Of Better Blood: A Review and TWO Giveaways

Last April I reviewed Susan Moger's book, Teaching the Diary of Anne Frank. When she contacted me and asked if I would read and review her debut novel, OF BETTER BLOOD (Albert Whitman and Co. 2016), I agreed. After reading it I can tell you one thing for sure: Susan used all of her research about Hitler and the events leading up to World War II in order to write this young adult historical novel.

Teenage polio survivor Rowan Collier is caught in the crossfire of a secret war against “the unfit.” It’s 1922, and eugenics—the movement dedicated to racial purity and good breeding—has taken hold in America. State laws allow institutions to sterilize minorities, the “feeble-minded,” and the poor, while local eugenics councils set up exhibits at county fairs with “fitter family” contests and propaganda. - Albert Whitman and Co.

Four times a day I drop the baby.

It's not a real baby, but for a stunned heartbeat the audience believes it is. That's enough to get some of them on their feet, screaming, Stupid, clumsy, gimp. The words slide into my skin and stay there.

When I ask Mr. Ogilvie, the director, if just once I can catch the baby before it hits the stage, he frowns and puts his hands on my shoulders. I squirm away, but he holds on. "I love your sensitivity, Ruthie," he says, showing corn-yellow teeth. "But sadly a cripple like you can't be a hero."  (p. 1)

Thus the reader is thrust into the life of Rowan Collier, an unwilling actress in a "fitter family" drama reenacted four times a day at the Springfield, Massachusetts county fair. In the beginning of the novel Moger uses alternating chapters to show Rowan's life before this humiliating summer. In these flashbacks the reader meets her father, an engineering consultant for the Navy, and an advocate for the Betterment fight. He and Rowan's older sister, Julia, are dedicated to the proposition that society is best advanced having the fittest people marry and produce large families. The unfit, those who are physically, emotionally, or intellectually substandard, should be eliminated from society. 

In one of these flashbacks Rowan recalls how one of her doctors wanted her to be sterilized.  Rowan refuses but is shaken afterwards:

Father believed, as Dr. Pynchon did, that a weakness inherited from Mother caused me to get polio. But would he want me to be sterilized? (p. 51)

Rowan's world--already dramatically changed due to polio--continues to fall apart when she is forced to do "educational work" for the New England Betterment Council at the Expo. There she develops a friendship with a fellow worker, orphaned Dorchy, whose parents worked county fairs. In these simple explanation to Rowan, Dorchy shares one of the underlying themes of the book:

Rubes are ignoramuses; carnies know everything. Rubes come to the fair with their eyes starry and their pockets full; carnies take them for what they're worth.....
Your Unfit Family Show does the same thing. You trick rubes into paying money under false pretenses. (p. 33)

 As Rowan hears the stories of her fellow "actors" and how they were tricked into being sterilized, Rowan starts questioning what she had believed to be true about her father. Dorchy is a major catalyst in Rowan's increasing self-awareness.

When I left Bellevue and went to the Home, all thoughts of Dr. Friedlander and nursing school were driven out of my head by the effort of surviving. But here at the Expo, the memories are starting to come back. Dorchy is bringing me back to life. (p.64)

Following a dramatic escape from the Expo, Dorchy forces Rowan to question her assumption that her mother's bloodline was weaker since she died giving birth to Rowan:

Dorchy jumps up. "Listen to yourself," she shouts, angrier than I have ever seen her. "How can you sit there and say that about your own mother? After weeks with the awful Ogilvies and the Council cows you still don't question that 'better blood' garbage? she punches her fist against her palm. "You still think people are fit or unfit because of their family bloodlines? You know as well as I do that Gar and Jimmy and Minne are as fit as you and your precious father. (p. 117) 

Despite Dorchy's misgivings, she considers working at the Camp for Unfortunates in Maine with Rowan.  

"I'll bet you anything the camp is a con," she says stubbornly. "Miss Latigue is the carney; you and me the unfortunates are the rubes. You'll see." (p. 136)

Sadly, Dorchy's predictions prove to be true. I don't want to spoil the rest of the book, but the girls' lives become painfully difficult when they realize the camp is a facade for weeding out the "unfit."

