No Names to Be Given, by Julia Brewer Daily - JULY 2020 LTER
DiscussãoReviews of Early Reviewers Books
Entre no LibraryThing para poder publicar.
1LyndaInOregon
Disclaimer: An electronic copy of this book was provided in exchange for review by publishers Admission Press, Inc, via Library Thing.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
From the late 1930s through most of the 1950s, one of the most solid entertainment genres was known as “women’s movies”. These highly dramatic offerings generally featured heroines who had, often because of circumstances beyond their control, violated the mores of the day. They broke up marriages or cheated on their husbands. They bore babies out of wedlock, or eschewed home and hearth to compete in the world of business. They generally became glamourous, rich, and powerful … until that fateful day when someone found out their shameful secret and they were faced with losing all they had gained over the years.
Julia Brewer Daily has pretty well written the perfect 1950s Woman’s Movie with ‘No Names to Be Given’, a weeper about three young women who are confined to a New Orleans home for unwed mothers in 1955 and who give up their babies for adoption without ever seeing them. Unfortunately, the time for these magnificent sudsy weepers is pretty well gone, regardless of the medium.
Yes, young women of that era had few options. The Pill was difficult to obtain, many states forbid its issuance to unmarried women, and many doctors would not prescribe it even to married women. Roe v Wade was still 20 years in the future. Girls who inadvertently became pregnant, either through carelessness, ignorance, or violence, were faced with a couple of commonplace resolutions: If this was a high school romance gotten out of hand, a hasty wedding was often arranged; if that proved impractical, she generally went off “to visit Aunt Eleanor” in some conveniently distant locale and returned six or eight months later and was expected to deal with the emotional fallout on her own.
The three young woman in the tale have been led by passion, rebelliousness, or innocence into their current situation and have been enfolded by a system while, not actively cruel, nevertheless gives them no self-determination whatsoever. They will be housed and cared for, their medical needs will be met, their babies will be delivered, whisked away, and placed with adoptive parents chosen generally by the institution. Records were routinely sealed. Some children were told from the outset that they were “chosen”; others had the circumstances of their birth hidden. But secrets have a way of working themselves out into the sunshine, and that of course is what eventually happens to the book’s protagonists.
The book is episodic, jumping back and forth among the three narrators as they go their separate ways, each dealing in her own way with the trauma of the pregnancy, birth, and separation as they build their lives. There’s a lot of navel-gazing and self-recrimination here, and frankly it gets a bit tedious as the plot crawls to what appears to be the most shocking of the three conclusions. Some of the twists are as blazingly obvious as they are unlikely – but Joan Crawford could have acted the hell out of them.
Then Daily tosses a major bomb into the plotline, and things get considerably more interesting as long-buried secrets come to light. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen until about three-quarters of the way through the book, so it’s a long haul for the reader to get there.
Most of the rest of the book is spent tying up the loose ends and dealing out happy-ever-after, sadder-but-wiser, and bravely-accepting-consequences medals to the three women.
Daily really tries here, and it’s a subject that’s dear to her heart, as she is an adoptee herself. But the book never really reached an emotional rapport with this reader, who was frequently distracted by minor inconsistencies in the narrative.
This one only rates three stars from me, and that’s erring on the side of generosity.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
From the late 1930s through most of the 1950s, one of the most solid entertainment genres was known as “women’s movies”. These highly dramatic offerings generally featured heroines who had, often because of circumstances beyond their control, violated the mores of the day. They broke up marriages or cheated on their husbands. They bore babies out of wedlock, or eschewed home and hearth to compete in the world of business. They generally became glamourous, rich, and powerful … until that fateful day when someone found out their shameful secret and they were faced with losing all they had gained over the years.
Julia Brewer Daily has pretty well written the perfect 1950s Woman’s Movie with ‘No Names to Be Given’, a weeper about three young women who are confined to a New Orleans home for unwed mothers in 1955 and who give up their babies for adoption without ever seeing them. Unfortunately, the time for these magnificent sudsy weepers is pretty well gone, regardless of the medium.
Yes, young women of that era had few options. The Pill was difficult to obtain, many states forbid its issuance to unmarried women, and many doctors would not prescribe it even to married women. Roe v Wade was still 20 years in the future. Girls who inadvertently became pregnant, either through carelessness, ignorance, or violence, were faced with a couple of commonplace resolutions: If this was a high school romance gotten out of hand, a hasty wedding was often arranged; if that proved impractical, she generally went off “to visit Aunt Eleanor” in some conveniently distant locale and returned six or eight months later and was expected to deal with the emotional fallout on her own.
The three young woman in the tale have been led by passion, rebelliousness, or innocence into their current situation and have been enfolded by a system while, not actively cruel, nevertheless gives them no self-determination whatsoever. They will be housed and cared for, their medical needs will be met, their babies will be delivered, whisked away, and placed with adoptive parents chosen generally by the institution. Records were routinely sealed. Some children were told from the outset that they were “chosen”; others had the circumstances of their birth hidden. But secrets have a way of working themselves out into the sunshine, and that of course is what eventually happens to the book’s protagonists.
The book is episodic, jumping back and forth among the three narrators as they go their separate ways, each dealing in her own way with the trauma of the pregnancy, birth, and separation as they build their lives. There’s a lot of navel-gazing and self-recrimination here, and frankly it gets a bit tedious as the plot crawls to what appears to be the most shocking of the three conclusions. Some of the twists are as blazingly obvious as they are unlikely – but Joan Crawford could have acted the hell out of them.
Then Daily tosses a major bomb into the plotline, and things get considerably more interesting as long-buried secrets come to light. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen until about three-quarters of the way through the book, so it’s a long haul for the reader to get there.
Most of the rest of the book is spent tying up the loose ends and dealing out happy-ever-after, sadder-but-wiser, and bravely-accepting-consequences medals to the three women.
Daily really tries here, and it’s a subject that’s dear to her heart, as she is an adoptee herself. But the book never really reached an emotional rapport with this reader, who was frequently distracted by minor inconsistencies in the narrative.
This one only rates three stars from me, and that’s erring on the side of generosity.
