In the Family Way

A group of suburban women help one another navigate their personal challenges, marriages, and pregnancies—both wanted and unwanted.

In 1965 America, women can’t have their own bank accounts and credit cards or sign their own leases; divorce is scandalous and difficult; and abortion is illegal. Every Tuesday a group of friends meet for a canasta game. As cards are drawn and discarded, these women share advice and confidences.

After prim and proper Lily Berg, a doctor’s wife, discovers she’s pregnant with her second child, she follows her friend Becca’s suggestion and takes in Betsy, a pregnant teen from the local home for unwed mothers. Betsy, who’s never met anyone Jewish before, is to live with the Bergs for six months, help with babysitting and housekeeping, have her own baby, and then agree to never contact the family again. But things quickly get complicated.

Moving and atmospheric, full of history and heart, In the Family Way captures the experiences of women on the cusp of liberation as they struggle with their own complex feelings about being wives, mothers, and women with their own dreams and ambitions.