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The Foundling

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Inspired by actual events experienced by the author's grandmother, Ann Leary weaves a gripping tale about eugenics and women's rights in The Foundling. Eighteen-year-old Mary Engle is a naive your woman who moves to the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age in 1927 as a secretary. Her boss, the beautiful, charismatic Dr. Vogel graduated from medical as a psychiatrist and crusader for women's suffrage, then founded the hospital to "care for poor and vulnerable women" who need to be removed from temptation for their own good. At first blinded by the brilliance of her boss, Mary starts to see that all is not as Dr. Vogel portrays it when she discovers a childhood friend is now an inmate.

While The Foundling doesn't look forward to WWII, I kept thinking about how eugenics was taken to even further extremes with racial cleansing by the Nazis. The Foundling is well written and extremely well researched, which makes the story all the more haunting. It's a book that will stay with me a long time. Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner / Marysue Rucci Books for an advance reader copy. Four and half stars.

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This was my first time reading a book by author Ann Leary. The Foundling is a historical fiction novel that centers around the practice of Eugenics. It’s the story of 2 girls, Mary Engle and Lillian Fraust, who both became friends while growing up in a Catholic orphanage. Later in life, Mary is employed as a secretary at the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age and Lillian is a patient there. This is a story that describes all the unjust and unfair treatment that was given to women including those that weren’t idiots or morons like they were reported to be in their medical files. There is a Dr. Agnes Vogel, a psychiatrist, who runs the asylum, and the story depicts how she’s all in it for the financial gain and notoriety. She’s a very evil person because she has no care or feelings about how these women are treated. It’s sad to think that this all really happened to people back then. I enjoyed reading about this because I learned about a part of our history but the storyline was also very interesting. I was very satisfied with the ending when I learned that Mary was able to help Lillian and they were able to both live happy, normal lives after having such a horrible early life. This is a book I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a good historical fiction story that is inspired by a true story. I’d like to thank Scribner Publicity @ Simon and Schuster for accepting my request, and NetGalley for the arc to read, review and enjoy. I found this to be both educational and enjoyable and I’m giving it a 4 star rating!

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I'm at a loss on how to review this.

50% of me wants to be gentle because this is based on the writer's personal story/her grandmother.

Then...the other 50% of me wants to be very critical because I found many problems with Mary. While I found so many things about this story interesting, I found the character entirely naive and just....dumb. She was blinded by loyalty --even when she knew it was wrong.

This is the second book about the Eugenics Movement that I've read in the last month. The first was more in the horror genre while this falls into the historical fiction. I found the first more compelling and believable - even though this was based on truth. I wanted more. I needed more. I needed depth and development.

thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity.

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Mary works as a secretary at the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age under Dr. Vogel, a famous psychiatrist and the only woman in the country to run such an institution. Mary enjoys her work and looks up to Dr. Vogel, but after reconnecting with Lillian, a friend from her time in an orphanage as a child, she begins to rethink her position and the "help" the institution offers the young women who are housed there.

I was interested in this title first because I love historical fiction, particularly of that during the interwar period of American history, which is relatively rare. I had a basic knowledge of the Eugenics movement, but didn't have the context that this novel thoroughly provides.

The plot is sound and beautifully paced. The main character, Mary is shown very clearly to have the sensibilities of her time, but also a well-rounded character that the reader can identify with and the establishment exemplified by Dr. Vogel shows the insidiousness of prejudice and a subtle, benign evil.
You know a book is good when it initiates a full deep-dive into the actual history of the 1920s and 30s eugenics and treatment of the disabled and infirm. This novel was based on the true story of the author's grandmother, and it very conspicuously lends an authenticity and authority that's pretty rare in an historical fiction.

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Just what are your particulars? Where do you hail from? And who are your people?

Curious questions that attempt to define all of us in the most innocent of ways. But many aren't able to answer. Their beginnings have no recognizable beginning. That would be the majority of the young girls at St. Catherine Orphanage in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1927. Many were left on the doorstep in the dark of night retrieved by the nuns with no clue as to their names or their parents.......just baby bundles with their destiny to be determined at a later date.

Mary Engle was left at the orphanage by her father when her mother died when Mary was twelve. He didn't have the means to care for her. She had random visits here and there but no sense of family. She eventually went on to live with an aunt with a heart of stone. Mary attended a typist school where she honed her craft and eventually interviewed with Dr. Agnes Vogel to become a secretary at the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age when she turned eighteen.

