The Fourth Child

by Jessica Winter

The author of Break in Case of Emergency follows up her debut with a moving novel about motherhood and marriage, adolescence and bodily autonomy, family and love, religion and sexuality, and the delicate balance between the purity of faith and the messy reality of life.

Book-smart, devoutly Catholic, and painfully unsure of herself, Jane becomes pregnant in high school; by her early twenties, she is raising three children in the suburbs of western New York State. In the fall of 1991, as her children are growing older and more independent, Jane is overcome by a spiritual and intellectual restlessness that leads her to become involved with a local pro-life group. Following the tenets of her beliefs, she also adopts a little girl from Eastern Europe. But Mirela is a difficult child. Deprived of a loving caregiver in infancy, she remains unattached to her new parents, no matter how much love Jane shows her. As Jane becomes consumed with chasing therapies that might help Mirela, her relationships with her family, especially her older daughter, Lauren, begin to fray. 

Feeling estranged from her mother and unsettled in her new high school, Lauren begins to discover the power of her own burgeoning creativity and sexuality—a journey that both echoes and departs from her mother’s own adolescent experiences. But when Lauren is confronted with the limits of her youth and independence, Jane is thrown into an emotional crisis, forced to reconcile her principles and faith with her determination to keep her daughters safe. The Fourth Child is a piercing love story and a haunting portrayal of how love can shatter—or strengthen—our beliefs.

Genres: Fiction, Religion, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, Novels

352 pages, Hardcover

First published March 9, 2021

About the author

JESSICA WINTER  is features editor at Slate and the former culture editor of Time. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Bookforum, The Believer, and many other publications. She lives in Brooklyn.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Fourth Child” is an amazing literary domestic fiction story that is told from two viewpoints. It begins with Jane, who is a zealous catholic young girl, dreamy in her thoughts of all the female saints and Jesus. From the start, the reader is concerned for Jane who is taking her faith to a frightening level, fantasizing on how she too could be a saint, with all their suffering and humiliation. What sets Jane apart from many catholic enthusiasts is that she does practice forgiveness, compassion, and love. Jane’s kindness and patience is almost unreal though. Realistically, I have never met such a person as Jane, not even in nuns. In the interest of honesty, I will confess that I’m a bit jaded when it comes to the overly devote.

Jane gets herself in a family way when she’s a Senior in high school. She marries the father, of course, as that’s what all good girls do. Her husband Patrick is her opposite. He is not kind; he’s cruel. And what Jane endures in her marriage does seem realistic to me (Yes, I’m jaded…I see the bad characters as true and not the purely good characters). Jane has a daughter, Lauren. Two years later she has a son, and one year after that she has another son. Thus, she has three children before she’s 25. Balancing her husband’s temper and the infants and toddlers are a lot.

This is the backdrop though. The story gains legs when Jane sees a Barbara Walter’s special about the Romanian children who were stuck and ill treated in Orphanages. Jane is so moved by the images that she is motivated to adopt one of those needy children. This “fourth” child is Mirela, and she is a handful. Jane thinks of the blessed virgin mother, Mary, often, and she divines what Mary would do in all the difficult situations.

Lauren is exasperated by her mother and by her destructive new sibling. Lauren’s chapters ring true of a girl who is coming-of-age with a fervent catholic mother. I ached for Lauren as much as I was perplexed by Jane. Adding to Lauren’s adolescent drama is the fact that her mother is a right-to-life activists who frequently protests pro-choice activists. And Lauren’s neighbor is a doctor who performs abortions. This doctor has a son who is in Lauren’s school and is incredibly kind to Lauren.

As her children grow up, Jane does not inflict her believes nor religion on her children or friends/neighbors. Her devotion is her own. She’s not trying to persuade people to be more religious; she only wants to stop abortions and live a saintly life. Again, I have never met such a person (with the pure goal of compassion, empathy, and forgiveness), as generally their dogma clouds their “saintly” behavior, but, Winter writes her that way.

Winter writes teen Lauren perfectly. Poor Lauren. She is left to navigate her teen years alone because Jane is overwhelmed by Mirela. In Lauren’s chapters, the reader will be right back into the uncomfortable time of high school.

Of course, as the title implies, the story is truly about what the addition of Mirela does to the family. It’s difficult to like Mirela, even understanding the conditions from which she came.

Winter does not pontificate nor steer the reader to her own views, other than there are kind and saintly people out there. She shows the complications that arise when one has good intentions and is focused on doing the right thing while blindly missing important issues. Plus, she shows how one child can dominate a family life.

I listened to the audio, performed by Cassandra Campbell who is a favorite of mine. Campbell’s melodic voice adds to the story. I highly recommend the audio.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was so hard for me to get through! The writing wasn't terrible. The author's use of detail was great. But this book just seemed to drag on forever!

