Terrible Virtue

A biographical novel of the women’s rights pioneer and founder of Planned Parenthood: “well-researched . . . elegiac as well as triumphant” (Kirkus).

Terrible Virtue recounts the compelling story of one of the most fascinating and influential figures of the twentieth century: Margaret Sanger—an indomitable woman who, at great personal cost, shaped the sexual landscape we inhabit today.

The daughter of a hard-drinking free thinker and a mother worn down by thirteen children, Margaret Sanger vowed her life would be different. Trained as a nurse, she fought for social justice beside labor organizers, anarchists, socialists, and other progressives, eventually channeling her energy to one singular cause: legalizing contraception. It was a battle that would pit her against puritanical, patriarchal lawmakers, send her to prison again and again, force her to flee to England, and ultimately change the lives of women across the country and around the world.

From opening America’s first illegal birth control clinic in 1916 through the founding of Planned Parenthood to the arrival of the Pill in the 1960s, Margaret Sanger sacrificed two husbands, three children, and scores of lovers in her fight for sexual equality and freedom. With cameos by such legendary figures as Emma Goldman, H. G. Wells, and the love of Margaret’s life, Havelock Ellis, this is a richly imagined portrait of a larger-than-life woman.