Necessary Lies: A Novel Hardcover – September 3, 2013

This novel is well-written. It has a tight plot and all that a story needs to keep the reader reading. I find the idea behind the story difficult to grasp, not because it is not plausible, but because it really did happen. I have heard from various people my whole life on ways to reduce the welfare populations and to read a book where enforced sterilizations are used and the consequences is quite painful. Poor people need work, handouts keep them from achieving goals, but the Hart girls never really had a chance to have life-long goals.When the reader is first introduced to Ivy Hart she is a fifteen-year-old tobacco farm worker with a dream to go to California with the farmer's son. She is unaware that she is already pregnant and will be unable to finish high school. Her family's social worker has already sterilized her sister Mary Ella unbeknownst to the girls and when this betrayal is discovered it sets off a string of horrible calamities that only time can heal. Ivy is supposed to be dumb or dull-normal in the parlance of IQ tests. I am not sure that is an accurate assessment and apparently neither does her new social worker, Jane Forrester. Jane though gets fired for becoming overly involved in this case because she goes against perceived views of 1960 North Carolina.This novel is well-written. It has a tight plot and all that a story needs to keep the reader reading. I find the idea behind the story difficult to grasp, not because it is not plausible, but because it really did happen. I have heard from various people my whole life on ways to reduce the welfare populations and to read a book where enforced sterilizations are used and the consequences is quite painful. Poor people need work, handouts keep them from achieving goals, but the Hart girls never really had a chance to have life-long goals.When the reader is first introduced to Ivy Hart she is a fifteen-year-old tobacco farm worker with a dream to go to California with the farmer's son. She is unaware that she is already pregnant and will be unable to finish high school. Her family's social worker has already sterilized her sister Mary Ella unbeknownst to the girls and when this betrayal is discovered it sets off a string of horrible calamities that only time can heal. Ivy is supposed to be dumb or dull-normal in the parlance of IQ tests. I am not sure that is an accurate assessment and apparently neither does her new social worker, Jane Forrester. Jane though gets fired for becoming overly involved in this case because she goes against perceived views of 1960 North Carolina.I am unsure who the hero was in the story. Jane is a badly flawed antagonist and there are many things about her I did not like. There are too many political discussions and women's rights issues for me to sympathized much with her plight. She married the wrong man too quickly and must pay the consequences of a rash decision.Ivy is a child with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her grandmother has diabetes that is not controlled because the nurse refuses to give her a proper diet plan. Her sister is mentally lost because she watched her father die as a child and her mother was sent away after she attacked the farmer's wife. Her nephew appears to be special because he does not talk. When the boy is placed in Foster Care after getting in to great-grandma's medicine Mary Ella cracks and runs into a truck.Jane Forrester is fired by the agency, but comes to take Ivy away so she does not have to be sterilized, but the baby comes quickly and on Monday morning Jane is arrested and Ivy and her baby are placed in separate foster homes. Ivy escapes and gets to California. It is not quite the ending she and Henry Allen had expected, but they are free and do marry.I found this book to be a provoking argument against social work because the case workers already seemed to make up their minds about who the victims of society are and who the victors should be. In our modern day with smaller families it is interesting that there are even more "Special People" though they come from richer families. Poor people are not stupid. They spend time surviving rather than playing so they do not make the rules. The rules are made by the abusers, both the physical abusers and the people who work for the system.

