And I need you when the dark gets true: NECESSARY LIES.

Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Set in North Carolina in the 1960s, Chamberlain deftly explores rural poverty and racial discrimination through her characters Ivy and Jane. Ivy is a white teenager living in a shack with her grandmother, her teenage sister, and her young nephew. They work on a tobacco farm alongside a black family that has also tended the land for the same family for generations. Ivy's sister, Mary Ella, gave birth to William when she was 15, and their family is struggling.

Jane, young, naive, and newly married, is new to social work and the welfare system and assigned to Ivy's family's case. She’s shocked to learn that Ivy is scheduled to be sterilized as part of a eugenics project through her agency. Jane soon grows attached to Ivy and her family to the detriment of her marriage and professional life.

NECESSARY LIES highlights the horrible situation poor people or black people faced in the 1950s and 1960s (Chamberlain points out that NC sterilized people until 1975!). Many were given no choice, or not even told what was done to them. Decisions were made in the name of mental incompetence, being feeble minded, epilepsy, and more. Families like Ivy's were at the whim of the state and also those who owned the land they worked.

This story was moving and quite well-done, especially as it delved into Ivy's dreams of a better life than the tobacco farm. As with many of Chamberlain's books, sometimes complex topics are presented a bit simplistically at times and can wrap up easily, but I do enjoy how her books explore and give light to complicated issues.

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