Reviews
Powerful….Feldman gets her history right and....the fictional characters are rendered in artful service to the novel's larger project, Margaret Sanger blazes to life in this riveting, powerful novel. Read Terrible Virtue once to learn about the woman whose work ultimately shaped Western culture, then read it again for Ellen Feldman's masterful storytelling. Fascinating and unforgettable., A novel that is based on archival records, court records, and first-person accounts but that succeeds overwhelmingly as a work of imagination...distilled with great subtlety and wit, into a story worth retelling and remembering., Spellbinding fiction.... Rich imagination, memorable characters and elegant but restrained prose.... brings an American disgrace to life with eloquence, intelligence and passion., A fascinating exploration of Margaret Sanger as a visionary tour de force who left a stream of public victories and private casualties in her wake. Birth control, sex, family, work, individual need, free love, the greater good-it's all here, historically grounded but as relevant today as it was then., How does a minimally educated, working class woman redirect the moral compass of an entire generation? Feldman shows us how in her masterful novel, Terrible Virtue . Passionate, driven, the Margaret Sanger of Feldman's imagination is every bit as complex as the world she was determined to enlighten., An honest American experience of the aftermath of World War II rendered in sharp detail and full of pathos, Next to Love tells us what we hate to acknowledge-that personal battles don't end with the armistice. There is the touch of Everywoman here., Terrible Virtue is captivating, powerful, headlong and inventive--just like its subject. A beautifully wrought, compulsively readable novel. Ellen Feldman can do anything., [A] highly topical novelization of the life of Margaret Sanger…. We need her story now more than ever., A lustrous evocation of a stormy period in our past; highly recommended for lovers of World War II fiction., A powerful, haunting, deeply ambitious novel about love and war, impeccably executed, impossible to put down., Bold and original….the originality of voice and thought [is] evident on every page… part love story, part mystery and part political thriller I would heartily recommend., Terrible Virtue is captivating, powerful, headlong and inventive-just like its subject. A beautifully wrought, compulsively readable novel. Ellen Feldman can do anything., Margaret Sanger was passionate about birth control, freedom, a surprising number of men and her daughter. Ellen Feldman lets us see all these sides of one of America's most complicated heroines, a woman who knew too well the hard choice between work and family. An irresistible and utterly timely novel., A riveting drama...inspired and inspiring.... Ruby is a gem of a character, and belongs with the best of William Faulkner's, or Alice Walker's, women., A fascinating exploration of Margaret Sanger as a visionary tour de force who left a stream of public victories and private casualties in her wake. Birth control, sex, family, work, individual need, free love, the greater good--it's all here, historically grounded but as relevant today as it was then., A compelling story…of mystery, political intrigue, and forgiveness. Much of the fun comes from the literary cameos (think: Mary McCarthy, Richard Wright and Robert Lowell), but it's the novel's haunting portrait of a marriage that make this Cold War novel so resonant for readers of any time period.