Although the ending is triumphant as Rowan begins her journey towards nursing school, it is not without great personal loss. But she has matured from a dependent "cripple" to a young woman who has purpose, resolve, and determination.  
This is not an easy book to read. But as Susan Moger relates in her Notes, "Eugenics was a popular pseudo-science in the United States from the early 1900's to the late 1930s. The double aim of eugenics was (1) to keep Americans with a "strong" heredity (family backgound) having children and (2) to prevent those with a "weak heredity" from having children....The popular method of preventing reproduction among the unfit was to sterilize men and women." Necessary Lies, which I previously reviewed has a similar theme. 

As you may know, American eugenics principles were adopted in other countries, most notably Germany before and during WWII. Adolf Hitler praised American eugenics in his book, Mein Kampf and thus laid groundwork for a master race. 

Although the Unfit Family show and the New England Betterment Council are fiction, "Fitter Families" exhibits and contests were a popular feature at state fairs starting in 1920. This book would be an excellent supplement in high school classrooms studying WWII. 

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If you are interested in winning my ARC, please leave me a comment by 6 PM on February 18. If you are new to my blog, please leave me your contact information. If you join my blog or share this on social media, please let me know what you do and I'll add your name twice. Susan also offered to giveaway an autographed copy of the hardback edition, so this time around I'll have TWO winners to announce next week! PLUS-- Susan is willing to send a book overseas, making this my first giveaway open outside the U.S.!

Necessary Lies- A Review and a Giveaway!

Congratulations to Vida Zuljevic who won the good braider audio recording in last week's giveaway.

I met Diane Chamberlain at WNBA's Bibliofeast in 2013 and purchased her book, Necessary Lies, despite telling myself that I had enough books and wasn't going to buy one more! But when I saw it was set in North Carolina and written from two points of view--I couldn't resist. Another fortunate blog reader will be glad I did. When I confessed to Diane via Facebook that I couldn't part with my autographed copy, she indicated that her publicist would probably donate a copy as a giveaway. Thanks to Katie Bassel of St. Martin's Press, one of you will receive a free copy. Directions for entering this contest follow my review of this thought-provoking adult historical novel.

Necessary Lies documents an important story: the Eugenics Sterilization Program that sterilized over 7000 North Carolinians between 1929-1975. Set in the sixties, Diane Chamberlain does an excellent job portraying the internal and external conflicts her two protagonists face.

Jane Forrester is a 22-year-old idealistic newlywed who is eager to help people in her new job as a social worker. Her life is irrevocably changed when she meets her client Ivy Hart, a poor 15-year-old who is struggling to hold her family together. Ivy's father is dead, her mother is institutionalized; her grandmother (Nonnie) is ailing and doesn't take her diabetes medication; her 17-year-old sister (Mary Ella) is beautiful but feeble-minded; and her two-year-old nephew (William) is often neglected and shows signs of slow development.

The reality of Ivy's world shocks Jane on her first visit to the Hart's home; a shack on the tobacco farm where the girls are day laborers.  In this conversation with Charlotte, the caseworker whose caseload she will be assuming, Jane begins to assess the situation and Chamberlain foreshadows the problems she will encounter:

    "Mary Ella was kicked out of school when she became pregnant at fourteen," Charlotte said. "Once they're pregnant, that's the end of their education."
    "Fourteen!" I said.
    "Fifteen when she delivered."
    "Who's the baby's father?" I asked.
    Charlotte hesitated. "I doubt even Mary Ella knows," she said. "I have my suspicions but that's all they are. Mary Ella's blond as blond can be, but the baby's got very dark, very curly hair. His skin is fair enough, enough. He'll be able to pass."
     "Oh," I said, taking that in.
     "Don't put anything like that in your notes," she warned. "The last thing that girl needs is for people to think she's had relations with a colored boy, and a lynch mob would find out which one it was, you better believe it. Or they'd make a guess, which could be even worse. I didn't even mention my suspicions to the Eugenics Board."
    "The Eugenics Board? For her, too? Are they going to sterilize her?"
     "They already have," she said. "She's feeble-minded. IQ of seventy. But she doesn't know about the sterilization. Her grandmother and I agreed it was best to tell her she was having her appendix out."
     My mouth dropped open and Charlotte glanced over a me. "Sometimes you have to come up with creative ways of helping people, Jane," she said.
     "But it's so...dishonest," I said.
      "It's actually a kindness. You'll realize that soon enough. She can only understand so much, and she absolutely can't handle another child. She's out of control and I worry Ivy's starting to follow in her footsteps. Mary Ella's very pretty and Ivy's a little plainer and she's a big girl. Not overweight, but not lithe, like her sister."
    I instantly related to Ivy. I knew what it was like to be the "plainer" sister.
    "Ivy's still in school," Charlotte said, "and my goal--now your goal--will be to keep her there till she finishes. The main thing is to prevent her from having a baby of her own because that'll put an end to her education."
    "Is Ivy...feebleminded, too?" I asked. I'd rarely used that word.
     "Her IQ's about eighty," Charlotte said. "Low, but not feebleminded, which is a shame because it would make it easier to petition the Eugenics Board on her behalf." (p. 65-6)

