After Roe vs. Wade is overturned in 2011, Phoebe performs illegal ""misconceptions"" in her basement, until the suicide of a twelve-year old incest victim betrays her to the police, and she must decide between anonymity and moral righteousness. 12,500 first printing."
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
Ferriss (Against Gravity, S. & S., 1996) paints a disturbing portrait of 21st-century America. After Roe v. Wade is overturned, women are forced to give birth or have illegal abortions performed by "misconceivers." Phoebe Chambers, like her mother and her sister, who has since been murdered, is a misconceiver. When she is arrested, she is thrown into a political and social tornado where she can trust no one. Although the story centers on a political issue, it focuses on one woman and her relationships with those around her. Phoebe must make peace with the past and choose whether to move forward or avenge her sister's death. Some of the supporting characters are not well developed, and the plot drags in spots. But overall this is an enjoyable read, especially for readers who like dystopic novels.?Editha Ann Wilberton, Kansas City P.L., Kan.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
In 2026, 15 years after Roe v. Wade was overturned and the Human Life Amendment passed, abortions are called misconceptions. The government doesn't allow married women to work; indeed, women are expected to be subservient to men. Phoebe, Ferriss' narrator, and her sister Marie learned to be misconceivers after the "antis" blew up an abortion clinic in which their mother worked, yet neither is comfortable with it. They believe they are doing wrong. At 15, Phoebe performs a "miscon" on Marie, who later dies in jail after eating tainted meat. Not believing in charging all the market will bear, Phoebe removes fetuses from her patients at night and viruses from computers during the day. Eventually arrested, she is sent to "softjail," where a fellow inmate nearly kills her. Escaping through an air duct, she undergoes a long process of repentance and near insanity, during which some readers may leave. Those who stick with her, though, will appreciate Ferriss' sympathetic handling of Phoebe's deep-seated problems and heated relationship with Arthur, a doctor. William Beatty
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Born in St. Louis, Lucy Ferriss has lived on both coasts, in the middle, and abroad. She is the author of nine books, mostly fiction; her most recent novel is THE LOST DAUGHTER (Berkley/Penguin 2012). Her memoir Unveiling the Prophet: The Misadventures of a Reluctant Debutante was called Best Book of the Year by the Riverfront Times; her novel Nerves of the Heart was a finalist in the Peter Taylor Prize competition; her collection Leaving the Neighborhood and Other Stories was the 2000 winner of the Mid-List First Series Award. Other short fiction and essays have appeared most recently in the New York Times, Missouri Review, Shenandoah, Michigan Quarterly Review, and Georgia Review, and have received recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Faulkner Society, the Fulbright Commission, and the George Bennett Fund, among others, She received her Ph.D. from Tufts University and currently lives with Don Moon in the Berkshires and in Connecticut, where she is Writer-in-Residence at Trinity College. She has two strong sons and abiding passions for music, politics, travel, tennis, and wilderness. She has a historical novel, The Woman Who Bought the Sky, on deck, and is working on a new novel, tentatively titled Honor. Visit Lucy at her website http://lucyferriss.com.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Prescient and Terrifying,
By
This review is from: The MISCONCEIVER: A Novel (Hardcover)
Lucy Ferriss looked not terribly far ahead (this book was published in 1997) to a world where privacy is a thing of the past. Some of the things she sees, and which have come to pass, are a world that runs on plastic cards, print journalism and other paper-based reading material no longer exists, and women are second-class citizens. Included in the nightmare is the fact that discrimination against homosexuals is not only tolerated but encouraged. Sadly, Miss Ferriss saw the future all too accurately in a few respects.
This is a frighteningly prescient novel wherein the lead character, a woman who provides abortions (or "misconceptions") finds a web of conspiracy surrounding her in an Orwellian world. This is a book that raises difficult questions, and it is a troubling, but important, read. While set in the future, it returns us to a time when a woman's only function was to marry and breed. Given that American pharmacists are now allowed (on a supposedly limited basis) to refuse to do their jobs on "moral" grounds, and that there is an idiot spouting off about how condoms cause the spread of AIDS, I found it difficult to read this book without nodding in recognition. Lucy Ferriss writes about the future, and it is a scary place to be.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
