Hi everyone! I am currently reading “The Girls We Sent Away” about an unwed mother from a prominent southern family who gets sent to a “home” for unwed mothers.
I would love to read a real life depiction of this premise. I would like to know more about the darkness/abuse of this era in regards to women who got pregnant out of wed lock. Lmk, thank you!!
by ope-das-my-b
5 Comments
Not a “real life” depiction as the book is fiction but it’s incredibly well researched nonetheless:
_Witchcraft for Wayward Girls_ by Grady Hendrix takes place at one of these homes in the seventies and Hendrix is a phenomenal writer.
The Birth House by Amy McKay
Also not nonfiction, and less dark, but The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett was great.
*The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade* by Ann Fessler is a collection of oral histories — so a bunch of real stories in shorter form rather than one long one. I read it a long, long time ago, but I remember it made me cry.
You might like The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler. The author is a child who was given up for adoption during this time and for the book she interviewed women who gave up their children. A great, sad book.