Contrary to the opinions of talk radio and TV mouthpieces and their sheeplike audiences, many feel that music, cinematic and literary artists should be expected to speak their mind. After all, if they’re good at their job, they’ve created works that make us uncomfortable and spur us to think about the world around us. In the words of French Impressionist Gustave Courbet, “It is fatal for art if it is forced into official respectability and condemned to sterile mediocrity.”
The last time a major writer addressed the subject of abortion – John Irving in “The Cider House Rules,” 1985 – it was in danger of being overturned by conservative government officials in power at the time. What comes around goes around, and the political climate is ripe again for another challenge to Roe vs. Wade. Tapping into the tenor of her times, Denver area writer Elizabeth Hyde’s latest novel, “The Abortionist’s Daughter,” is a complicated tale of love, family, murder and, yes, abortion. In keeping with the truly best writers, Hyde examines both sides of the issue, but offers only questions that probe deep into the secret hearts of readers everywhere. For answers, they will have to turn to themselves – and their families and communities.
“The Abortionist’s Daughter” begins two weeks before Christmas. A blizzard from the Front Range of the Rockies is raging, and the Duprey family is in emotional disarray. Dr. Diana Duprey, the abortionist of the title who runs the Center for Reproductive Choice, has been found dead in her backyard lap pool. The police detectives assigned to the case, Huck Berlin and Eric Vogel, find that the doctor’s corpse is sporting a large bruise on the back of the head. She could have gotten it accidentally while swimming or, as the detectives begin to suspect, someone could have killed her.
The police find plenty of suspects, beginning with a list of parents whose teens used her clinic and ending with Diana’s family. Her daughter, Megan, had been at odds with Diana for years, unable to form any sort of a close relationship with a mother who was more likely to embarrass her than educate her regarding sex.
Not long before Diana is found dead, Megan is busy taking ecstasy, trying to numb herself to recent relationship problems – a possessive ex-boyfriend from high school and an older teacher at a local college where she is a freshman. Only that morning, her husband, Frank, a Colorado district attorney, had a heated argument with Diana, but he cannot reveal the nature of his argument for fear of calling unwanted attention. Frank’s continuing refusal to cooperate with the police and the anger of a local coroner (with whom Frank had an affair) and her refusal to conduct the autopsy, lead to his becoming the prime suspect.
The author’s narrative flashback takes readers into the weeks, months and years before Diana’s murder, delving into her work and the feelings of the good doctor, her opponents, her family and the patients. What’s more, the deteriorating emotional and physical relationship between Diana and Frank – not to mention the death of their Down’s syndrome-afflicted son – results in ongoing animosity between the two.
Hyde’s ability to delve into the dynamics of family life demonstrates a masterful ability, not only with story, but also with characterization, even when dealing with the viewpoint of the young, high school-age Megan.
Early in the novel, as Megan is musing about her past, Hyde zeroes in on her personality when she writes, “She didn’t worry about pregnancy, because along with her adolescent belief that she would not live past the age of 30 lay a deep conviction that her so-called periods were in fact the beginning stages of some kind of cancer, and that she was, in short, infertile.”
Such insightful character development, coupled with a sure narrative hand and a touch of humor when needed, grounds the novel in issues everyone can deal with. The murder and exactly who committed it (and why) keep the suspense wound tight and the narrative moving briskly. But Hyde’s greatest achievement is in addressing the gray areas of abortion, a topic many view only in black and white terms. It is this judicious handling of such a compelling and timely subject that makes “The Abortionist’s Daughter” the first must-read of the summer.
Dorman T. Shindler is a freelance writer from Missouri.
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The Abortionist’s Daughter
By Elizabeth Hyde
Knopf, 401 pages, $23.95
