The Home for Unwanted Girls

February 15, 2018
Family members force a teenager to give up her daughter for adoption in 1950s Quebec.At a time when Quebec is not only divided, but violently polarized by the tension between French and English cultures, Maggie cannot understand what keeps her polished English father, owner of a prosperous seed store, married to her working-class, rough-spun French mother. When she falls passionately in love with Gabriel, a poor French farm boy, at 15 and ends up pregnant, her parents forbid her to keep the baby. Maggie goes on to marry a wealthy man, but she never forgets her daughter, Elodie, and finally begins to make inquiries to find her. The narrative becomes split between Elodie's life and Maggie's life. Raised by nuns at a local orphanage, Elodie is an energetic child, but when the little girl is 7, the Canadian government carries out a ruthless plan to rebrand all Catholic orphanages as homes for the mentally ill. Practically overnight, thousands of orphans are designated mentally unfit, lost in a system of abuse and neglect. Maggie's attempts to locate her daughter are stonewalled and met with lies; it's not until more than 20 years later that she learns the truth with Gabriel's help. This is a strongly political novel about the little-known injustices that mark a particular time and place, but it's also a very personal story. Goodman's (The Finishing School, 2017, etc.) biographical blurb acknowledges that it's based on the story of her own mother. Perhaps because of this, the characters who could have easily come across as types or cliches take on a great emotional depth. The novel centers around the definition, the challenges, the triumph of family, but it also acknowledges that Elodie and Maggie's story is one of many.The ending hits a perfect emotional note: bittersweet and honest, comforting and regretful.

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February 26, 2018
Goodman (The Finishing School) immerses readers in post-WWII Quebec, where hostilities divide French- and English-speakers, in this moving if at times predictable coming-of-age novel. The daughter of a once-impoverished French woman and a middle-class English-speaking father, 15-year-old Maggie Hughes chooses to be English. Despite her father’s warnings that French boys are poor, “don’t finish school,” and have rotten teeth by 40, Maggie falls in love with Gabriel Phénix, the humble French boy living in a crammed shack on the cornfield bordering her family’s property. Their brief summer romance comes to an end when Maggie discovers she’s pregnant and her parents give her two options—give her baby to an orphanage or live in poverty with Gabriel. Fear of being disowned by her family leads Maggie to give up her daughter, Elodie. As the years pass, Maggie’s decision never ceases to haunt her, especially when she discovers that orphanages are being converted into mental institutions. While the third-person perspective works well for Maggie’s character, it comes off as unrealistic and forced in chapters about the younger Elodie (“She’s old enough and clever enough to understand that life as she knew it is over”). Still, Goodman writes with passion about a dark episode in Quebec’s recent past. Agent: Beverly Slopen, Beverly Slopen Literary (Canada).

March 15, 2018

Goodman (The Finishing School) was inspired in part by her mother's story for this novel set in 1950s Quebec. At 15, Maggie becomes pregnant, though she's unsure if the child is her boyfriend Gabriel's or from being raped by her uncle. Her English-speaking family separates her from the French Gabriel, refusing to believe her story of abuse. After giving birth, Maggie is forced to give up daughter Elodie for adoption, and the baby is immediately taken to one of many church-run orphanages in Quebec. Shortly after, owing to a new law providing more funds for psychiatric hospitals, the province's orphanages are remade as mental wards, its residents declared unfit for society, eliminating the need for education or adoption. Growing up, Elodie endures this cruel policy until she is released at age 17. Maggie marries an English businessman in Montreal, trying to live quietly while not forgetting her daughter. And then Gabriel comes back into her life. VERDICT Goodman's solid historical novel highlights social conditions in Quebec from the 1950s to 1970s, with complex characters and the conflict between the French and English handled realistically. While the main story line focuses on Maggie and Elodie's search for each other, subplots add extra interest. For those who appreciated Helen Edwards and Jenny Lee Smith's My Secret Sister or the film Philomena.--Melanie Kindrachuk, Stratford P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2018
Told against the tumultuous political backdrop of 1950s Quebec is the story of Maggie, the daughter of a proper English family, who becomes pregnant with the child of her first love, French neighbor Gabriel. Forced to leave Gabriel and the lower-class lifestyle he can offer her, Maggie is sent away to have the baby, who is given up for adoption so that Maggie can return to the respectable life that her parents envision. While Maggie makes an ill-fated attempt to live up to her parents' wishes, her daughter, bright and inquisitive Elodie, grows up in a nearby orphanage until the law changes and all orphans are declared mental patients. Elodie endures life under the nuns' cruel regime until her release into a foreign world at 17 years old. Only after Maggie and Elodie escape from the confines of their respective institutions can the family be reunited. While emotional at times, Goodman's latest (after The Finishing School, 2017) is a study of how love persists through the most trying of circumstances. Deep and meaningful, this novel captures readers' attention until they're rewarded with a happy ending.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)