What impresses me most about this novel is the writer's ability to not play the overly dramatic tone in what is a pretty dramatic story. While healthy outrage ensured that steam poured from my own ears, Diane Chamberlain's manner and tone remained grounded and matter of fact throughout. Chamberlain acknowledges that while the characters of this novel are fictional, they are, incredibly, based on real cases; cases which were the norm in 1960 North Carolina. Knowing this will send chills through y...

Diane Chamberlain has been a favorite of mine for some time but I think it may have been this book that pushed her towards the top of my list. I just love the way she tells a story with her writing. Before I read this, I had no real knowledge of the Eugenics Program. I vaguely remember reading a magazine article years ago but that was pretty much the extent of what I knew. One definition of Eugenics:"the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a h...

*5+ stars*So good.....so good. This story held my heart.Set in the final years of Jim Crow and based on a true story, Necessary Lies is a story that everyone needs to read.A reminder of how far we've come and how much further we still need to go with regards to discrimination & prejudice; with Chamberlain providing stark illustrations of how humanity degrades those who- unwittingly- are born to a specific race or gender. Likewise, our disdain for those living with a mental or physical disability...

Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain (Author), Alison Elliott (Narrator)There is so much I like about this story, the fact that I learned about the Eugenics Sterilization Program and the part it played in our history, the Gardiner family, and the Hart family (as unlikeable as the grandmother was, I could see how her life pressures were too much for her). But the character of self righteous, hypocritical Jane upset me so much. I slept on my thoughts to see if they would mellow towards Jane but the...

4 ½ stars rounded up to 5 *INCREDIBLE, this author keeps surprising me!! I have read Ms. Chamberlain’s most recent novels including “Dream Daughter” and “The Last House On The Street” and LOVED THEM. What I really enjoyed is that each book was very different in premise, characterization and writing style.I wanted more from this author and I was able to get Necessary Lies.This novel was published in 2013 and somehow I missed it. Once again I am so impressed with how unique this book is. GREAT HIS...

This novel exceeded my already high expectations, and is historical fiction at it's best. I'm always drawn to America's dirty little secrets, and here we have N. Carolina's eugenics program in the 1960's. Chamberlain does an excellent job focusing in on one specific family and the impact this program has on their lives.The main character, Jane, follows her heart to become a social worker against her husbands wishes (and later demands) to be a housewife and baby maker. She soon learns that this j...

I was lucky enough to be a teenager in the 70s, not the early 60s. So the availability of things like birth control wasn’t an issue. Reading the beginning of this book and being reminded how little rights women had over their own bodies just 50 years ago got me totally riled up.But do all women have the right to have children? Or to keep those children? I’m not of the opinion that the answer is yes. The book works well when Jane is grappling with the slippery slope of whom to sterilize or when t...

If you can believe it....I found this book on the Bargain rack of my local bookstore! I immediately recognized it as a book I had been wanting to read plus I just adore Diane Chamberlain's books.This was a complete winner and fully fledged 5 star read! I was engrossed from the first page to the last. The story of two sisters living in poverty in rural North Carolina in 1960 and the social worker who comes to their aide. It's a heartbreaking and distressing story and I certainly shed some tears e...

Update: $1.99 Kindle download... if you’ve never read this book...I recommend it highly. It’s certainly a great price today. 5++++ STARS!!!This novel stands out among many others!An important story! A clear vision of what it might have felt like to live in 'this country' during a time when people were called 'feebleminded', and morons....and unwanted sterilization was mandated. --Social workers had the power to petition for the sterilization of individuals. My emotions were on fire page after pa...

What makes the difference for me between a 4 stars and a 5 stars book?Connecting with a story with both my brain and my heart. Heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting story. Just a wonderful read.