It's been a long time since I read a book where I was as connected to the characters as I was to those in this book.Jane is a young wife settling down in North Carolina with her doctor husband Robert. Robert makes more than enough money to support the couple, however Jane wants to work before settling down to have children. She becomes a caseworker in a rural impoverished area and quickly gets thrust into the world of trying to help the poorest people in the area.Ivy Hart is 15 years old and is often the caretaker of her home; she lives with her older sister, Mary Ella, who is deemed feebleminded, her aging grandmother, and her two year old nephew. Her father has passed away and her mother has been put into a mental institution. The family lives in a tiny house on a tobacco plantation where they work for the Gardiner family who allow them to stay in exchange for working on the plantation. Ivy has a deep bond with her family and also has dreams to better her future.When Jane and Ivy meet, they become friends. Ivy has been determined to be unintelligent and untrustworthy, but Jane can see through that and realizes that Ivy is a determined and hardworking young woman who has been born into an unfortunate situation. Jane works hard to advocate for Ivy and her family and to keep them together. But when multiple tragedies strike, Jane must take actions that she never would have thought of in order to protect Ivy. The two learn that they are more alike than different and have many things in common, despite their extreme differences in lifestyle and upbringing.I loved all of the characters and could picture them so clearly. They all were so dynamic and relatable, despite the fact that I have never been in a situation like them and wasn't yet born when this story took place. The writing was incredibly well done and I felt as if I were there for so much of the story. This was a read for a book club and I suspect it will lead to a great discussion. There are so many dynamics involved that prove that life is never simply black and white.I will admit that I had no idea that forced sterilization went on in the way that it did for so long in order to prevent poor people from having children. That devastated me and I truly learned something from this book. I felt for all of the characters involved in this difficult situation and I could even see how the other social workers involved truly believed they were helping these women. This story taught me something new and also captivated my interest. I was truly sad to see it end. I would highly recommend this book to anyone and I think it is an important read.

I read Necessary Lies for my book club. If this is how my book club is starting 2022, Diane Chamberlain has set a very high bar. I couldn't put it down!This was an incredibly powerful and harrowing story about a teenager and a young woman who are both victims of a cruel system, but in different ways. I cared so much about Ivy and Jane and really wanted them both to "win." Both characters are easy to sympathize with and they have compelling narratives. Everyone who worked against them was easy to despise throughout the story. The descriptions made people and settings so easy to visualize, without taking away from the story itself. They just enhanced everything that was happening. I can't believe I waited nine years to read this novel, but I only started Diane's books a few years ago and still have a lot of catching up to do, as I have a feeling the rest of her earlier work is just as amazing.This is definitely a must-read! Perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah and Ellen Marie Wiseman.Movie casting suggestions:Ivy: Mary-Charles JonesJane: Olivia HoltNonnie: Dale DickeyHenry Allen: Preston BaileyRobert: Glen PowellMary Ella: Juliette AngeloCharlotte Werkman: Anna Paquin

Wonderfully written, excellent character development and superb ending. My wife has read all of your books except one. I will read of your books too.

4.5 stars. Highly recommended, I couldn't put this down, and I'm not sure if my overall impression was more sadness or horror.Set primarily in the early 1960s, the two main charactrs (though there are lots of others) are a newly-married idealistic but naïve social worker, and a fifteen year old white girl who worked on a tobacco plantation. The connection between them is strong, but the social worker holds the young girl's life in her hands. I didn't know about the eugenics programme which forms the core of the plot line of this book, but there's lots of information about it in the author note at the end. It is shocking. Really, truly, horrific. And it really happened. The author makes the point that this case is toned down, deliberately 'ordinary' when she could have used much worse samples. I was so angry, and I was son upset reading this. And the fact that it was portrayed so believably made it harder to take.Don't get me wrong though, this isn't a political book - well, not only. It's a really good story with really fascinating characters. Your heart goes out to them, but the lines are not so easily drawn either. There's rules broken that shouldn't have been. There's lots of unanswered ethical questions. And at the heart of it, a study of two really fascinating characters.Loved this.