Yep, you got that title right. Let's crank back the time machine and revisit 1927 when the study of Eugenics was making headlines. Eugenics was a full-out movement to cleanse the human race of the unworthy through genetic screenings, marriage restrictions, segregation, compulsory sterilization, and the institutionalizing of young women deemed mentally incompetent until after their childbearing years. Even the likes of American activitist, Margaret Sanger, advocated it in 1922.

Well, our Mary Engel is a naive young woman living with the nuns all those years. Her typewriter in Dr. Vogel's office is about the extent of her movement on the grounds of the village. But, little by little, Mary will come upon things that unsettle her. Her strong allegiance to Dr. Vogel keeps her in denial until Mary comes across a young woman she recognizes from her days at the orphanage. Lillian is now a resident of the village. How can that be?

The character of Mary did perplex me. Heaven help me, we always arch our backs and judge women "of that day" with 2022 standards. Because of this, Mary can be frustrating. She's gone from the shelter of the orphanage to the golden opportunity of the village by the time she's barely eighteen. Mary is not well-read nor did she even have a boyfriend. Our girl takes people at their word. She respects authority. She was hired on the spot by Dr. Vogel. But the familiarity with Lillian brings this personally to Mary.......even if it means immediate dismissal.

The Foundling is a shocker of a story. What's more is that it is based on the reflections of the author's grandmother and her experience which are entered in the first pages of the Author's Note. It is appalling to even imagine these travesties against women around the world and, in particular, here in America. We all lose when there is no reverence for humanity no matter what the conditions are surrounding an individual.

I received a copy of this novel through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Simon & Schuster and to Ann Leary for the opportunity.

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A fantastic historical fiction about these institutes that women were put in... under the banner of being slow or have a low IQ etc these women were put into places where they were put to work and kept 'safe' from procreating until their childbearing years were over. At the time the reasoning sounded, well, reasonable but when things come to light we find out about the real reason these women were shuffled off by their husbands, parents, police officers etc.
Ann Leary is a great writer and this story is based off of real information she uncovered about her own grandmother.

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I unfortunately did not finish this book at 50%. The premise was amazing and I was very excited to read. However, it initially comes off as a thriller, but proceeds to read as more as a traditional historical fiction book- so I was a bit thrown off. There were romantic storylines evolving which I think distracted from the more interesting story line of the actual institution. Perhaps it would have been meaningful to the storyline eventually but I wasn't interested. Again, I think the premise is amazing and it's an important part of history that is overlooked and not talked about. It just wasn't the right book for me at this time,

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I have read everything Ann Leary has written and loved each book equally!! In this story where there’s a dangerous crossover of lines between work and friendship, Ann immerses us into the parameters of that time period in the story of two young women who knew one another as orphan children and years later one is the caregiver of the other. My own grandmother during these exact years was hired as a companion for a woman her age who was mentally challenged so this story held extra meaning for me and brought to life the era she lived in. Gripping to the end! Closing with: Read The Foundling!!

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Mary Engle is 18 years old in 1927 when, by what she thinks is a stroke of good luck, she is hired to work as a secretary for Dr. Agnes Vogel at the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. Mary is star struck by Dr. Vogel, who is gorgeous, elegant, and absolutely brilliant. Initially, Mary’s admiration of Dr. Vogel’s intellect and dedication runs deep, but inklings keep rearing their ugly heads that not everything is as it seems at the asylum. When Mary sees a young inmate that she knew from her childhood, she finds herself down a path of dark secrets and terrible choices.

Ann Leary’s historical fiction novel about eugenics and women’s rights was inspired by actual events experienced by the author’s grandmother. This well-researched and well-written novel does great service to brutal subject matter. Leary’s unique and evocative style of prose is so compelling and carries the story even when the plot drags a bit. There were times that I wanted to give Mary a little shake by the shoulders, but actions (and sometimes inactions) were understandable given her naiveté and hero worship of Dr. Vogel.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner / Marysue Rucci Books for providing me an advance copy of this book.

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I received this from Netgalley.com.

"It’s 1927 and eighteen-year-old Mary Engle is hired to work at an institution for mentally disabled women."

A troubling piece of history. The character, Dr. Vogel, reminded me of real-life Georgia Tann who sold orphans for profit.

3☆

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When Mary Engle is hired to work at the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age, she is both excited and nervous. Her quick wit and loyalty endear her to the medical director, Dr. Agnes Vogel. While Mary starts out naive and unquestioning, her beliefs are challenged when she discovers that a girl from her childhood is now an inmate.

