Jessica Winter's The Fourth Child is an accomplished follow-up to her debut, Break in Case of an Emergency. It follows a mother and daughter through the difficult adoption of the family's fourth child. Jane Brennan's aspirations to earn a degree in child development are cut short when she becomes pregnant in high school. Years later, Jane has married her quick-to-anger high school boyfriend and is raising three children: Lauren (the oldest) and two sons. Still searching for meaning, Jane adopts Mirela, a traumatized Romanian toddler. While Jane becomes more involved in pro-life protests and in finding the correct care for Mirela, Lauren falls under the influence of her controlling drama teacher, Ted Smith. As Lauren's relationship with Ted escalates, Jane soon cannot ignore what is happening to her oldest daughter while her youngest daughter remains in crisis.
Distinct but equally insightful, both Jane's and Lauren's perspectives shine in this story of adolescent yearnings, motherly devotion and what it means to be beholden to others. In confronting topical controversies such as international adoption, Catholic conservatism, abortion and underaged consent, The Fourth Child develops its nuanced characters in a way that offers more questions than answers. Where Jane's narrative is deliberately paced, exacting and filled with longing, Lauren's is intense, compulsive and sometimes haunting. Together, they present a mother-daughter relationship that is both troubled and loving, enduring yet vulnerable. Rather than becoming caricatures of mother-daughter stereotypes, both women emerge as individuals caught in a net of complex relations who understand, perhaps too well, the roles they are meant to perform. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor