Book Review: Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain

Can the best of intentions be enough justifications for taking decisions for someone else? And what if it’s done in an official way?

Set in America Forrester os an idealistic young woman. Fresh out of college, newly married and just starting her new job as a social worker. Her job takes her to Grace County, one of the most impoverished areas, where people most needed help from the authorities. One of the first families that she meets are the Harts. Ivy and Mary Hart are sisters who live with their aging grandmother and Mary’s two-year old son Baby William. Sixteen year old Ivy, an epileptic seems to be the responsible one, the one who seems to be taking care and keeping an eye on Mary, Baby William and her Grandma’s medications. Mary seems intellectually disabled and so does Baby William.

As Jane, gets involved with the Hart family as part of her job, she realizes that she is unable to keep herself from being emotionally involved. She also discovers some shocking facts about the Eugenics program that is ongoing. Women and girls who are seen to be likely to have children and not be in a position to raise the children, are sterilized by the state. Any excuse would work, some are deemed ‘feeble-minded or marginal’, some are labeled, ‘promiscuous’ anything that could be considered an excuse to prevent these impoverished people from having more children. The social workers were responsible for writing up a petition and getting it done. The worst part of the process is that some of the people who are made to undergo the process are not even aware of it, like Mary. She believes that she had an appendix operation after Baby William was born. She dreams of having 5 babies, oblivious to the fact that she can no longer have any more babies.

Jane is soon faced with a decision she doesn’t want to make. A decision she doesn’t feel, that they as social workers, should be making, in the first place. She faces trouble at work for challenging status quo. Her co-workers are annoyed with her stance and also by her refusal to back down.

Jane’s work is not the only area where the waters are tumultuous. Her marriage seems to be in trouble as well. Her new husband, Robert seems to have very different expectations from his wife that he had with his girlfriend. He is not very happy with her job, the fact that she has to go into the homes of people very poor, or even worse, black. He is unhappy with the fact that she chooses to work, he feels that it is demeaning for him to tell people that his wife is working. He wishes she could be happy with volunteering or pick up a job that is more ‘suitable’. Jane, on the other hand, has ideas of her own, aspirations of her own, and it doesn’t help that all of Robert’s friend’s wives seem to have taken an instant dislike to her. Jane is struggling to manage her husband’s expectations and try to do her best for her clients.

Things come to a head when a certain turn of fate changes the course of events drastically. Suddenly, Jane is faced with a situation where she is suddenly all alone and helpless, and yet she is the only one who can save Ivy from the fate that stares at her.

What a impactful book it was! The book transports you back to the time when Eugenics Program was accepted and people saw no harm in it. They never thought twice about the fact that they were taking control of other people’s lives without even checking with them. It is a spine chilling story, fictional, but something that could have/must have happened to so many people in those times. The Eugenics Program was apparently a social program, designed to weed out ‘undesirable’ traits in the human race. Sounds similar to what happened in Germany, doesn’t it? I guess it’s not surprising to read that Eugenics program was inspiration for what happened in Germany. Apparently, this continued in America from the 1920s till the 1970s. It is unbelievable to think that people actually did this and endorsed it.

I would definitely recommend this book. Not the easiest of books to read. Painful, and excruciatingly sad at times. it makes you wish and hope for Ivy and others like Ivy who don’t stand a chance in life. It makes you glad for people like Jane, who fought the system and made it stop. It is a heart-wrenching read, but still a great read. It ends with hope, hope for a future where people will hopefully not treat others less privileged or less able in this way.

A 5/5 book for me. It’s a tought read, but well worth it, if you ask me.

About the author
Award-winning author Diane Chamberlain, was born and raised in Plainfield, New Jersey, and attended Glassboro State University. She also lived for many years in both San Diego and northern Virginia, where she still resides. She is an author of 22 novels. She usually writes about relationships between men and women, parents and children, brothers and sisters, and friends.

This book is available from Amazon(UK) and Flipkart(India).