Saturday Review: “Dark Secrets of Carolina Girlhood” a review by Karin Zipf of Meagan Church’s novels The Girls We Sent Away and The Last Carolina Girl in NCLR Online Winter 2025
Another early look at a review in the forthcoming NCLR Online Winter 2025 issue!
Meagan Church takes us along the journey of Lorraine, who unexpectedly gets pregnant at the start of her senior year, and Leah, who gets forcibly sterilized at the age of thirteen. Zipf writes, “Church’s evocative stories draw for inspiration on family experience and North Carolina institutional history. In clear and cogent storytelling, she shows up close what happens when girls fall from their pedestal or, worse, suffer family circumstances that prevent them from climbing its first step.”
After loosely covering plot lines (with no spoilers) of both novels, Zipf reminds the reader, “Today, women’s reproductive rights are on the wane. Meanwhile, white supremacy rears its ugly head. Meagan Church reminds us of the cultural consequences when the state enforces nearly impossible sexual expectations of “white purity” on girls and young women.”
Read the preview from the Online Winter 2025 issue! And order the books from Bookshop.org.
