A young suburban mother of four children is distressed to find herself pregnant once again in Leavitt’s novel.

It’s 1956, and Vivian Kolson Jacobson is pulling weeds in the garden of her new home in the Chicago suburb of Wilmette. She and her husband, Mel, both children of Jewish Russian immigrants, grew up on the city’s rough west side. Vivian’s childhood was impoverished, especially after her father left the family. After Mel’s mother died, when the couple was expecting their fourth baby, Vivian convinced her husband that it was time for them to move out of the city for the sake of their children. They relocated to Wilmette a few weeks after baby Billy’s birth. Mel drives the family’s only car into the city six days a week, where he works in the Jacobson brothers’ tavern, and Vivian is committed to her role as wife and mother, despite her longing to become a schoolteacher. Today, she’s at her wits’ end: Her body has just given her another signal of what she fears and has been denying to herself. She has an infant and a toddler still in diapers (“How could her little darlings create so much filth?”), and now she is pregnant again—she simply cannot have another baby, but abortion is illegal and dangerous. By the time she gets confirmation from her doctor, she’s already 10 weeks into the pregnancy, leaving her little time to decide what to do. Leavitt’s evocative drama, heavy with emotional turmoil, spotlights the angst and fears of so many 1950s suburban women who were overburdened by domestic responsibilities and felt isolated from the outside world. Vivian’s dilemma serves as a vehicle for her to learn about her own mother’s similar backstory, as well as other tragic pregnancy tales from the days before Roe v. Wade. The narrative is also a vivid portrait of immigrant American Jewish life and traditions in the face of everyday antisemitism. The conversationally composed prose is peppered with frequent Yiddish expressions (always translated), and the characters of Vivian, her crusty but loving older sister, Ethel, and her mother’s devoted best friend, Ruth (“Aunt Ruthie”), are all well developed.

Engaging and historically compelling, with depressing contemporary relevancy.