Staying Under [Hardcover]

Carol McPhee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1998

A compelling first novel set in post-World War II California, STAYING UNDER transports the reader to a more innocent time while uncovering the sometimes terrifying costs of such innocence. After forty-five years, Maureen Lewis looks up an old childhood friend who mysteriously broke off their girlhood ties following a desperate, and eventually disillusioning, trip to San Francisco in search of an abortionist. With a backdrop that balances the morality of the 1940s against the openness of the 1990s, STAYING UNDER reminds us that society (even now) can fail girls at a vulnerable age by surrounding sex and childbearing with secrecy and shame, leaving many girls to meet such choices and responsibilities alone.

A story of alienation and separation from one's true self, this is ultimately a story of hope and the power of love and true friendship. A book group Discussion Guide is printed in the book.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the summer of 1948, 18-year-old Californian Joanne Ridley learns that she is pregnant and turns for help to her best friend, Maureen Lewis. The two young women at the heart of this affecting but somewhat stilted debut conspire to find a way for Joanne to get an illegal abortion. The impact of this event mysteriously shatters their friendship and reverberates through the next five decades of silence. Finally, Maureen is driven to reconnect with her childhood friend and find out exactly why Joanne ended their relationship at the end of that fateful summer. Using contrasting points of view, McPhee (who edited The Nonviolent Militant: Selected Writings of Teresa Billington-Greig) interweaves past and present, filling in the details of the women's separate adult lives (the nature of their marriages, husbands and children) while juxtaposing them against their childhood friendship and their teenage years. Evocative details of time and place and social mores are somewhat blunted by awkward dialogue, however. Although McPhee's background as a feminist and community activist is apparent, her novel is not a polemic for women's rights but an exploration of a close relationship that eventually survives time and experience. 10,000 first printing; $10,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

McPhee's narrative moves back and forth from the present day to the summer of 1948 in a small California town during the end of the war, where two college-bound girls must cope with a pregnancy and the decision to seek out an abortionist. The reader glimpses the innocence and confusion of the girls of the past and the way the events of that summer have shaped the lives of the women they became. The emotional and moral climate of a simpler time is played against the fear and lack of options that the girls face, and the controversy of legal abortions, while never part of the story, remains as an undercurrent. This first novel is part of a series that presents issues of interest to women and includes topics for discussion. Danise Hoover

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Papier-Mache Press; 1st edition (September 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576010562
• ISBN-13: 978-1576010563
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,400,859 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars An important book for women of all ages., October 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Staying Under (Hardcover)

It is easy to forget what it was like before Roe vs. Wade. This important work reminds older women and shows younger women the tremendous impact the issue of choice has on lives. It reads like a mystery and develops into a can't-put- it-down good read.

5.0 out of 5 stars I respond--as a Californian--to _Staying Under_., September 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Staying Under (Hardcover)

Sometimes people forget that mid-twentieth century California was not just Hollywood, but a large, sparsely populated state, with hundreds of small rural communities. In _Staying Under_, Carol Alma McPhee recreates that California for readers. As a woman who grew up in a similar environment, I want to vouch for her accuracy of detail as well as her ear for dialogue. Maureen and Joann, her two main characters, sound just the way my friends and I did fifty years ago.

McPhee uses her setting to provide a sense of what frightening challenges might face young women emerging from such a protected rural environment in 1948. She also uses the setting to show how all kinds of isolation and separation affect the development of women: isolation from knowledge about themselves, isolation from sensible help from the community, isolation created by the lies told each other.

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written and captivating book. I loved the characters!!, September 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Staying Under (Hardcover)

Though Staying Under is not a mystery, it reads like a mystery. The answer to the question of what Joann is going to do about her pregnancy in 1948--before Roe vs. Wade-- and how she might find help becomes more and more frightening as you read on. This is especially true as McPhee contrasts the life Joann has led as an adult and her strong and passionate character as an adolescent. In general, characterization is one of McPhee's strong points. Maureen, the friend who tries to help the teen age Joann, hasn't changed as much as her friend as she has grown older, but she has developed into a competent and active woman who loves to make fun of herself. Of the men in the book, Paul Ridley, Joann's father who pursues strange religions is the most interesting, though Collie, who keeps an imaginary frog in his pocket, adds to the suspense at the end.