When No One Else Will
In 1939 Chicago, a frustrated Mimi Lukas watches her new modern refrigerator being wheeled from her house, due to late payments. Husband Stan has been laid off. As the weeks go by, the couple’s strained relationship feeds into a downward spiral as he makes little effort to find work. Money and supplies dwindle and Mimi returns to nursing without Stan’s permission. Armed with a suggestion from a fellow nurse, she finds a private office in Chicago’s downtown where Dr Josephine Gabler is performing illegal abortions under rigidly strict health and hygiene conditions. The doctor does not believe women should have to resort to unsafe back street abortions.
Over the next 18 months, Mimi becomes increasingly convinced of the righteousness of the cause, knowing if the clinic closes, women would resort to taking their life into their own hands. These are not people who intentionally commit crimes on either side of the aisle – pregnant women or medical staff. Meanwhile, Mimi fails to confide in her family, making endless excuses about late nights and unexpected shifts but has to come clean after a police raid at the clinic.
The novel’s opening scene in a doctor’s office, where Mimi requests birth control without her husband’s approval, is intentionally demeaning. This prologue-esque section spotlights the vice-like patriarchal control on women and their expected roles and responsibilities in society. Mimi and family are fictional, but Skenadore’s story is based on historical characters, places, and events with adjusted timelines. It tells a compassionate tale of the balancing act of a working mother and the lengths to which she will go to protect her children and guide them to always do what they believe is morally right. Skenadore’s timely novel is beautifully told, and pays tribute to people and circumstances of the time in a caring and gentle way.
