Ann Fessler is an artist. This book grew out of a series of works she did about adoption (she was adopted herself). "The Girls Who Went Away" is about girls who became pregnant during high school or college in the years between WWII and Roe v. Wade, and who ended up surrendering their babies for adoption. It is an amazing book. Fessler interviewed dozens of women who "gave their babies away" and examines the social norms that conspired to force them to this wrenching decision (or "decision," since in so many cases, the girls felt they had no choice). I am an adoptive mother. I have thought many times about what my child's birthmother must have felt, but nothing I could imagine had the force, the wrenching power of these honestly, simply told stories. This is material I have never seen in print before, yet what it discusses deeply touched tens of thousands of lives. It's very moving and I hope will reach many people.