Laney Katz Becker’s In the Fam­i­ly Way is a nec­es­sary and mov­ing reminder of the evo­lu­tion of women’s rights in the US. It high­lights the impor­tance of edu­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty in fos­ter­ing women’s empowerment. 

In 1965, sis­ters Lily and Rose are both hap­pi­ly mar­ried. The wife of an obste­tri­cian and the moth­er of a tod­dler, Lily is preg­nant and con­tent to be a dot­ing house­wife. But she has embraced this tra­di­tion­al female role so fer­vent­ly that she lacks the curios­i­ty to imag­ine that the oth­er women in her cir­cle might want to make dif­fer­ent choic­es. Lily’s sis­ter, Rose, has a col­lege degree and works as a teacher out­side the home, but Lily has a dif­fi­cult time under­stand­ing why Rose wouldn’t want to give up her job and become a moth­er as soon as pos­si­ble. Mean­while, the women in Lily’s week­ly canas­ta group face var­i­ous chal­lenges of their own — includ­ing infer­til­i­ty and unwant­ed preg­nan­cies — as does Bet­sy, a preg­nant fif­teen-year-old girl who Lily has tak­en in as part of a pro­gram with a local home for unwed mothers. 

Becker’s strength is cap­tur­ing the dichoto­my of this time peri­od through the dis­parate expe­ri­ences of her char­ac­ters. The mid-1960’s were filled with women like Lily — women stuck so firm­ly in a 1950’s mind­set that they were ter­ri­fied to talk about sex or to chal­lenge the male-dom­i­nat­ed world­view. But the 1960’s were also filled with women like Rose and Lily’s neigh­bor Bec­ca — women who longed for their own careers, women who felt trapped by moth­er­hood, women who strained against unfair bound­aries and pub­licly protest­ed to advance equal rights.

Lily’s enlight­en­ment comes in the form of the oth­er women in her life. When Bet­sy asks rudi­men­ta­ry ques­tions about preg­nan­cy, Lily is com­pelled to con­front her own squea­mish­ness about her body and her sex­u­al­i­ty. Bec­ca and Rose’s more dra­mat­ic strug­gles force Lily to con­sid­er oth­er ways of think­ing about moth­er­hood and mar­riage beyond the roman­ti­cized ideals that she has clung to since childhood. 

Lily and Rose come from a Jew­ish fam­i­ly, and while this is not a cen­tral theme of the sto­ry, read­ers will appre­ci­ate Lily’s expla­na­tions of her faith to Betsy.

Becker’s choice to alter­nate among the points of view of her char­ac­ters bright­ens the pace of this nar­ra­tive. The poten­tial frus­tra­tion some read­ers may feel regard­ing Lily’s ini­tial­ly sac­cha­rine opin­ions will be tem­pered as the sto­ry pro­gress­es. Because of the sis­ter­hood that sur­rounds her, Lily is dri­ven to act, to exam­ine her own anti­quat­ed views, and to sub­sti­tute judge­ment for acceptance. 

Per­fect for book clubs, this nos­tal­gic and sat­is­fy­ing read will appeal to women of all ages.