Stories about new mothers tend to stop with with the birth and the implication that everything will now be all right. Janet Benton’s Lilli de Jong, however, continues after the eponymous character has her daughter in 1883’s Philadelphia. Being a new mother is challenge enough, but Lilli has to contend with prejudice against having children while unmarried, being shunned by her family and church, and not having many ways to make a living for herself and her daughter. Lilli de Jong is a much needed rebuttal to the assumed happily ever after of so many stories about pregnancy.
Lilli, when we first properly meet her after a scene-setting opening chapter, is a good Quaker daughter mourning her mother. Her father has fallen away from the high ideals of their church, to Lilli’s disgust. Yet, Lilli is not entirely a paragon because she decided to sleep with her fiancé before they get married. (Partly because Johan is leaving to get a job in Pittsburgh.) Their one night together results in pregnancy, which Lilli tries to hide for as long as possible.
Once Lilli is too big to hide her condition anymore, she seeks refuge at a women’s charity for unwed mothers. The plan is to give up her child for adoption and pretending that the whole thing never happened. But when Lilli meets her daughter, Charlotte, for the first time, a fierce protective love springs up. Everyone tells Lilli that keeping her child without a husband is impossible. In spite of the horror stories, Lilli seeks a job—eventually finding a position as a wet nurse for a prickly, upper class mother. The job pays well, but comes with heavy emotional costs.
Lilli de Jong is full of ups and downs (mostly downs) for Lilli and Charlotte. If Lilli wasn’t such a striver, I think this book would have been very hard to read. (There are still some very harrowing moments, especially towards the end.) Lilli’s inner grit and her faith—Quakers have a tradition of doing hard things they believe are right, e.g. fighting for abolition and participating in the Underground Railroad—are a wonder to behold because she has such a very difficult life. Lilli de Jong is an intriguing look into the hard parts of being a single mother.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 16 May 2017.