Can I give NECESSARY LIES more than 5 stars? I recommend reading Diane Chamberlain's short story THE FIRST LIE as an introduction to the book, but it's not essential. The year is 1960. The place, rural North Carolina. Jane is a 22 year old newlywed, beginning her first job as a social worker. One of her more intriguing cases is the Hart family. The ailing grandmother Nonnie, her seventeen-year-old intellectually disabled daughter Mary Ella mother to two-year-old Baby William, and fifteen-year-ol...

I don't know why it has taken me so long to discover the wonderfully talented writer, Diane Chamberlain . But I am thrilled I have been introduced to her writing by a Gooodreads friend , who gave this book a glowing review .The story of two welfare families working so hard and doing what ever it takes to provide bare minimum food and shelter for themselves & their families is heartbreaking . But at the point in the story where we learn of the Eugenics Sterilization Program and the impact on thes...

4.5 stars! This book pulled me right in - Diane Chamberlain is such a fantastic author! I loved the characters and was completely absorbed in the storyline from page 1. Based on real life events, this is the first I have heard of the Eugenics Sterilization Program which sterilized over 7,000 citizens in North Carolina between 1929 and 1975. Reasons for sterilization ranged from "feeble mindedness" to epilepsy to promiscuity of individuals living on welfare (to avoid welfare having to pay once fu...

This is the story of Jane, Ivy and Mary of Grace County, North Carolina. Sadly, it is also about the dire policies and consequences of eugenics on unsuspecting victims. THE EUGENICS BACKGROUNDThe Hart family, (consisting of grandmother Nonnie and her two granddaughters, the two sisters Mary Ella and Ivy), was, according to Margaret Sanger (a eugenics advocate) those good-for-nothing people who were fostered at the expense of good human beings. They were those genetic elements, who contributed to...

Set in 1960's rural North Carolina, a shocking, but enlightening story surrounding the Eugenic's Sterilization Program, their unethical practices and the abuse of State authority. I was totally unfamiliar with the program thus surprised and disgusted with the procedures yet was totally enthralled by the author's presentation and well-developed characters.Another page-turning winner for Diane Chamberlain!

I really enjoy Diane Chamberlain books. This is my third read by this author. I love her writing style and how she puts all the characters together in a beautifully told story. I like it when I can understand what an author is trying to portray. There was a couple of characters that I wasn't too happy with while reading but the end result is what I wanted to see happen. Great story and a highly recommended must read.

Set amidst the tobacco fields in North Carolina in the 1960s, Necessary Lies is an engaging story that pits the passion of an inexperienced social worker against the rules and conventions of the Department of Public Welfare. It documents the hardscrabble life of the Harts and Jordans, two families whose children labor in the tobacco fields in exchange for a roof over their heads. Necessary Lies may not be great literary fiction but it is grounded in historical fact about the Eugenics Program in

It's hard to believe the happenings in this book took place in my lifetime. Granted it is a work of fiction but it is based on real-life happenings in the 1960s. Set in rural Grace County, North Carolina in a time of state-mandated sterilizations and racial tension, Necessary Lies tells the story of these two young women, seemingly worlds apart, but both haunted by tragedy. Jane and Ivy are thrown together and must ask themselves: how can you know what you believe is right, when everyone

3.5 I am appalled that with the large amount of books I have read, I had never heard of this eugenic program before. A white family of sharecroppers on a tobacco farm in the south, and a newly married social worker are the two threads in this story. The thread with the sharecroppers was my favorite, the parts with Jane sometimes came off a bit awkward. The book, nevertheless, hooked me from the very beginning. All the secrets kept and waiting to be revealed on this farm, Jane and her pediatric h...

For me, the strength in this book, even more than the story, is how well Diane Chamberlain captured the sense of place and time. The story opens and closes in 2011, but most of the story takes place in 1960. Diane Chamberlain chillingly captures the time when women must ask their husband's permission to have a job or take birth control--a time when Eugenics, the practice of sterilizing the "feeble-minded" aka known as poor, uneducated who couldn't score well on white-biased IQ testgs was far too...