Review by Booklist Review
It was her "first autonomous decision." The oldest of nine children in a prominent family in New York, Moore was a theater student having an affair with a professor when she became pregnant in 1969. Abortion was illegal, but as a young white woman of means she was able to appeal to a psychiatrist who arranged for a "therapeutic" procedure in a hospital. Four years later, Roe v. Wade established the constitutional right to abortion. Moore revisits that time as America faces the consequences of the Supreme Court's termination of nearly 50 years of protected reproductive health care via the Dobbs decision. As she considers changing attitudes toward women and sex over the decades, she also tells tales of her artistic evolution, from heady experiences producing and directing plays to devoting herself to writing poetry and memoir. Cycling back and forth in time; sifting through layers of memories, impressions, dreams, and emotions; and creating play-like scenes to reconsider key encounters, Moore deciphers relationships, her abortion, and other crucial crossroads. An evocative and candid reflection on the complexities of femaleness and social strictures.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Poet Moore (Our Revolution) meditates on the emotional consequences of her 1969 abortion in this exquisite memoir. After she became pregnant at 23--either by her older lover or a photographer she "unwillingly had sex with"--Moore was embarrassed to tell her parents, her lover, or most of her friends. She ultimately decided to terminate the pregnancy, obtaining a letter of approval from a psychiatrist after convincing him she'd "go crazy if I had a baby." Following the Supreme Court's 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Moore was moved to revisit the experience and put "a mirror to the past." In fragmentary, lyrical chapters, she examines the feelings of liberation and fear her choice stirred in her, and imagines how her life may have unfolded if had she chosen differently. Piercing imagery ("Run fast, little girl, outrun rabbits and doctors, outwit them thoroughly") and ruthless concision characterize Moore's prose, resulting in an artful battle cry against backsliding into the secrecy of previous generations. Marked by Moore's stunning balance of compassion and rage, this is a triumph. Agent: Rebecca Nagel, Wylie Agency. (Aug.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A distinguished poet and nonfiction writer reflects on the lasting emotional imprint of an abortion. Moore, author of The Bishop's Daughter and Our Revolution, was a 23-year-old student at Yale's drama school when she terminated an unplanned pregnancy. The year was 1969, a time that also saw the emergence of the Jane Collective, a group that established an underground network dedicated to providing safe abortions to all women. Because the author was an "inheritor of minor WASP money," she was able to get a legal abortion by convincing a psychiatrist that a child would destroy her mental health and paying for the procedure with her own funds. "There were two men who might have made me pregnant," writes Moore: one a photographer who forced himself on her and the other, a professor who would have married her had she told him about the pregnancy. Early on, Moore unapologetically describes herself as Magdalene. "A taint of accusation hovers when I write about sexuality: She's had bad relationships, they say. Fallen woman, the woman who sins, adulteress, slut, a stitch dropped from the fabric of society," she writes. Even though she never wanted to have children, Moore returns to thoughts of the baby to which she never gave birth, imagining that child as a boy. "I was always looking for a great love--the kind that starts at a high temperature and calms over time, embers steady," she writes. "What would I have looked for in a lover if I'd had a child?" The author's candid, prose poem--like explorations of the ghosts of relationships past and the complexities surrounding love and sex for women make for compelling reading. But what makes her work especially affecting is the quiet way it suggests the possible shape of things to come in a post--Roe v. Wade era. Haunting and lyrical. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