I enjoyed this book a lot, and found it "unputdownable", to the extent that I put aside the (paper) book I had started earlier in order to finish this on my Kindle app. But as I have got further away from it, I begin to feel that I enjoyed it in much the way I might enjoy a sticky toffee pudding - compelling and enjoyable while I'm eating it, but really doesn't have enough texture to become a regular part of my diet .Strong points:- Ivy and her thoughts about her world; I thought ivy's voice came across really well (and I loved that Henry Allen wasn't just a shallow teenage boy, but really cared about her)- the other poor "trash" characters and the descriptions of their lives- the historical aspects, highlighting the shocking activities and morals of the Eugenics Board and "social workers"; I had read about this before, but I had no idea it still went on as late as the 60s (though if you read the author's note at the end of the book, North Carolina was the last state to continue the programme)- Jane's backstory, especially the loss of her sister and father, which was handled with a very light touch- there was an interesting point towards the end where Jane and Robert start to realise that they haven't been completely honest with each other ... and that part of being honest with another person is the ability/willingness to be honest with yourself (which can be much harder!).Weaknesses:- I thought that if the author was trying to ask the question "are lies sometimes necessary?", then she didn't do it very well. I would have liked to have seen Jane (and the reader) put in a situation where she would have real doubts about whether she should always tell the truth- the character of Robert, who was very one-dimensional and his empathy for his child patients didn't chime with his lack of empathy for Jane. This was a necessary plot device (Chamberlain needed him to go away leaving Jane alone in the house), and I felt it weakened the whole book- in fact, now I think about it, I feel the whole thing was unnecessarily black and white - Jane was "good", Charlotte and Robert were "bad"; some shades of grey would have been refreshing- the happy ending; this was like adding icing to the sticky toffee pudding - unnecessary and overly sweet.Overall, I think the reason I enjoyed reading it so much is that it had "flow" - the story and characters carried me along. And that the criticisms I make (my desire for more "texture") would, if addressed, disrupt the "flow", which is very much a feature of the way authors like Diane Chamberlain write.

I couldn't put this book down. It tells the story of Jane Forrester, a woman in 1960 working for the Department of Public Welfare in the deep south of America. She's new to the job and finds it hard to detach herself emotionally from the families she is dealing with. One of her families is the Hart family and in particular 15 year old Ivy and her 17 year old sister, Mary Ella. They work in tobacco fields and live in poverty. The biggest part of the story relates to a moral dilemma facing Jane, and this made the book such an interesting read, especially when you consider it's based on reality.The book alternates between being told from the points of view of Jane and Ivy. I was never confused as to who was 'speaking' as each has a very distinctive voice. I raced through the story - Diane Chamberlain has such a human way of writing, enabling me as a reader to feel empathy with the characters. Add to that her ability to write such interesting and morally complex storylines and this guarantees a fab read.

I'd not read a Diane Chamberlain book in about 2 years as I've been discovering lots of new authors and new genres for me. So I wasn't sure if my reading tastes had moved away from this style of book but it had been on my kindle for quite a while and I fancied giving it a read.Well my tastes definitely haven't moved away too far as I'd forgotten how well Diane tells a story and this one quite shockingly is based on facts. I read the whole book over 2 days and enjoyed every page.Diane's style of writing is very captivating and this book as reminded me of my love of her books. I shall definitely be working my way through any others that I have on kindle over the coming months. I did not realise how many of her books I've actually so unfortunately it's many.

I was unsure whether I would take to this book, especially since the setting is in rural North Carolina in the 1960's. This was a time when race was divided and although we are now in the 20th century, racism is sadly still an issue for some in that part of the world. For that reason, I was undecided as to whether I really wanted to read this, but having read other DC books and loved them I started. I was pleased I made that choice as Diane Chamberlain has created a book that tells a story, and just that. She doesn't sensationalise anything about it, but creates a story that will maybe make readers aware of the struggles that went on at that time.Jane Forrester is far from the norm' in the sixties as she is determined that although she is newly married, she still wants to have a career. I liked Jane and DC did an amazing job of recreating the unease that people felt in the sixties when women working was out of the ordinary. Very quickly we see Jane start her job as a social worker and are instantly taken into the world of the poorest people that are working in the tobacco fields. Ivy Hart is a young girl and lives with her Grandmother and sister. It took me not time to be transported to the conditions and type of life they had to lead.As the story unfolds and we meet more workers and we begin to see the effects of the Eugenics Programme which was widely used in the sixties, and something I had never heard of until reading this book. As the book progresses you begin to see that there is a lot more to it that at first glance. The story peels back layers and weaves an absolutely gripping storyline making it impossible to stop reading. It's a pretty sad story in one respect but one which had an absolutely amazing ending and a story that I loved from start to finish. Diane Chamberlain has singled herself out as an outstanding author by touching the reader emotionally, but at the same time still producing an amazing story which highlights historical events that some people may know nothing about.This may not be for everybody as the subject matter may be too sensitive for some, but I found it absolutely gripping and would highly recommend it. It's a book that will have remain in my memory banks for some time and I think if you haven't read it you should certainly give it a try.