Trigger warning for physical abuse, brief depiction of incest and sexual abuse of a minor.
American history is full of examples of its (white) citizens dealing with perceived problems by locking up those they consider problematic: reservations for Native Americans, concentration camps for Japanese Americans, prisons, asylums, etc., etc. In Women of a Promiscuous Nature, Donna Everhart reminds us of the forgotten American Plan (no really). Using the authority of the Chamberlain-Kahn Act, local law enforcement would round up women for a variety of reasons and force them to be treated for venereal disease and/or incarcerated for unspecified periods of time. The “reasons” never needed to be proven in court. Scott Stern reports that around 30,000 women were imprisoned under the American Plan.
Everhart provides three narrators to tell us the story of life at, essentially, a penal colony in North Carolina. I say essentially because that’s how the colony is run, even though none of the women incarcerated there were ever convicted of a crime or have clear sentences. One of our narrators, Dorothy Barker, is one of the jailors. The other two, Ruth and Stella, are inmates. The colony seethes with anger and outrage, while Barker and her employees preach that they are “training” their “charges” for life outside of the colony with physical labor, poor food, no privileges, and horrific punishments if the women step out of line. Each of our narrators is given a chapter of backstory before we’re dumped into the colony with them. Ruth really was just minding her business, walking to work, when the local sheriff snatched her off the street. A crooked doctor diagnosed her with syphilis and that was it for Ruth. Stella’s story is even more unjust. The poor teen was the victim of incest and rape, sent to the colony after an abortion and sterilization. Before she came to the colony, Barker was in charge of the Samarcand Manor State Industrial Training School for Girls when a large group of its inmates burned it down in 1931.
I was fascinated to see how these three characters intersected with each other and with the other women incarcerated at the colony. Ruth and Stella quickly learn that their fellow inmates are there for nothing worse than having an angry husband, running a boarding house, having a drunken night out, struggling with mental illness, or simply being homeless. Stella tries her best to be a “good” girl, as determined by Barker, even when it leads her to becoming a snitch. Ruth, meanwhile, fights back against what she (correctly) sees as false imprisonment and abuse. Barker does her best to keep everything from boiling over with whatever measures she sees fit. After Barker’s introductory chapter at Samarcand, I expected literal or at least metaphorical fireworks as the tensions between the narrators rose.
I was shocked to see that all of that wonderful, righteous tension utterly fizzled out at the end of Women of a Promiscuous Nature. I realize that the actual history offers no resolution (Wikipedia indicates that the Chamberlain-Kahn Act was never repealed), but I had hoped that something would happen to either punish Baker and her ilk or deliver justice to Ruth, Stella, and the rest of the inmates. Perhaps that’s the point, however. No one was ever punished for what happened to the estimated 30,000 women held against their will under the Chamberlain-Kahn Act. But the primary reason I didn’t rate this book more highly than I did was because Women of a Promiscuous Nature suffers from a problem that I’ve seen develop in fiction over the last few years. Instead of trusting us readers to pick up on subtext or draw our own conclusions from clues in the text, a lot of what happens is spelled out directly. I always end up feeling patronized by books that do this.