Ten top books about American birthmothers

Julia Franks is the author of The Say So and Over the Plain Houses.

The latter was a debut novel that was listed among NPR’s Best Books, included in many “best of” lists, and the recipient of five different prestigious literary prizes (The Townsend Prize, The Thomas Wolfe Award, The Southern Book Prize, Georgia Author of the Year, and The IPPY Gold).

At Lit Hub Franks tagged ten books "about birthparents that ring true to me," including:

The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson

It’s 2008 and Ruth Tuttle has it all: a great career, membership in Chicago’s Black elite, and marriage to a kind, successful man. The problem is that he wants to start a family, which brings her face to face with the lie at the center of her life. At first it’s easy to assume the “lie” is the history she’s hidden from her husband, but by the end of the novel it’s clear that the bigger deception comes from a memory she’s repressed: the newborn her grandmother whisked away from her, and then… what? That well-intentioned theft is especially poignant because it likely happened in many Black families striving to get a piece of the American dream.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue