The Family Roe

An American Story

By: Joshua Prager

Narrated by: Elisabeth Rodgers

Length: 18 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

A masterpiece of reporting on the Supreme Court’s most divisive case, Roe v. Wade, and the unknown lives at its heart.

Despite her famous pseudonym, no one knows the truth about “Jane Roe”, Norma McCorvey (1947-2017), whose unwanted pregnancy in 1970 opened a great fracture in American life. Journalist Joshua Prager spent years with Norma, discovered her personal papers, a previously unseen trove, and witnessed her final moments. With an explosive revelation at the core of the case, he tells her full story for the first time.

Prager also traces Roe’s 50-year trajectory through three compelling figures: feminist lawyer Linda Coffee, who filed the original Texas lawsuit yet now lives in obscurity; Curtis Boyd, a former fundamentalist Christian, today a leading provider of third-trimester abortions; and Mildred Jefferson, the first Black female Harvard Medical School graduate, who became a pro-life leader with great secrets.

Essential to our understanding of this key debate, the right to choose or the right to life, The Family Roe will change the way you think about our enduring American divide.

©2021 Joshua Prager (P)2021 Recorded Books

The story of Norma

An interesting and detailed account of the woman whose unwanted pregnancy initiated Roe v Wade. I found the book well-written, if sometimes a bit tedious, and the narrator easy to listen to. I wondered why they chose a female narrator for a nonfiction book written by a man, but it doesn’t really matter. If you want to know Norma’s full story this is the book you need.

The whole story

I appreciated this novel and the details about the lives of all those involved.

Not pretty but informative.

I am 100% unapologetically pro-life. With that note, I have found this book attempting to be balanced and accurate in the retelling of the individuals who were involved with Roe. It’s not a textbook for or against abortion, and the author does mention his pro-choice bias openly. No matter your position on the issue you will undoubtedly learn something new about the people who played a role in such a life-changing decision.

Very well written and got under my skin

I'm listening to the last couple of chapters of this on Audible. It's deeply irritating, to be brutally frank. As a feminist of many decades, I knew that the woman at the center of Roe v Wade had been a grifter who played both sides of the fence to get money and support, but getting every last detail on just what a conniving piece of shit she was is very disappointing. She was a lesbian but repeatedly abused and abandoned her partner because the "pro life" people who were bankrolling her insisted she play it straight. She was a flake. I think there can be no more poignant testimony to the necessity of the right to choose than realizing what the lack of it does to women and the children they're forced to bear when it's not an option.

I have learned so much!

So well written and narrated. I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about this history from the angle of so many lives that were touched by "Jane Roe!"

Required reading

If you want to better understand Roe v Wade and all the battles associated with it, you must read this book!

When You Don't know the Whole Story

Superb journalism, balanced, empathetic, deals with a painfully complex issue so well. I recommend it even if you think there is nothing more to know about abortion and its powerful impact on our society.

Compelling and relevant, well done J Prager.

Hard to listen to some of the more graphic parts, but very necessary if we are to keep voting with our consciences and the facts both in our thoughts as we do so. I enjoyed the story, and was moved to tears many times.

Heavy, rich, ambitious narrative nonfiction

Thoughtful, anecdotally rich, and "readable"treatment of people and events related to Roe v Wade Supreme Court ruling. Pretty difficult to process being "pro-life" but also coherent and interesting and sobering as only the best nonfiction is. Prager's voice isn't pretty but given the time and experience he invested I would have loved to hear him read... Elisabeth was skilled but I found her reading stuffy and condescending overall.

Nothing Short of Compelling!

Joshua Prager has written an impeccably researched story, with all the complexities that come with the struggle for individual rights. But, who would think you could get to know the lives of so many fabulously entertaining characters from the securing of an unalienable right to privacy. I recommend it with a cheerleader’s enthusiasm!