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Books > Fiction > True stories > General
In the wake of Texas enacting a bill to deny abortions after 6
weeks, Loved and Wanted shines a light on motherhood and the right
to choose. 'Haunting, wild, and quiet at once. A shimmering look at
motherhood, in all gothic pain and glory. I could not stop
reading.' Lisa Taddeo, author of Three Women A harrowing account of
one woman's reckoning with life, death and choice in Trump's
America. For readers of Educated and Hillbilly Elegy. In 2017,
Christa Parravani had recently moved her family from California to
West Virginia. Surviving on a teacher's salary, she was already
raising two young children with her husband, screenwriter Anthony
Swofford. Another pregnancy, a year after giving birth to her
second child, came as a shock. Christa had a history of ectopic
pregnancies and was worried that she wouldn't be able to find
adequate medical care. She immediately requested a termination -
but her doctor refused to help. The only doctor who would perform
an abortion made it clear that this would be illicit, not condoned
by her colleagues or their community. In exploring her own choice,
or rather in discovering her lack of it, Christa reveals the
desperate state of female healthcare in contemporary America.
Killing at its Very Extreme takes the reader to the heart of Dublin
from October 1917 to November 1920, effectively the first phase of
Dublin's War of Independence. It details pivotal aspects at the
outset, then the ramping up of the intelligence war, the upsurge in
raids and assassinations. Vividly depicting mass hunger-strikes,
general strikes, prison escapes, and ruthless executions by the
full-time IRA 'Squad', amid curfews and the functioning of an
audacious alternative government. Intensity builds as the reader is
embedded into Commandant Dick McKee's Dublin Brigade to witness
relentless actions and ambushes. The authors' unprecedented access
lays bare many myths about key players from both sides. The tempo
escalates with deployment of the notorious Black and Tans and
Auxiliaries, as well as a host of cunning political and propaganda
ploys. Desperate plights and horrific reprisals are portrayed, the
effects of mass sectarian pogroms and killings. Tthe sacking of
Balbriggan, the killing of Sean Treacy, the death of Terence
MacSwiney, and the capture and execution of teenager Kevin Barry.
As in the authors' previous works the pulsating tension, elation,
fear, desperation, hunger, the mercy and the enmity leap from the
pages. The harrowing circumstances suffered by those whose
sacrifices laid the bedrock for modern Ireland, and whose own words
form the book's primary sources, are recounted in unflinching
detail.
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