This was a very compelling read. I found it hard to put down. The characters were well developed and realistic. The plot moved quickly, unraveling secrets as it went. Overall, highly recommended.

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Eighteen-year-old Mary Engle is delighted to be hired to work as a secretary for the brilliant Dr. Agnes Vogel. Dr. Vogel runs one of the largest and most self-sufficient public asylums for women in the country. Mary is quickly drawn into the doctor’s cause, admiring how the doctor cares for vulnerable women. Soon, it becomes clear that the asylum is not what it seems. A childhood friend begs for her help, but surely she is there for a reason? Mary is faced with a terrible choice. Should she trust her troubled friend or trust the doctor who has taken an interest in her?

Well. This was an interesting read. Mary was an interesting and believable protagonist. Being in a modern time and looking back it might be easy to be horrified that she believed such a thing, but Mary was only eighteen and very naive. That being said, it was frustrating to have Mary flip-flop so often. She defends Dr Vogel until a young man she meets disagrees with her. She believes he began dating her just to learn more about the asylum, and then just agrees to marry him?

There were times when the plot just dragged and it was all too easy to set it aside. The flashbacks to Mary’s past where she was abused (gratefully without too much detail on page) were difficult to read. There were also scenes where Mary had sex with her boyfriend (again, not too detailed) and I just found it difficult to keep reading.

It was very well researched. The details of the time period and how some asylums were run were very good. The attitudes and beliefs of the time were accurate.

Overall, it wasn’t an awful read, just a little darker than I was prepared for.

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First of all, I loved Ann Leary's perceptive writing in her contemporary novels. Her characterizations and plot twists were well founded, her atmospheric settings evocative. However, that richness did not carry over into this, her first historical novel. Actually, the Author's Note in which she cites her inspiration as arising out of fascination with her grandmother's history which led to a further examination of the practice of locking up young women to prevent them from producing children that may carry deficient genealogy was the most interesting part of the book to me, mainly because it felt the most real. I can appreciate Ms. Leary's decision to craft a fiction around her research, but it never really left the ground for me.

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An extremely intimate and ambitious view inside a complicated and emotional issue. This is based on the author's family. It's hard to wrap your head around this; that something like this was happening throughout our country. A real page-turner.

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I love Ann Leary . I love the historical context of this novel and the concept. However, the execution of the novel left me disappointed. Characters forced and shallow and, at times, so outrageous as to be nearly comical (when they weren't supposed to be).
I'm going to reread The Good House to remind myself why I love Ann Leary.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

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"She must have been happy most of the time if she found so many things to say and to laugh about."

Mary Engel is a part-time orphan, living at St. Cat's unless her father (who is away working in the mines) takes her for the day or the week. She has no memory of her mother and is victimized by her "Uncle Teddy" during some of the day trips away from St. Cat's. Her father removes her from the orphanage and sends her to live with her Aunt Kate, who is a nasty piece of work. Mary trains as a secretary and is ecstatic and relieved to secure a live-in position working for the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age, led by Dr. Agnes Vogel.

I have mixed feelings about The Foundling. On one hand, it was eye-opening about its brutal subject matter.

My biggest issue was with the main character, Mary. At times she was naive, understandable given her age and the 1920s setting. Yet she seemed to change her mind repeatedly...one minute she realizes the man with whom she's in love (Jake) is using her because of her connection to the State Village and yet, she agrees to marry him. She is at turns terrified by and yet very fond of a fellow orphan, Lillian, with whom she shares more than a few shameful (to her) secrets. While this relationship is fleshed out as the novel progresses, I didn't find the same was true of Mary's relationship with Jake.

The author does a good job of creating the conflict within Mary regards to Dr. Vogel, whom Mary sees as a mother figure. And certainly the last five or so chapters are very tense and have you on the edge of your seat, as Mary's group of co-workers race to save Lillian from Building Five. It wasn't clear to me if Dr. Vogel was indeed "practicing" on the women; I might've appreciated a little more focus on this area.

Overall, I enjoyed The Foundling; it's not an easy read, but I appreciate the light being shone on this horrible practice confining "feebleminded" women. Unbelievable.

P.S. Thanks to #netgalley and Edelweiss for the DRCs.

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Shocking and True

Ann Leary’s writing reflects detailed investigation. In this remarkable novel, Leary tells us of a practice carried out in this country in the 1920’s and 1930’s and maybe beyond. It’s 1927 and Mary Engle is eighteen; she is an excellent, accurate typist who is hired by Dr. Agnes Vogel, a physician, unusual for the times.

