Publishers Weekly
01/25/2016
Feldman’s latest (after 2014’s The Unwitting) chronicles the life of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger from her point of view, with occasional shifts to the people in her orbit. Raised in a large family headed up by a father who encouraged radical views, Margaret becomes a nurse, reluctantly marries, and has children. She gravitates, with her husband, Bill, toward socialist causes. It soon becomes clear, much to Bill’s chagrin, that monogamy isn’t for her. As Margaret struggles to publish information on preventing pregnancy and open a clinic for women, she blossoms into a media-savvy activist who wittingly hides her dalliances while brandishing a motherly public image. Feldman successfully paints Margaret as someone who is so wrapped up in her causes and fame that she neglects her family. As Margaret’s fight has her fleeing the U.S. to avoid prosecution and hobnobbing with well-heeled contacts abroad, the country’s attitudes toward women’s rights slowly change. While the book focuses on many life events, such as her second marriage to a wealthy man and the role she played in securing funding for research on the Pill, everything whizzes by a bit too quickly. Agent: Emma Sweeney, Emma Sweeney Agency. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
Terrible Virtue is captivating, powerful, headlong and inventive—just like its subject. A beautifully wrought, compulsively readable novel. Ellen Feldman can do anything.” — Stacy Schiff, author of The Witches: Salem, 1692
“[A] highly topical novelization of the life of Margaret Sanger…. We need her story now more than ever.” — Elle
“Feldman compellingly portrays the difficult choices confronting women living in a man’s world.... This immersive, moving, and thought-provoking book is worthy of the intense discussions it’s sure to spark.” — Booklist, starred review
“How does a minimally educated, working class woman redirect the moral compass of an entire generation? Feldman shows us how in her masterful novel, Terrible Virtue. Passionate, driven, the Margaret Sanger of Feldman’s imagination is every bit as complex as the world she was determined to enlighten.” — Mary Beth Keane, author of Fever: A Novel of Typhoid Mary
“A fascinating exploration of Margaret Sanger as a visionary tour de force who left a stream of public victories and private casualties in her wake. Birth control, sex, family, work, individual need, free love, the greater good—it’s all here, historically grounded but as relevant today as it was then.” — Elizabeth Graver, author of The End of the Point
“Compelling…. An excellent choice for book groups.” — Library Journal
“Margaret Sanger blazes to life in this riveting, powerful novel. Read Terrible Virtue once to learn about the woman whose work ultimately shaped Western culture, then read it again for Ellen Feldman’s masterful storytelling. Fascinating and unforgettable.” — Lynn Cullen, author of Twain's End
“Margaret Sanger was passionate about birth control, freedom, a surprising number of men and her daughter. Ellen Feldman lets us see all these sides of one of America’s most complicated heroines, a woman who knew too well the hard choice between work and family. An irresistible and utterly timely novel.” — Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy
“A powerful, haunting, deeply ambitious novel about love and war, impeccably executed, impossible to put down.” — Stacy Schiff, author of Cleopatra: A Life, on Next to Love
“A riveting drama...inspired and inspiring.... Ruby is a gem of a character, and belongs with the best of William Faulkner’s, or Alice Walker’s, women.” — San Francisco Chronicle on The Unwitting
“A compelling story…of mystery, political intrigue, and forgiveness. Much of the fun comes from the literary cameos (think: Mary McCarthy, Richard Wright and Robert Lowell), but it’s the novel’s haunting portrait of a marriage that make this Cold War novel so resonant for readers of any time period.” — Oprah's Book of the Week on The Unwitting
“Bold and original….the originality of voice and thought [is] evident on every page… part love story, part mystery and part political thriller I would heartily recommend.” — All Things Considered, NPR, on The Unwitting
“A lustrous evocation of a stormy period in our past; highly recommended for lovers of World War II fiction.” — Library Journal, starred review, on Next to Love
“An intimate look at how we can be dismantled and rebuilt by changing times.” — O, The Oprah Magazine on Next to Love
“An honest American experience of the aftermath of World War II rendered in sharp detail and full of pathos, Next to Love tells us what we hate to acknowledge-that personal battles don’t end with the armistice. There is the touch of Everywoman here.” — Susan Vreeland, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring, on Next to Love
“Powerful….Feldman gets her history right and....the fictional characters are rendered in artful service to the novel’s larger project” — Atlanta Journal Constitution on Scottsboro
“Spellbinding fiction.... Rich imagination, memorable characters and elegant but restrained prose.... brings an American disgrace to life with eloquence, intelligence and passion.” — Richmond Times Dispatch on Scottsboro
“A novel that is based on archival records, court records, and first-person accounts but that succeeds overwhelmingly as a work of imagination...distilled with great subtlety and wit, into a story worth retelling and remembering.” — Boston Globe on Scottsboro
Elizabeth Graver
A fascinating exploration of Margaret Sanger as a visionary tour de force who left a stream of public victories and private casualties in her wake. Birth control, sex, family, work, individual need, free love, the greater good—it’s all here, historically grounded but as relevant today as it was then.
Stacy Schiff
Terrible Virtue is captivating, powerful, headlong and inventive—just like its subject. A beautifully wrought, compulsively readable novel. Ellen Feldman can do anything.
starred review Booklist
Feldman compellingly portrays the difficult choices confronting women living in a man’s world.... This immersive, moving, and thought-provoking book is worthy of the intense discussions it’s sure to spark.
Elle
[A] highly topical novelization of the life of Margaret Sanger…. We need her story now more than ever.
Margot Livesey
Margaret Sanger was passionate about birth control, freedom, a surprising number of men and her daughter. Ellen Feldman lets us see all these sides of one of America’s most complicated heroines, a woman who knew too well the hard choice between work and family. An irresistible and utterly timely novel.
Mary Beth Keane
How does a minimally educated, working class woman redirect the moral compass of an entire generation? Feldman shows us how in her masterful novel, Terrible Virtue. Passionate, driven, the Margaret Sanger of Feldman’s imagination is every bit as complex as the world she was determined to enlighten.
San Francisco Chronicle on The Unwitting
A riveting drama...inspired and inspiring.... Ruby is a gem of a character, and belongs with the best of William Faulkner’s, or Alice Walker’s, women.
Lynn Cullen
Margaret Sanger blazes to life in this riveting, powerful novel. Read Terrible Virtue once to learn about the woman whose work ultimately shaped Western culture, then read it again for Ellen Feldman’s masterful storytelling. Fascinating and unforgettable.
Atlanta Journal Constitution on Scottsboro
Powerful….Feldman gets her history right and....the fictional characters are rendered in artful service to the novel’s larger project
Richmond Times Dispatch on Scottsboro
Spellbinding fiction.... Rich imagination, memorable characters and elegant but restrained prose.... brings an American disgrace to life with eloquence, intelligence and passion.
Susan Vreeland
An honest American experience of the aftermath of World War II rendered in sharp detail and full of pathos, Next to Love tells us what we hate to acknowledge-that personal battles don’t end with the armistice. There is the touch of Everywoman here.
Boston Globe on Scottsboro
A novel that is based on archival records, court records, and first-person accounts but that succeeds overwhelmingly as a work of imagination...distilled with great subtlety and wit, into a story worth retelling and remembering.
The Oprah Magazine on Next to Love O
An intimate look at how we can be dismantled and rebuilt by changing times.
Oprah's Book of the Week on The Unwitting
A compelling story…of mystery, political intrigue, and forgiveness. Much of the fun comes from the literary cameos (think: Mary McCarthy, Richard Wright and Robert Lowell), but it’s the novel’s haunting portrait of a marriage that make this Cold War novel so resonant for readers of any time period.
All Things Considered
Bold and original….the originality of voice and thought [is] evident on every page… part love story, part mystery and part political thriller I would heartily recommend.
Library Journal
03/01/2016
In her latest novel, the award-winning Feldman (The Unwitting) has created a compelling portrait of Margaret Sanger (1879–1966), the famous champion of birth control. The first-person narrative, with short excerpts in the voices of friends, family, and lovers, portrays Sanger as a complex woman, torn between her family and cause. Married, she was also unfaithful and promiscuous. Her obsessions meant she spent little time with her children; her sons felt neglected, and her daughter died young. Yet the author also depicts in compelling detail the hardship imposed on large, desperately poor families by the lack of contraception. She further captures the excitement of Sanger's involvement in the political and social movements of the times. The only unsettling note is a trite dismissal of Sanger's reputation for being a eugenicist. VERDICT Feldman draws on extensive research to tackle with aplomb the difficult task of writing a novel about a woman whose life is well known and whose story remains controversial decades after her death. Those interested in the history of the women's movement and its impact on today's world will find lots to ponder here. An excellent choice for book groups.—Jan Marry, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA
MARCH 2016 - AudioFile
Narrator Kate Udall does a fine job channeling Margaret Sanger’s ferocity in this intriguing novel about the pioneering American advocate for birth control. Born in 1879, Sanger grew up during the heyday of the Comstock Act, which criminalized contraceptives in the U.S. One of 11 children, she saw her mother die after 18 pregnancies and became determined to end the potential death sentence of having too many children or turning to back-alley abortions. It’s a rousing story that Udall voices well. A bit more inflection and variable pacing might have made Sanger easier to spend time with. However, the American reformer had a take-no-prisoners personality, which Udall articulates beautifully in this interesting and worthwhile reading. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2016-01-10
Margaret Sanger, the revolutionary fighter for women's contraceptive rights and founder of Planned Parenthood, joins the pantheon of figures whose lives have been turned into historical novels. Born into grinding poverty, Sanger observed, keenly, the toll that pregnancy after pregnancy took on her exhausted mother, who had 13 children. An escape from her childhood home and the opportunity for formal education, both provided by her devoted older sisters, exposed her to the possibilities of a life unfettered by destitution and despair. A devotion to political activism as well as the exploration of all sorts of personal freedoms became the hallmarks of Sanger's tumultuous life, which she narrates in a lively first-person voice, which Feldman occasionally intersperses with sections addressed to Sanger from her nearest and dearest, including children, lovers, and husbands. A spectacular tension between the demands of motherhood and the zeal with which she pursued all of her passions—political as well as sexual—forced Sanger to choose, on more than one occasion, between being present with her children or forging onward in her battle to provide access to birth control, and arguably better lives, for women in dire circumstances similar to those of her childhood. The choices Sanger made to further her crusade were not without cost, and Feldman deftly illuminates the terrible tolls (both inflicted and self-inflicted) they took upon her heroine in a narration that is elegiac as well as triumphant. Cameo appearances by the great names of Sanger's time add notes of gossipy interest for the historically aware reader while placing the events of the novel in a broader social context. Feldman's (The Unwitting, 2014, etc.) well-researched treatment of the often tragic realities of the life of a formative figure in American social history offers much to contemporary readers living through current culture wars.
