by Cathryn Conroy (Dublin, Ohio): This novel is historical fiction. It is based on fact. And that is exactly what makes the story so hard to read. It is appalling. And its roots, its grounding, are all true. Prepare to be horrified.
That said, it’s vitally important that we read books like this that expose what can happen when unfair, detrimental, and discriminating laws are randomly enacted and enforced. In this case, it was the Chamberlain-Kahn Act, otherwise known as the American Plan, that was enacted in 1918 and continued into the 1950s and legally permitted military, police, and health officers to arrest any woman suspected of prostitution.
Mind you, a young woman could be accused of prostitution just because she chose to live alone, chose to eat dinner in a restaurant by herself, or was pretty or unmarried. Husbands who were bored or angry with their wives could turn them in. There were no standards. There was no due process through the legal system. Once arrested, the woman was forced to undergo invasive testing for venereal disease and then sent to jail or to a detention center or workcamp so she could be “rehabilitated.”
Set in 1941 in Kinston, North Carolina, this novel by Donna Everhart focuses on a small group of women who have been arrested for prostitution and sent to the State Industrial Farm Colony for Women. Beautiful Ruth with her long, silky black hair has graduated from high school and is living her dream of having her own apartment and a job in the local diner. While walking to work one morning, she is grabbed off the street by the sheriff and driven against her will to the Colony. Stella is smart but a social outcast. She is only 15, but her father has been visiting her bedroom at night for years. Now Stella is pregnant so her enraged mother, who assumes Stella has a no-good boyfriend, sends her off to the Colony to have her “tumor” removed.
The medical treatment received by these women is horrific. Ruth has only ever kissed one boy, but it’s determined she has syphilis and is treated repeatedly with arsenic and mercury shots, the standard treatment in this time. The side effects include hair loss, nausea, and loose teeth. Stella is sterilized without her knowledge or permission.
Living in the Colony under the strict rules of the superintendent, Mrs. Dorothy Baker, some 45 women are subjected to a life that resembles a prison. How they survive and what happens to them as they are repeatedly abused and eventually fight back is the basis of this intense and superb page-turner novel that left me stunned, horrified, and angry.
