Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain

Ivy is only fifteen but she is the glue that holds her family together.  Her folk are sharecroppers on a tobacco farm.  Her father was killed in a farming accident and her mother had a psychotic break afterwards and is in the state mental hospital.  She lives with her grandmother, whose health is not good, and her sister who is beautiful but mentally challenged.  Mary Ella, the sister, has already had a baby, a gorgeous little boy who is perhaps mentally challenged as well.

Jane is a new social worker.  She is newly married to a doctor who is just starting his practice and they have a lot of divergent ideas.  He really doesn't want Jane to work but she wants to use her education.  She is on birth control but dares not tell him as he wants a family right away.  He thought he was getting a country club, Junior League type of woman instead of a social worker who wears her heart on her sleeve.

Jane is given Ivy's family as part of her case load.  She is appalled to learn that Mary Ella was sterilized by the state at the time she gave birth and even worse, that she was never told that.  Now, Ivy is pregnant and Jane's supervisors want to have her sterilized as well.  Jane disagrees and can't imagine recommending it even if everyone else she knows thinks it would be best.  Can these two find a way to move forward?

This is the novelization of a real Eugenics Sterilization Program that occurred in North Carolina from 1929 to 1975.  Thousands of women were sterilized, predominantly those women of color and then those who society considered marginal due to physical or mental handicaps.  Diane Chamberlain has captured the lives of both of these women and the cultural environment that the book is set in.  Her portrayal of these characters outlines the problems and solutions of the time and will provide plenty of food for thought. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.