Review: The Accidentals: A Novel

The Accidentals: A Novel by Minrose Gwin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Accidentals is a novel that explores the social constraints placed on women in the 1950s and 1960s. We also see some of the effects of racism on justice. June and Grace are two sisters who suffer the loss of their lovely mother Olivia after she seeks a back alley abortion to end a pregnancy she didn't want and that her husband has effectively tricked her into having by sabotaging their birth control method. Olivia had dreams of a creative and fulfilling existence but is trapped in her narrow life as a wife and mother in Opelika, Mississippi. The escape she makes, her death from the botched abortion, has profound and lasting effects on her daughters' lives. Each heartbroken teenage daughter seeks solace in relationships, since their father, Holly, seems incapable of dealing with his guilt and responsibility, and comforting the girls who have lost their mother. Grace and June are further driven apart by June's untimely reveal of Grace's pregnancy, from an unconventional relationship situation, to their father. Grace's story is heartbreaking, as from a few weeks of perfect bliss, she descends to an intense maelstrom of loss and abuse. June, meanwhile, marries a friend, ignoring the stirrings of her own heart. Two thirds of the way through the novel, June poignantly muses about the sorrows of women while facing the exact same problem her mother did. At the edges of the story is Ed Mae, a black woman with a good heart, no education and few rights, who is, unbeknownst to all, falsely convicted in the death of an infant (I'll leave that to the reader to explore.) Equal parts an examination of what pre-Roe v. Wade America was like for women, and an exploration of the constrained lives of women as a whole, The Accidentals makes clear that the "good ole days" when America was "Great" were not at all great for many, many women.

I received a Digital Review Copy of this book from HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review.

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