The Say So

Starred review from April 17, 2023
Franks (Over the Plain Houses) follows in her beautiful latest the ripple effects after a teenager is forced to give up her baby. It’s 1957 in Charlotte, N.C., and quiet, pretty Edie Carrigan falls for Simon Bloom, an older Jewish boy, whom Edie’s parents don’t approve of. Edie’s mother would rather Edie spend time with her former beau, Aster Eriksen, but after Edie becomes pregnant, she’s sent to a home for unwed mothers, where she’s expected to give her baby up for adoption. That’s not what Edie wants, though, and after giving birth she refuses to sign the court papers. She visits her good friend Luce Waddell, hoping for help. Instead, a dramatic scene unfolds between the two of them, laying bare the limits of the girls’ friendship and what they’re able to share with each other. Franks then jumps forward 25 years, with Luce having raised a daughter, who has also become unexpectedly pregnant, and the situation provides an opportunity for Edie and Luce to reconnect. In one devastating plot turn after another, Franks injects bracing honesty into her depictions of the characters, always in gorgeous prose. Describing Edie and Simon’s erstwhile love, she writes, “their love loosened and broke, like decomposing fruit. It was a shock, to see it prove so seasonal.” This will stay with readers.

June 15, 2023
Societal pressures are the backdrop to this story about pregnant women and the decisions they make. Based in part on Franks' own experience, this compassionate novel follows the lives of two pregnant young women as they make tough decisions, with little support from families and friends, that will change their lives and the lives of their children forever. When high school senior Edie Carrigan discovers she's pregnant in the 1950s, she ends up doing what most girls in her situation are forced to do: She hides away in a group home until her baby is born and then placed for adoption. Her desires don't matter. Throughout her pregnancy she's shamed, ridiculed, and blamed for being single and pregnant. Her boyfriend experiences none of this, and her best friend, Luce Waddell, turns against her. Twenty-five years later, Luce's daughter Meera, a college student, has more options than Edie did when she finds out she's pregnant, but despite the burgeoning women's movement and expanding reproductive rights, she's still judged for the choices she makes. Franks channels insight from her experience as a pregnant college student in the 1980s into vibrant, sensitive characters who break the stereotype about selfish birth mothers who relinquish their babies and never look back. She takes us into her characters' heartbreak and raw emotions as they make the best decisions for themselves even as other people try to control them. When Edie's boyfriend wants to make decisions for her, "it occurred to her that he wanted the same thing she did: the say-so. Over her body and over her child." With heart and spirit, this novel reminds us that no matter the time period, women are pressured to conform to other people's wishes and beliefs. A timely and relevant story about every woman's control over her body and her life.

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