Customer Reviews

Staying Under

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I had forgotten how little information girls had in 1948 about ANYTHING that mattered and how hard it was to find out what we needed to know about ourselves and the world around us. This book reminded me of how our close friendships with other girls helped to nourish our survival.