{"product_id":"the-family-roe-an-american-story-9780393247718","title":"The Family Roe: An American Story","description":"\u003cp\u003eDespite her famous pseudonym, \"Jane Roe,\" no one knows the truth about Norma McCorvey (1947-2017), whose unwanted pregnancy in 1969 opened a great fracture in American life. Journalist Joshua Prager spent hundreds of hours with Norma, discovered her personal papers--a previously unseen trove--and witnessed her final moments. \u003cem\u003eThe Family Roe\u003c\/em\u003e presents her life in full. Propelled by the crosscurrents of sex and religion, gender and class, it is a life that tells the story of abortion in America.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrager begins that story on the banks of Louisiana's Atchafalaya River where Norma was born, and where unplanned pregnancies upended generations of her forebears. A pregnancy then upended Norma's life too, and the Dallas waitress became Jane Roe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on a decade of research, Prager reveals the woman behind the pseudonym, writing in novelistic detail of her unknown life from her time as a sex worker in Dallas, to her private thoughts on family and abortion, to her dealings with feminist and Christian leaders, to the three daughters she placed for adoption.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrager found those women, including the youngest--Baby Roe--now fifty years old. She shares her story in \u003cem\u003eThe Family Roe\u003c\/em\u003e for the first time, from her tortured interactions with her birth mother, to her emotional first meeting with her sisters, to the burden that was uniquely hers from conception.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eThe Family Roe\u003c\/em\u003e abounds in such revelations--not only about Norma and her children but about the broader \"family\" connected to the case. Prager tells the stories of activists and bystanders alike whose lives intertwined with Roe. In particular, he introduces three figures as important as they are unknown: feminist lawyer Linda Coffee, who filed the original Texas lawsuit yet now lives in obscurity; Curtis Boyd, a former fundamentalist Christian, today a leading provider of third-trimester abortions; and Mildred Jefferson, the first black female Harvard Medical School graduate, who became a pro-life leader with great secrets.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn epic work spanning fifty years of American history, \u003cem\u003eThe Family Roe\u003c\/em\u003e will change the way you think about our enduring American divide: the right to choose or the right to life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePrager, Joshua:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cstrong\u003eJoshua Prager\u003c\/strong\u003e has written for the \u003cem\u003eAtlantic\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/em\u003e, the \u003cem\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/em\u003e, and the \u003cem\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/em\u003e. A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, and Fulbright Distinguished Chair, he is the author of \u003cem\u003eThe Echoing Green\u003c\/em\u003e (a \u003cem\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/em\u003e Best Book of the Year) and \u003cem\u003e100 Years\u003c\/em\u003e (with Milton Glaser). He lives in New Jersey with his wife and two daughters.","brand":"W. W. Norton \u0026 Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50381071614226,"sku":"9780393247718","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_532b5120-3e56-4e42-8990-41ef06b1ac81.jpg?v=1728693141","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-family-roe-an-american-story-9780393247718","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}