Short Synopsis
In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade.

Full Synopsis
In this deeply moving and myth-shattering work, Ann Fessler brings out into the open for the first time the astonishing untold history of the million and a half women who surrendered children for adoption due to enormous family and social pressure in the decades before Roe v. Wade. An adoptee who was herself surrendered during those years and recently made contact with her mother, Fessler brilliantly brings to life the voices of more than a hundred women, as well as the spirit of those times, allowing the women to tell their stories in gripping and intimate detail.

"Fessler recounts her own journey to find and reunite with her birth mother in this heartrending look at the untold story of American women compelled to surrender their children." ---Booklist Starred Review

"[T]hese knowing oral histories are an emotional boon for birth mothers and adoptees struggling to make sense of troubled pasts." ---Publishers Weekly

"A valuable contribution to the literature on adoption." ---Kirkus

"Thought-provoking and thoroughly researched." ---Library Journal

Booklist Review