The Possibility of You
Pamela Redmond, 2012
Simon & Schuster
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451616422
Summary
1916. It was the one thing Bridget was supposed to never let happen. But no matter how many times she replayed the steps in her head, she couldn’t reanimate the small pale boy who lay limp in her arms.
1976. Billie felt as if she’d been wrenched in half more surely than when the baby had been cut from her body. But she felt something else too: happy to think only of her own needs, her own tears. So light she could float away, somewhere no one would ever find her.
The present. Even if Cait never found her birth mother, even if she decided not to have this baby, to leave her lover and kiss her parents good-bye, she was surrounded by so much emotion, so many questions, that she felt as if she might never be free again. Can we ever atone for the sins of the past? Or does each generation of women invent itself anew?
In a complex and beautifully told masterpiece set against key moments for women in the last century, New York Times bestselling author Pamela Redmond intertwines the heartrending stories of Bridget, Billie, and Cait, and explores the ways in which one woman’s choices can affect her loved ones forever. As these three women search for identity and belonging, each faces a very personal decision that will reverberate across generations, tearing apart families, real and imaginary, perfect and flawed, but ultimately bringing them together again. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Pamela Redmond (also, Pamela Redmond Satran) is the author of six novels and the creator of the online fictional world Ho Springs. Her books have been published around the world and optioned for film and television by Steven Spielberg and by ABC.
A New York Times bestselling humor writer and a columnist for Glamour, Pamela Redmond Satran wrote the article "30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know By The Time She’s 30," which became an internet sensation often credited as Maya Angelou’s "Best Poem Ever" and published as a book in 2012. She is the coauthor with Linda Rosenkrantz of eight books on names and the developer of the popular website Nameberry.
Read more about Pamela Redmond Satran’s other work at her general website.
Pamela Redmond and her husband Richard Satran, an editor for Reuters, live in Montclair, New Jersey and are the parents of a daughter, Rory, and sons Joe and Owen. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Redmond’s latest novel takes place against the backdrop of 20th-century American feminism, following three generations of women struggling with unplanned pregnancies, broken homes, family tragedies, and the lifelong consequences of bad choices. In the present day, Cait, a globe-trotting reporter, gets pregnant after a one-night stand, forcing her to confront the decision her mother made 35 years ago to put her up for adoption. In 1976, orphaned and impoverished Billie is taken in by her eccentric grandmother Maude—a woman she’d long thought dead—and slowly uncovers the torrid circumstances of her family’s estrangement. And in 1916, Irish nanny Bridget works for Maude, a suffragist and socialite too busy to care for her infant son. When the baby contracts polio, Bridget and Maude’s relationship takes a perverse turn that will influence their families for generations. Redmond has written a crisply paced novel, but she also traffics in stereotypes and sentimentality and makes a misstep in turning real-world feminist icons—including Margaret Sanger, Beatrice Hinkle, and Patti Smith—into minor characters to explore modern sexual politics. Despite effective layers of suspense and intrigue, the story fails to overcome its shortcomings.
Publishers Weekly
Separated by decades, three women face difficult choices about motherhood. Redmond (Babes in Captivity, 2004, etc.) keeps her heroines' stories separate for most of the novel, but readers will decipher the heavy-handed connections early on. Present-day Cait, now in her 30s, has been raised lovingly by her adoptive parents, middle-class, suburban Catholics. When she finds herself pregnant and in love with a fellow journalist she's met while searching for a missing child—unbelievably sensitive Martin is married but his wife is a shrew and may be cheating on him too—she decides she must find her birth mother. In 1976 California, 19-year-old Billie is orphaned when her drugged-out father dies, but she finds letters that lead her to her wealthy grandmother Maude, a selfish but charming old woman dependent on her housekeeper Bridget. Billie moves into Maude's Manhattan mansion as Maude's heir. She also begins to sleep with her African-American bisexual best friend Jupe. When she gets pregnant, medical student Jupe says he's not ready to have a baby. Billie gives birth, suffers postpartum depression, is disowned by racist Maude and leaves the baby girl with Bridget. In 1916, Bridget is a newly arrived Irish nanny caring for Maude's first son. A former Ziegfeld girl now married to a wealthy Jewish candy manufacturer, Maude runs in a suffragette circle and pays little attention to her baby, but when he dies suddenly she is distraught. Bridget is her main support, but Bridget is being wooed by George, Maude's former chauffeur. Maude fires Bridget when she becomes pregnant and marries George. After his death in World War I, Bridget and her son are penniless. Maude takes her back on the condition that she can raise Bridget's son as her own. By the time modern Cait has her baby, she is in the bosom of her family, genetic and adoptive. The message is not subtle: Adoption is good, abortion should be a legal choice but is basically bad, men can be nice but are basically irrelevant.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why does Cait’s unexpected pregnancy inspire her to search for her birth mother? How does the fact of her own adoption influence her feelings about being pregnant and the possibility of having a child?
2. Motherhood is a central theme in the story. Of the characters that are mothers, whom did you find to be the most empathetic? How about the least? What does it take to make someone a mother—is it a genetic bond? or an emotional one?—and why?
3. How does Cait’s life—emotionally, socially, and economically—compare to Billie’s when she was faced with an unplanned pregnancy more than thirty years earlier? Given Billie’s situation, was her decision to leave her daughter and seek a new life for herself understandable? Why or why not?
4. Describe Bridget’s relationship with Maude, both before and after Floyd’s death. Why do you think Bridget remains with Maude for so many years? How would you define their relationship in one word?
5. The scene in which Cait finally meets Billie is the only one told from both characters’ perspectives. How does having each of their viewpoints enhance the story? During their conversation, what does Cait come to realize about her past and her future? What is her opinion of Billie?
6. In what ways does Cait’s search for her birth mother give her a new understanding about Vern and Sally, her adoptive parents? How does her relationship with Sally, in particular, change over the course of the story?
7. From physical appearances and sexual preferences to upbringings and ambitions, Billie and Jupe appear to embody “nothing but contradictions” (p. 15). What accounts for their close friendship? How does Billie so misjudge their relationship?
8. How does the issue of race play out in the novel? Discuss the scene on pages 163–173 when Jupe joins Billie, Bridget, and Maude for dinner. Afterward, Jupe disagrees with Billie that Bridget is the more racist of the two older women—and that Maude, in fact, was not being “really nice” throughout the evening as Billie believed (p. 173). Whose perception of the situation is more accurate? How so?
9. Discuss the historical aspects of the story, including the suffragist movement and the Heterodoxy Club, birth control restrictions, divorce laws, the attitude toward Irish immigrants, and the polio epidemic. What, if anything, did you learn that surprised you?
10. The Possibility of You spans nearly a hundred years. What were the most dramatic changes from generation to generation in terms of choices and opportunities for women, including those related to marriage and motherhood? What things have remained essentially the same?
(Questions issued by publisher.)