "Baby Scoop Era."

      COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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