The Family Roe (eBook)

An American Story

Joshua Prager (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021
672 Seiten
W. W. Norton & Company (Verlag)
9780393247725 (ISBN)

Infos

Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for General NonfictionFinalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book PrizeFinalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for NonfictionOne of NPR's Best Books of 2021A New York Times Notable Book of 2021One of TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2021"e;The scope is sweeping, the writing is beautiful. Its an epic story worthy of the impact this one case has had on the American psyche."e; Michel Martin, NPR"e;Stupendous. If you want to understand Roe more deeply before the coming decision, read it."e; Peggy Noonan, Wall Street JournalA masterpiece of reporting on the Supreme Courts most divisive case, Roe v. Wade, and the unknown lives at its heart.Despite her famous pseudonym, Jane Roe, no one knows the truth about Norma McCorvey (19472017), whose unwanted pregnancy in 1969 opened a great fracture in American life. Journalist Joshua Prager spent hundreds of hours with Norma, discovered her personal papersa previously unseen troveand witnessed her final moments. The Family Roe presents her life in full. Propelled by the crosscurrents of sex and religion, gender and class, it is a life that tells the story of abortion in America.Prager begins that story on the banks of Louisianas Atchafalaya River where Norma was born, and where unplanned pregnancies upended generations of her forebears. A pregnancy then upended Normas life too, and the Dallas waitress became Jane Roe.Drawing on a decade of research, Prager reveals the woman behind the pseudonym, writing in novelistic detail of her unknown life from her time as a sex worker in Dallas, to her private thoughts on family and abortion, to her dealings with feminist and Christian leaders, to the three daughters she placed for adoption.Prager found those women, including the youngestBaby Roenow fifty years old. She shares her story in The Family Roe for the first time, from her tortured interactions with her birth mother, to her emotional first meeting with her sisters, to the burden that was uniquely hers from conception.The Family Roe abounds in such revelationsnot only about Norma and her children but about the broader family connected to the case. Prager tells the stories of activists and bystanders alike whose lives intertwined with Roe. In particular, he introduces three figures as important as they are unknown: feminist lawyer Linda Coffee, who filed the original Texas lawsuit yet now lives in obscurity; Curtis Boyd, a former fundamentalist Christian, today a leading provider of third-trimester abortions; and Mildred Jefferson, the first black female Harvard Medical School graduate, who became a pro-life leader with great secrets.An epic work spanning fifty years of American history, The Family Roe will change the way you think about our enduring American divide: the right to choose or the right to life.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 14.9.2021
• Zusatzinfo: 16 pages of illustrations
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► 20. Jahrhundert bis 1945
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Schlagworte: Abortion • Amy Coney Barrett • Debate • Jane Roe • linda coffey • norma mccorvey • personal freedom • Planned Parenthood • Pro Choice • Right to Choose • Right to life • right to life abortion debate pro choice planned parenthood • Right to Privacy • roe vs wade • Ruth Bader Ginsburg • Supreme Court • Warren Burger
• ISBN-13: 9780393247725 / 9780393247725