The Last Carolina Girl

Title:  The Last Carolina Girl

Author:  Meagan Church

Publication Information:  Sourcebooks. 2023. 320 pages.

ISBN:  172827804X / 978-1728278049

Rating:   ★★★

Book Source:  I received this book through NetGalley free of cost in exchange for an honest review.

Opening Sentence:  "The last time Daddy and I stood at the ocean's edge together, there had been a storm most of the day."

Favorite Quote:  "Let 'em teach me what they can, but don't go forgetting who I am."

A small piece of the book description - "set in 1935 against the very real backdrop of a recently formed state eugenics board" - speaks to the history behind this book. Eugenics was a horrific practice by which the individuals with power and control to make fertility decisions. Women who were seen as somehow inferior - by race, by disability, by illness, by economic status, by any measure deemed appropriate by the decision makers - were sterilized to prevent them from bearing children that would carry that inferior trait forward. Often these women had no idea what was being done. Often these "women" were mere children.  

Take My Hand by Dolan Perkins-Valdez tells a story of eugenics as recently as the 1970s in Alabama. That story is based on an actual historic court case. This book takes us back to 1935 in North Carolina. Leah Payne is 14 years old.

Through the course of this story, these are the tragic lessons that Leah learns:

• "Home looked different to each of us."
• "I soon learned to stop listening when I figured out my voice didn't matter."
• "I guess that's the thing about coming home; it's not the home that's changed, it's the person coming back who has."
• "Forgiveness and forgetting are two different things, and I can't say with certainty that I've done either one particularly well."

Leah's story is based on the history of eugenics. Surprisingly, this history and its aftermath for Leah is only a small part of the story. Much of the story is told about what leads up to that point. Leah's life surrounded by the love of her father, friendship, and home. The loss of her father. The loss of home and all she has ever know. The servitude. The secrets of that servitude. In that heartbreak are moments of love and friendship among children who do not embody the adult world and love by instinct.

The ending of the book somehow does not feel real. It packages everything. Having read a little bit of the history of the time and place, most "real" stories likely would not have ended that way. Part of me is left wondering if that was to be the end, then why did everything in between even take place?

The drama of the book title was one of the things that drew me to the book. However, having now read it, the meaning of the title is unclear. What is the "last" about Leah's story? Sadly, it was not the last case of an orphan lost and wrong by society and those who should care for them. Sadly, it was not the last case of eugenics.

Leah's story is a sad one. How could you not empathize with the plight of this child! The horrific history of eugenics in our nation is an important one to remember. For that, I am glad to have read the book.

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