Keeping Lucy
by T. Greenwood
The heartbreaking and uplifting story, inspired by true events, of how far one mother must go to protect her daughter.
Dover, Massachusetts, 1969. Ginny Richardson's heart was torn open when her baby girl, Lucy, born with Down Syndrome, was taken from her. Under pressure from his powerful family, her husband, Ab, sent Lucy away to Willowridge, a special school for the “feeble-minded." Ab tried to convince Ginny it was for the best. That they should grieve for their daughter as though she were dead. That they should try to move on.
But two years later, when Ginny's best friend, Marsha, shows her a series of articles exposing Willowridge as a hell-on-earth--its squalid hallways filled with neglected children--she knows she can't leave her daughter there. With Ginny's six-year-old son in tow, Ginny and Marsha drive to the school to see Lucy for themselves. What they find sets their course on a heart-racing journey across state lines—turning Ginny into a fugitive.
For the first time, Ginny must test her own strength and face the world head-on as she fights Ab and his domineering father for the right to keep Lucy. Racing from Massachusetts to the beaches of Atlantic City, through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to a roadside mermaid show in Florida, Keeping Lucy is a searing portrait of just how far a mother’s love can take her.
Based on incredible true events, Keeping Lucy is the searing, heartfelt, and breathtaking story of just how far a mother’s love can take her.
Momma Says: 4 stars⭐⭐⭐⭐
Keeping Lucy isn't normally my kind of read, but I remember the scandal that inspired this one, so it drew me in. The story absolutely broke my heart while simultaneously infuriating me to no end. I know that places like Willowridge existed. As I said, I remember the scandal, but that didn't make it any easier to read. Ginny's visit to Willowridge doesn't take up as much space on the page as I had expected, but her problems with getting Lucy well and reasonably fit do, and none of it was easy to read about. There were things that happened that bothered me - Marsha's actions and language even around children, Ab's father and his high-handed treatment of his family, that kind of thing - but the things that bothered me the most were Ab's and Ginny's actions at the beginning. I really wanted to give Ab a good shake and tell him to just man up, and it was equally hard to understand Ginny and the way she bent to Ab's wishes, or more accurately, Ab's father's wishes. And then there's Marsha. She's a little over the top in that she's almost everything we think about in a bad role model for children. So much so that she's almost caricature-like, which was the biggest drawback for me. Marsha aside, when I stopped to think about the generation of people here, I wasn't quite so upset with Ab and Ginny. I still wanted to shake Ab, but Ginny's action made a little more sense given the circumstances. The stigma surrounding children like Lucy was a huge factor in life in that time, and certain things were expected of people. That doesn't excuse any of it, but it was what it was, and I believe that stories like this one do have their place. We should always remember our history lest we repeat it. I think Keeping Lucy is going to be one of those books that you either like or you don't. I don't think there's going to be much straddling the fence on this one, especially in this day and age when we know so much more about what's good and bad for a child, or at least we think we do. In the end, I do wish there had been a little more peeling back the layers surrounding Willowridge, but the author has still written a compelling story that I found hard to put down.
Keeping Lucy isn't normally my kind of read, but I remember the scandal that inspired this one, so it drew me in. The story absolutely broke my heart while simultaneously infuriating me to no end. I know that places like Willowridge existed. As I said, I remember the scandal, but that didn't make it any easier to read. Ginny's visit to Willowridge doesn't take up as much space on the page as I had expected, but her problems with getting Lucy well and reasonably fit do, and none of it was easy to read about. There were things that happened that bothered me - Marsha's actions and language even around children, Ab's father and his high-handed treatment of his family, that kind of thing - but the things that bothered me the most were Ab's and Ginny's actions at the beginning. I really wanted to give Ab a good shake and tell him to just man up, and it was equally hard to understand Ginny and the way she bent to Ab's wishes, or more accurately, Ab's father's wishes. And then there's Marsha. She's a little over the top in that she's almost everything we think about in a bad role model for children. So much so that she's almost caricature-like, which was the biggest drawback for me. Marsha aside, when I stopped to think about the generation of people here, I wasn't quite so upset with Ab and Ginny. I still wanted to shake Ab, but Ginny's action made a little more sense given the circumstances. The stigma surrounding children like Lucy was a huge factor in life in that time, and certain things were expected of people. That doesn't excuse any of it, but it was what it was, and I believe that stories like this one do have their place. We should always remember our history lest we repeat it. I think Keeping Lucy is going to be one of those books that you either like or you don't. I don't think there's going to be much straddling the fence on this one, especially in this day and age when we know so much more about what's good and bad for a child, or at least we think we do. In the end, I do wish there had been a little more peeling back the layers surrounding Willowridge, but the author has still written a compelling story that I found hard to put down.
❃❃ARC provided by NetGalley and St. Martin's Press
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