Women of Washington Hebrew Congregation Literary Club welcomes bestselling author Jacqueline Friedland to discuss her novel, Counting Backwards. Told in two alternating narratives bound by a shocking parallel of issues such as reproductive rights and society’s expectations of women and mothers, Friedland’s novel is a compelling reminder that progress is rarely a straight line and always hard-won.

REGISTER

About the Book

New York, 2022. Jessa Gidney is trying to have it all–a high-powered legal career, a meaningful marriage, and hopefully, one day, a child. But when her professional ambitions come up short and Jessa finds herself at a turning point, she leans into her family’s history of activism by taking on pro bono work at a nearby detention center. There she meets Isobel Perez–a young mother fighting to stay with her daughter–but as she gets to know Isobel, an unsettling revelation about Isobel’s health leads Jessa to uncover a horrifying pattern of medical malpractice within the detention facility. One that shockingly has ties to her own family.

Virginia, 1927. Carrie Buck is an ordinary young woman in the center of an extraordinary legal battle at the forefront of the American eugenics conversation. From a poor family, she was only six years old when she first became a ward of the state. Uneducated and without any support, she spends her youth dreaming about a different future–one separate from her exploitative foster family–unknowing of the ripples her small, country life will have on an entire nation.

As Jessa works to assemble a case against the prison and the crimes she believes are being committed there, she discovers the landmark Supreme Court case involving Carrie Buck with shockingly similar implications to the one before her now. Her connection to the case, however, is deeper and much more personal than she ever knew–sending her down new paths that will leave her forever changed and determined to fight for these women, no matter the cost.

About the Author

Jacqueline Friedland is a USA Today and Amazon bestselling author of historical and contemporary women’s fiction. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, she earned a law degree from NYU and a Master of Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College. Jackie regularly reviews fiction for trade publications and appears at schools and other locations as a guest lecturer. She lives just outside New York City with her husband, four children, and two dogs.

Every year, we are pleased to present prominent writers of the nation’s newest works on topics of Jewish interest, often in cooperation with the Jewish Book Council. For more information, click here.