Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published May 2017
352 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
A young woman finds the most powerful love of her life when she gives birth at an institution for unwed mothers in 1883 Philadelphia. She is told she must give up her daughter to avoid lifelong poverty and shame. But she chooses to keep her.
Pregnant, left behind by her lover, and banished from her Quaker home and teaching position, Lilli de Jong enters a home for wronged women to deliver her child. She is stunned at how much her infant needs her and at how quickly their bond overtakes her heart. Mothers in her position face disabling prejudice, which is why most give up their newborns. But Lilli can't accept such an outcome. Instead, she braves moral condemnation and financial ruin in a quest to keep herself and her baby alive.
Confiding their story to her diary as it unfolds, Lilli takes readers from an impoverished charity to a wealthy family's home to the streets of a burgeoning American city. Drawing on rich history, Lilli de Jong is both an intimate portrait of loves lost and found and a testament to the work of mothers. "So little is permissible for a woman," writes Lilli, "yet on her back every human climbs to adulthood."
"Starred Review. Telling Lilli's story in diary form, debut author Benton has written a captivating, page-turning, and well-researched novel about the power of a mother's love and the stark reality of the choices she must make. A great choice for book clubs and readers of Geraldine Brooks." - Library Journal
"A heartrending debut ... Lilli's inspiring power and touching determination are timeless." - Publishers Weekly
"A harrowing look at the strictures of nineteenth-century American society." - Booklist
"An absorbing debut from a writer to watch." - Kirkus
"A powerful, authentic voice for a generation of women whose struggles were erased from history - a heart-smashing debut that completely satisfies." - Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
"Beautifully written, emotionally resonant, and psychologically astute ... Benton turns a laser eye to her subject, exposing the sanctimony, hypocrisies, and pervasive sexism that kept women confined and unequal in the Victorian era - and that still bedevil many women today. A gripping read." - Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train and A Piece of the World
"A stunning ode to motherhood. Lilli de Jong reminds us that there is no formula to being a good mother. Love is the essential ingredient, and only it gives everlasting life to our legacies. A debut of robust heart that will stay with me for a very long time." - Sarah McCoy, author of The Mapmaker's Children
"Janet Benton's remarkable novel Lilli de Jong is historical fiction that transcends the genre and recalls a past world so thoroughly that it breathes upon the page ... Benton combines rich, carefully researched detail with an imaginative boldness that is a joy to behold - though reader, be warned: Lilli's story may break your heart." - Valerie Martin, author of The Ghost of the Mary Celeste
"[A] gorgeously written debut ... Lilli's fight to craft her own life and nurture her bond with her baby is both devastatingly relevant and achingly beautiful. A stunning read about the fierceness of love triumphing over a rigid society." - Caroline Leavitt, author of Is This Tomorrow
This information about Lilli de Jong was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Janet Benton is a writer and a writers' mentor. Visit her at www.janetbentonauthor.com.
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