![Necessary Lies: A Novel by [Chamberlain, Diane]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/512BveJupsL._SY346_.jpg)
From Booklist
Employing accessible characters and compelling language, Chamberlain deeply mines the appalling, little-known history of North Carolina’s Eugenics Sterilization Program, in effect from 1929 to 1975. As worker-tenants on a tobacco farm in 1960, 15-year-old Ivy Hart lives with her faltering, temperamental grandmother, mentally slow yet breathtakingly beautiful 17-year-old sister, young nephew “Baby” William, and her own epilepsy. Jane Forrester, an idealistic social worker, whose status-conscious doctor-husband isn’t convinced his wife should hold a job, feels smothered by the social niceties of the early ’60s South and starts to question the boundaries and mutual respect in her own marriage. When Jane becomes Ivy’s family’s social worker, she encounters the state program that seeks to sterilize “mental defectives,” among others with supposedly undesirable characteristics. Through every choice she makes from then on, Jane triggers an inescapable series of events that thrusts everything either she or Ivy ever held to be true into a harsh light, binding them together in ways they do not immediately comprehend or appreciate. Absorbing and haunting, this should strongly touch Chamberlain’s fans and draw those who enjoy Jodi Picoult and Barbara Delinsky. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Chamberlain is the best-selling author of 21 novels, and her latest will have a 150,000-copy first printing and be supported by a major marketing campaign. --Julie Trevelyan
Review
"This enthralling novel transfixed me from the very first pages." --Christina Schwarz, "New York Times" bestselling author of "Drowning Ruth
"""Necessary Lies "shines!" --Lesley Kagen, "New York Times" bestselling author of "Mare's Nest
""Expertly intertwines history and matters of the heart - love, loyalty and choosing what is right, no matter the consequences." --Heather Gudenkauf, "New York Times" bestselling author of "The Weight of Silence & One Breath Away
""Diane Chamberlain's "Necessary Lies" is the most important book she has ever written." --Dorothea Benton Frank, "New York Times "bestselling author of "Porch Lights"
