Decide the Apr-Oct ‘21 reads!
It’s poll time again!
It’s been rather difficult to identify fiction with an abortion plot line, consider geography & location, AND whether they’re widely available in different formats and in different countries (we really learnt our lesson with Eighth Day!).
We’ve found seven books that meet our criteria- help us choose the order we read them in! As always, we’re happy to receive recommendations via this form - maybe we can even make it our last read of 2021!
In no particular order:
You can’t get lost in Cape Town by Zoë Wicomb
Recommended by #abortionbookclub regular Marion Stevens, this book is a collection of short stories set in Apartheid-era South Africa. Considered a blidungsroman, it chronicles the life of a Coloured woman as she grapples with racial politics, identities, and injustices.
"Seductive, brilliant, and precious . . . An extraordinary writer." --Toni Morrison
Reviews: NYT (contains spoilers in the first line)
The Age of the Child by Kristen Tsetsi
A dystopian novel compared to Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, it asks “When a genuinely altruistic government decides it's time to "think of the children," what could possibly go wrong?”
The book explores rights violations: anti-choice and pro-natalist laws, and their impact on women’s reproductive freedoms.
Full synopsis here.
You can read interviews with the author here (with Dr Amy Blackstone) and here.
Butterfly Burning by Yvonne Vera
In Butterfly Burning, Zimbabwean writer Yvonne Vera explores township life in late 1940s Southern Rhodesia. An intensely bittersweet love story between Fumbatha, a construction worker, and the much younger Phephelaphi, the novel captures the ebullience and the bitterness of township life, as well as the strength and courage of her unforgettable heroine.
Learn more about Yvonne Vera and read a review of the book here.
All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki
Yumi Fuller hasn’t set foot in her hometown of Liberty Falls, Idaho—heart of the potato-farming industry—since she ran away at age fifteen. Twenty-five years later, the prodigal daughter returns to confront her dying parents, her best friend, and her conflicted past, and finds herself caught up in an altogether new drama.
All Over Creation tells a celebratory tale of the beauty of seeds, roots, and growth—and the capacity for renewal that resides within us all. Ozeki deliver a quirky cast of characters and a wickedly humorous appreciation of the foibles of corporate life, globalization, political resistance, youth culture, and aging baby boomers.
Middenrammers by John Bart
Set in the UK in the 1970s, Middenrammers follows the story of young Dr. Brian Davis and his efforts to adjust to his new job in a Yorkshire fishing town. The town’s only hospital permits no contraceptive advice, or abortions. Dr. Davis and Woodie—the midwife he falls in love with—regularly come face to face with the terrible repercussions of these policies. Because they refuse to accept the attitude of the hospital administrators—who believe that the right thing to do is to restrict choice and deny reproductive options—the course of their lives is changed as much as those of the patients.
A really interesting video review here, featuring Dr John Bart himself (spoilers!).
So Far from God by Ana Castillo
So Far from God is Ana Castillo’s modern reinterpretation of the lives and struggles of Sofia and her four daughters, Esperanza, Caridad, Fe, and La Loca. Set in contemporary New Mexico, the novel chronicles how this family, its neighbors, and their community confront and essentially prevail over the obstacles of racism, poverty, exploitation, environmental pollution, and war. The novel, covering two decades in the family’s lives, unfolds through a series of flashbacks woven into the central narrative. Blending ironic humor with scathing social commentary, the novel is told from the perspective of a highly opinionated, omniscient third-person narrator.
Learn more about Ana Castillo, and read more about the book here and here.
Unterzakhn by Leela Corman
Our first graphic novel! Leela Corman’s Unterzakhn follows twin sisters in New York City, as wide-eyed little girls absorbing the sights and sounds of a neighborhood of struggling immigrants; as teenagers taking their own tentative steps into the wider world (Esther working for a woman who runs both a burlesque theater and a whorehouse, Fanya for an obstetrician who also performs illegal abortions); and, finally, as adults battling for their own piece of the “golden land”, where the difference between just barely surviving and triumphantly succeeding involves, for each of them, painful decisions that will have unavoidably tragic repercussions.
Watch Leela Corman talk about her novel, and read The Comics Journal’s review.