This “school” houses women who become permanent residents at Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. Feebleminded is a general term; they are divided with different classifications, such as morons, imbeciles, etc. These labels were not scientific; it was a measure of separating the women. In fact, some women, were “incarcerated” by their husbands, parents, and often for false, dangerous reasons.

Mary Engle started her life in a childhood orphanage, and she is aware of how “inmates,” are treated. Mary recognizes, Lillian, a childhood friend who begs Mary to help her escape. An abusive husband placed her at Nettleton. Lillian is representative of the many women who were wrongly placed in Dr. Vogel’s “school.” The women are finally released when they are no longer of child-bearing age to halt passing their genetics to another. Women are released when they reach about 50 years old and can no longer reproduce. The State pays for this institution while Dr. Vogel directs many women to be psychologically and physically beaten. Inspired by a true story of the author’s grandmother portrays, Leary writes a shocking story of eugenics and populist suspicions. Leary went so far as to include a Jewish journalist as Mary’s beau. There was no end to the bigotry.


This story occurred in the 1920’s and 1930’s and probably beyond. Here we are now in 2022 and the “states” of this country are again controlling the women in their child-bearing years. This really happened here and apparently is a reality once more.


My gratitude to Net Galley and Scribner for this pre-published book. All opinions expressed are my own.

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I loved the time period and the backdrop of The Foundling by Ann Leary. This was an interesting novel, exploring the idea of eugenics. I’m drawn to historical fiction books about institutions, where completely healthy, normal women were forced into places like this just because they didn’t conform to something in one way or another.

Take a look:

It’s 1927 and eighteen-year-old Mary Engle is hired to work as a secretary at a remote but scenic institution for mentally disabled women called the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. She’s immediately in awe of her employer—brilliant, genteel Dr. Agnes Vogel.

Dr. Vogel had been the only woman in her class in medical school. As a young psychiatrist she was an outspoken crusader for women’s suffrage. Now, at age forty, Dr. Vogel runs one of the largest and most self-sufficient public asylums for women in the country. Mary deeply admires how dedicated the doctor is to the poor and vulnerable women under her care.

Soon after she’s hired, Mary learns that a girl from her childhood orphanage is one of the inmates. Mary remembers Lillian as a beautiful free spirit with a sometimes-tempestuous side. Could she be mentally disabled? When Lillian begs Mary to help her escape, alleging the asylum is not what it seems, Mary is faced with a terrible choice. Should she trust her troubled friend with whom she shares a dark childhood secret? Mary’s decision triggers a hair-raising sequence of events with life-altering consequences for all.

This is based on the author’s own family history! Coming out on May 31.

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Rounded up from 3.5 stars

The plotting and pacing of "The Foundling" really kept me reading, even when a few points beggared belief. Though I can't vouch firsthand for how realistic it is, it did seem to capture the mores of 1927 small-town living. And I especially appreciated how the narrator, Mary, is a flawed, even at times unlikeable, character. (In fact, I sometimes wondered why the other characters wanted to spend time with her.) We'd all like to think that during WWII we'd have risked our lives to hide Jews or that if working during a corrupt regime we'd blow the whistle, but let's face: Most of us would keep our heads down instead, at least until doing so became unbearable. In this and other ways, Mary is more like many of us than we'd care to admit.

Thank you, Scribner/Marysue Rucci Books and NetGalley, for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

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I will admit to having a fascination with our country’s history with eugenics. The Foundling explores this subject in detail. I didn’t realize the prevalence of how “popular” it was and how many young women were institutionalized to keep them from having children. I certainly didn’t realize that some of the more famous female leaders of the day, like Margaret Sanger, were supporters of the practice.
In The Foundling, it’s 1927 and Mary is hired as a secretary at The Nettleton State Village for Feeble Minded Women of Child Bearing Age. While there, she encounters a young woman who grew up in the same orphanage as Mary. The characters were fully realized and the situations also came across as very depressingly realistic.
I really appreciated that Leary put her Author’s Note at the beginning of the book, explaining that her grandmother’s experience was the basis for this story. This book meets my test for good historical fiction. I learned a lot with Leary managing to include the facts into the story without throwing off the pace. It’s obviously well researched.
I loved watching Mary’s growing awareness of the situation and her knowledge that Dr. Vogel isn’t the saint she’d initially thought her to be. It’s a story about the courage to do the right thing. “I always believed that heroics were best left to fools and saints.”
As the story goes on, the tension really ratchets up. I was dying to know how things would play out.
My thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for an advance copy of this book.

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