Meanwhile, Ivy's world revolves around Henry Allen, the tobacco farmer's son. When they secretly rendezvous at night, they listen to the radio and look at books about California. Again, the reader sees life through Ivy's eyes and what's in store for her:

     We went through all the pages. There was trees as big around as the tobacco barns and foggy cliffs called Big Sur and rocks in the ocean covered with seals and big black birds. There was actual palm trees. How could one place have so many different beautiful parts to it? I felt that ache in my chest again as he turned the pages. I wanted to step inside the book and live that beautiful life. Henry Allen said everybody in California was rich and had swimming pools in their own yards. I wished California was right next door to Grace County and I could walk over there tomorrow.
    "Which place you want to live?" Henry Allen asked.
    "Any of 'em."
    "No, get serious. Let's pick our top place from these here pictures."
    "Someplace by the water."
    He turned the pages and I stopped him. "There, I said, pointing to a pretty little tree standing all alone, way out on a cliff above the ocean. "This place."
    "Monterey," he said. "Okay, then. That's our destination. Monterey, California."
    "What about you, though? Which place do you want to live at?"
    "Wherever you are," he said.
     My throat got tight. "What if I'm here, Henry Allen? What if I can't never leave?" Me and Henry Allen used to say we'd run off after we finished school, which meant three more years for me and two for him, but I couldn't see how I'd ever be able to leave Mary Ella or Nonnie or Baby William. Everything would fall to pieces without me. I felt sad all of a sudden. All me and Henry Allen had was the dream. So we didn't talk about the when no more. Just the where.
.........
    All day long, I worried about other people. Was Nonnie going to have to start getting shots for her sugar? Was Baby William ever going to say more words than "mama" or would he be one of them dumb goys other kids picked on? Would Mary Ella get herself in trouble again? Worry worry worry. But when I was with Henry Allen like I was right now, him slipping my nightgown over my head and pressing his body into mine, so gentle and sweet, I could forget about everything except him and me and our dreams about the future. (p. 31-32, 33)
   
Jane works hard at gaining Ivy's trust, but their tenuous relationship explodes when the Department of Public Welfare presses Jane into submitting a petition for Ivy's sterilization. When
Jane defies her employer's orders and bring Ivy into her own home, Ivy discovers Jane's secrets--thus changing Ivy's life too:

    "Yes." It was her turn  to put down a card, but she just stared at the cards in her hand like she wasn't really seeing them. She looked up at me. "I lost both my father and my sister," she said. "Just like you."
    I couldn't believe it. I thought of her as a lady with a perfect life, especially now that I seen her house.   I felt like anybody could look at me and know I lost too much. I never would of guessed she had, too....
    ......
    "I looked at the picture another minute. Mrs. Forrester and her sister was both smiling. Both of them happy girls. Maybe happier than me and Mary Ella ever was. "You and me," I said, "we both go the same kind of hurt inside us."
    She nodded, and suddenly, just like that, I knew I could trust her with my life. (p.290, 292)

Since I am writing historical fiction set in North Carolina in 1950, I was interested in how Chamberlain used vernacular to give her characters voice and make them true to the time period and setting. I work at understanding my character's core values and knowing what makes them tick. Ivy and Jane's core values ring clear throughout the book: people should be free to make choices that will effect them and their futures.

There is much that one can say about this outstanding novel. But if you are a writer and are familiar with Blake Snyder's beats from Save the Cat, you'll be impressed with the opening and final images. Like bookends, a third narrator, Brenna, brings the book full circle.  

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I could say more, but I don't want to include too many spoilers! Instead, here's your chance to win this book and read it yourself:

1. Leave me a comment. PLEASE leave your email address if you are new to this blog.
2. Become a follower to this blog and/or share the blog on your favorite social media site. Let me know what you do, and I'll add your name an additional time for each time you share it.
3. Enter by Friday night, June 6th.