Ginny Richardson's daughter Lucy is born with Down syndrome and immediately sent to a school for the “feeble minded.” Ginny's husband decides they will keep this a secret and only a few will know Lucy is alive. Two years later, Ginny hears that Lucy’s school is under investigation for its horrendous conditions, and resolves, with her best friend and six-year-old son in tow, to find and keep Lucy, spurring a dramatic road trip to safety.
Greenwood’s...heart-wrenching, emotional roller coaster of a read also seamlessly captures the transformation of women’s roles in the early 1970s. A heartfelt tale of true friendship, a mother’s unstoppable love, and the immeasurable fortitude of women.
Greenwood’s earlier novels of family dysfunction...have hooked onto issues ranging from anorexia to child abduction; here Down syndrome disrupts a young woman’s life and marriage ... A serious subject cheapened by melodrama that rings inauthentic.
...an unabashed heart-tugger ... The author makes Ginny’s transformation from timid housewife to empowered guardian an affecting one. And in Ginny’s road trip from Massachusetts to Florida...Greenwood explores a country caught between traditional values and the societal changes of the 1960s and ’70s. This is a moving depiction of the primal power of a mother’s love
