Julia Franks, The Say So

Edie Carrigan didn't plan to "get herself" pregnant, much less end up in a home for unwed mothers. In 1950s North Carolina, illegitimate pregnancy is kept secret, wayward women require psychiatric cures, and adoption is always the best solution. Not even Edie’s closest friend, Luce Waddell, understands what Edie truly wants: to keep and raise the baby.
Twenty-five years later, Luce is a successful lawyer, and her daughter Meera now faces the same decision Edie once did. Like Luce, Meera is fiercely independent and plans to handle her unexpected pregnancy herself. Along the way, Meera finds startling secrets about her mother’s past, including the long-ago friendship with Edie. As the three women’s lives intertwine and collide, the story circles age-old questions about female awakening, reproductive choice, motherhood, adoption, sex, and missed connections.

For fans of Brit Bennett's The Mothers and Jennifer Weiner's Mrs. Everything, The Say So is a timely novel that asks: how do we contend with the rippling effects of the choices we've made? With equal parts precision and tenderness, Franks has crafted a sweeping epic about the coming of age of the women’s movement that reverberates through the present day.

"Every so often, a work of fiction appears that is so timely that its creation seems an act of prescience. Julia Franks’s The Say So speaks powerfully to the current debate about the rights of women to decide their own fates and control their own bodies. It is a finely crafted story about fascinating characters dealing with the most fundamental things: friendship, sexuality, family, and motherhood. Read it now and you will continue to think about it as years pass." —Terry Roberts, author of The Sky Club
"What a marvelous novel Julia Franks has written! The Say So is a big and generous story that brings a perennial dilemma into sharp focus from one generation to the next. A perfect and perfectly provocative book club choice!" —Katharine Weber, author of Jane of Hearts and Other Stories
"I wanted to say how much I enjoyed The Say So by Julia Franks. I loved the different points of view and also the two main characters, Edie and Luce. They were engaging and thoughtful people who gave you a totally opposite way of thinking." —Emmy Carmichael, A Capella Books

Julia Franks is the author of Over the Plain Houses, an NPR Best Book of 2016 that was also awarded five prestigious literary prizes and included in many "best of" lists. She has also published essays in the New York Times and The Bitter Southerner, among other places. Her family has roots in the Southeast, though she was raised as an army “brat”, then spent years as a school teacher in the US and abroad, and now lives in Atlanta.