Looking for Jane is a work of fiction, but the story has a solid foundation in historical fact surrounding underground abortion networks and the postwar-era maternity home system/forced adoption mandate in Canada. The book is a call to compassion and at its root, it’s about motherhood.
No matter what your political ideas may be, this book sheds light on what is often only seen as a black and white issue. It’s more complicated than that. Issues like abortion, adoption, infertility and teen pregnancies are complex and deserve to be explored with compassion and understanding. The stories of women in this debut novel are heartbreaking, inspiring, compelling, engaging, emotional and could be triggering for some. As a Canadian reader, I enjoyed the Toronto city setting.
1971: As a teenager, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for “fallen” women where she was forced to give up her baby for adoption—a trauma she has never recovered from. Despite harrowing police raids and the constant threat of arrest, she joins the Jane Network as an abortion provider, determined to give other women the choice she never had.
1980: After discovering a shocking secret about her family history, twenty-year-old Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she has ever known. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she feels like she has no one to turn to for help. Grappling with her decision, she locates “Jane” and finds a place of her own alongside Dr. Taylor within the network’s ranks, but she can never escape the lies that haunt her.
2017: When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing a life-shattering confession in a stack of forgotten mail, she is determined to find the intended recipient. Her search takes her back to the 1970s when a group of daring women operated an illegal underground abortion network in Toronto known only by its whispered code name: Jane.
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