This is going to be a challenging review to write. There are quite a few things about All You Have to Do is Call, by Kerri Maher, that annoy me very much. These things annoy me so much that I’m not sure I’ll be fair to the book’s virtues. This book isn’t all bad; I’ve certainly read worse. And I think there are readers who will enjoy this whirlwind dip into the last months of the Jane Collective, before their arrest the year before the monumental Roe v. Wade decision was handed down.
The first thing that bothered me (and it really bothers me) is that Maher replaces the actual founder of Jane, Heather Booth, with a fictional character. I can understand not wanting to use real people in a work of fiction. But why not fictionalize the whole story a bit more than swapping a few names? Booth is mentioned in Maher’s note at the end of the book, so readers who make it that far will know who actually deserves the credit for creating an organization that helped women get the abortions they needed and wanted between 1969 and 1972. Instead of Booth, we have Veronica Stillwell. Veronica is a rabble-rouser, mother, and wife. She is deeply involved with Jane. Not only does she counsel clients and teach sex education, she also performs dilation and curettage, a surgical procedure used in abortions and miscarriages. It’s illegal and dangerous work but Veronica is a firm believer in a woman’s right to direct her own life.
The second thing that bothered me about All You Need to Do is Call is how dumb this novel makes the Jane Collective look when it comes to recruitment. The Janes were very secretive about adding new members. Many of the Janes were former clients themselves. In Maher’s account, the Janes are shown actively recruiting on the campus of the University of Chicago and being very upfront about the extent of their activities. Even if one of the potential new members didn’t go to the police, there’s a really strong chance that word would have spread because most people are just really bad at keeping secrets. Historically, the Janes were infiltrated and arrested but it wasn’t because they were rushing new members on a college campus.
The third thing that bothered me about All You Need to Do is Call has less to do with actual history and more with how Maher chose to structure her novel. This book flits from character to character so frequently that it’s hard to get more than a surface-level read on any of the characters. Veronica doesn’t evolve much beyond being a crusader. Margaret grows a bit from a love-struck university professor to becoming a bit more savvy about the men she chooses. Patty, our third major character, is the most interesting of the three because she experiences a midlife crisis in which she suspects her husband is cheating on her, wrestles with the morality of abortion, and wonders who she is when she’s not a wife and mother. Patty is the only reason I rate this book two stars instead of one or zero. If she had been the only narrator, slowly discovering Jane and the transformative benefits of abortion, this might have been an amazing book. It certainly would have provided space for better and more credible character development.
I would steer readers curious about the Jane Collective or reproductive rights to the nonfiction The Story of Jane, by Laura Kaplan, instead of All You Need to Do is Call.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.