[Alaina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Fourth Child was an interesting story for me to dive into. I will admit that this had a ton of family drama that will take you on it's own wild adventure. Yet, for some odd reason - I couldn't connect with a single character. Okay, maybe odd is the wrong word to use because I know why I couldn't.

First, you meet Jane and yikes. She goes through so much emotional abuse from her own parents and her boyfriend. Then on top of that, she does self harm and has eating disorders due to all of this. It also doesn't help that she is pregnant either.

Enter Lauren. It was actually pretty interesting to see things from her eyes because she has to deal with the sudden adoption and her life changes. For better or not.. that's up for you to decide. All I can say is that diving into every little thing from their own eyes was a bit eye opening in a way.

Since I've been raised catholic.. my family has never been like this. Would they care if I had a baby out of wedlock? Eh no not really but I'm only basing this off of my parents very subtle cues of wanting me grandparents. Would they care if we got married in a church or on the side of the road? Also no. Heck my dad would probably love the cheaper wedding but again.. I'm stating this because he has said it to our faces.

As for the rest of my family? They might care but they didn't raise me.

So, yes, this book was interesting and it dove into some deep and dark things. I'm still not a fan of the coping mechanisms by Jane but I guess I will learn to get over it. Maybe.

[Lacepaperlife · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not even sure what I just read, I mean, whoa!

This book is FULL of intense family drama, weird sexual experiences, emotional abuse, self harm, eating disorders, neglect, mental abuse, and adoption with an overall focus on religion and abortion.

With a full cast of complex characters I was surprised to find I couldn’t connect to a single one. With the timeline jumps, perspective shifts, and intense emotions the extreme situations brought out in each character I felt like I suffered whiplash.

For me this book tried to pack to much punch and ended up missing the mark. Although I didn’t see the ending coming by the time I got there it was to late for me to care. While others may enjoy the dark and twisted tale woven between Mother and daughter in The Fourth Child it was to disjointed for me.

⭐️⭐️ Two stars with a R rated emotional beat down full of hot topics and trigger warnings.

[Tracy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. If you want a slog through some dysfunctional Catholic family/Catholic guilt with a "twist" (really all the twists) that you can see from a mile away, then this is a book for you. Otherwise, I didn't find much here.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fourth Child is a novel by Jessica Winter. The Fourth Child is literary fiction, the story of a Catholic family told from the points of view of Jane and her daughter, Lauren. I received an early copy of this book from @harperbooks in exchange for an honest review of the work.

We meet Jane as a high school student in upstate New York in the 1970s - sweet and religious and a newly pregnant wife immediately after graduation. We pick back up with her family as that baby, Lauren, is entering high school herself in the early 90s. Jane’s involvement with local pro-life organizations leads her to adopt a Romanian orphan, Mirela, whose struggles with attachment disorder nearly blind Jane to everything else her family is facing.

My honest review is that I honestly loved this novel. From page one, reading this made me feel as if I had picked up something new by an old favorite author - without once feeling like I had read this same old thing before. Winter tells a story that is both a rich family drama and also a relatable coming-of-age, and somehow manages to capture the internal voice of both characters flawlessly. I’m going to officially declare myself a fan, and this is officially going up as my staff recommendation when it is released March 9th. Fans of Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Strout, or Joyce Carol Oates should all appreciate this excellent book.

5/5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Roswitha · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the many deep divides in American life is between those who are pro-choice and those who are anti. If you’ve ever wondered what goes on in the heads of the people who picket abortion clinics and harass women in the name of saving them, Jessica Winter’s account of the family life of an ardent anti-abortionist creates a plausible rationale. The story of one woman’s family is told in prose that is direct, undadorned, and always in character as Winter imagines her way into the consciousness of Jane, a girl brought up by a mother who is both Catholic and a wicked shrew, and then her daughters.

Jane’s antique religiosity seems to be her way of trying to win approval from God that she will never get from her parents. She is anorexic like the saints were, starving herself to appear more virtuous in the eyes of God. And this is the 1970s. Some boys like them super-skinny, and Pat, a good-looking jock, is one of them. Somehow Jane’s zealotry doesn’t save her from becoming a teen mom. While her smart girlfriends go off to college, Jane gives birth to Lauren, characteristically, with a degree of self-martyrdom that almost leads to catastrophe. But she’s not raising her alone. Her jock boyfriend comes from a good Catholic family too. They marry. The result is an unhappy union that Jane endures with her usual insufferable saintliness. If you were Pat, you’d probably have some festering resentments too.

Eventually Jane has two more children, both boys, whose antics provide some of the book’s lighter moments. But this is a story about mothers and daughters. Jane and Lauren alternate points of view. When a fourth pregnancy miscarries, Jane somehow feels cheated out of that baby. She returns from a trip to Romania with her fourth child, a deeply disturbed, malnourished and neglected little girl from one of the Ceausescu regime’s horrific orphanages. The Romanian dictator didn’t like the low birthrate in his impoverished country, so he outlawed abortion. The result was the widespread abandonment of infants to understaffed state institutions, where they were simply dumped into cribs and left screaming.

The arrival of Mirela into Jane’s already fragile marriage creates a rupture that all the children feel, but Lauren feels most strongly. Her mother’s preoccupation with Mirela and with the anti-abortion movement leave her at sea and vulnerable. One of this novel’s many delicious ironies happens when the beloved daughter of an anti-choice mom gets pregnant. As a reader, I didn’t agree with all of Lauren’s choices. And for all her neuroses, Jane is not unlikeable. She does have a big heart. I was completely engaged with this novel, a page-turner to the end, with a last chapter that introduces a new voice, along with an unexpected feeling of hope.

[Denise Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am a person that needs to finish a book. It’s more like a compulsion. With that said, about 70 pages into this book, I had to fight to finish it. I applaud the writer, as she is clearly very intelligent and doesn’t want you, the reader, to forget that, ever. Her use of obscure words felt like she purposefully laid down a gauntlet.
The story itself, is dysfunction on parade. Everyday inhumanity magnified, studied and highlighted in a way that left me feeling filthy and in need of a shower.
During this time of social unrest and the ongoing pandemic, if you are feeling at all out-of-sorts, leave this book for better days.
My two stars reflect the two words I had to look up in the dictionary.

[Brenda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not jive with this writer's style. Every page felt like a chore.

[Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very engaging novel about a Catholic woman who becomes pregnant just before college and has to drop out and marry. She has 3 children and a good marriage. In the 1990s, she has a miscarriage. After she sees a 20/20 episode with kids in orphanages in Romania, she is driven to adopt a child and goes over and brings a three year old home. Being anti-abortion, she believes this is a way to prove how pro-life she is. The story is told between herself and her teenage daughter who is going through budding sexuality and her Catholic beliefs may her influence her life. Amidst the turmoil, a disruptive Romanian girl is causing problems and appears uncontrollable. It’s very engaging and drew me right in. I found the ending too scattered and lame to make me feel satisfied which was disappointing. And I found it alarming that with all the help the mother seeks to get help for her adoptive child, no one seeks out a native language speaker to help communicate with the girl or teach her new family some words in Romanian or another possible native language. Not even when the mother seeks professional help do the professionals do the professional thing that a professional would do by bringing in a translator and assess the little girl’s language development. Very bizarre and unprofessional! Her language is mentioned more when she is age 6and probably has no ability in the language anymore is it really mentioned in the book and the idea that the girl used to have to process in two languages before. Not necessarily true but very stereotypical to believe. But until the end I was pretty involved.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story is awesome to listen to for a change, but reading has a magic I didn’t fine by listening to an audiobook! I’ll definitely read this title later.

[Anneliese Grassi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was definitely a tough one for me to get through. I started to read it, couldn’t get into it, read a different book or two, then came back to it. Unfortunately, it was not any better the second time I tried.

Jane is a devout Catholic however gets pregnant right before graduating high school. She never gets to go to college and marries her high school sweetheart/father of her baby. She has two more children. When Lauren, her first born, is a freshman in high school Jane decides to adopt a toddler girl from Romania, which brings struggles to the family. The story is told back and forth between Jane and Lauren’s point of views.

This is a pretty intense book with some very heavy subjects in between these covers - teen pregnancy, emotional abuse, religious beliefs, abortion, inappropriate sexual behavior between teacher and student, adoption, family issues, and I’m sure there are some that I’ve missed. And this isn’t really what made the book difficult to read.
There was so much “filler” that I could skip entire paragraphs and not miss a thing. It truly could have been a great story but in my opinion there was just way too much thrown in here that just wasn’t developed and/or expanded upon making it hard for the reader to engage. It just fell flat for me. Storyline good, delivery not so good.

I won this book as and ARC in a Goodreads Giveaway.

[Mitch Loflin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did I read this 40% because the cover is so pretty and 40% because there was a Jenny Offill blurb on said cover? Yes. Did I love it? No. I went back and forth on this a lot? I think it's mostly a mix. Sometimes it was so interesting and I felt very invested in the characters and their predicament that wasn't quite like anything I've ever read, and other times I thought there were very strange narrative choices being made that I didn't really get. I liked it more than I didn't like it.

[Ctroskoph · Rating 2 out of 5]

I trudged through this book because that is what I do but it missed too many opportunities to be good and left too many questions unanswered. The writing was pretentious and self-indulgent. If felt to me that Winters was trying to be a poet and it just did not work. And to top it off: I did not really like any of the characters. Maybe Paula and her mom and they were hardly in the book.

[Zibby Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is a love story about a mother, Jane, and her children; she has a biological daughter and an adopted daughter. Jane is a devout Catholic and got pregnant in high school and had three kids in succession. As her kids become teens, she feels restless, which drives her toward two fateful decisions. One -she adopts a child from Romania named Mirela, and she becomes active in a local pro-life organization.

I found it interesting how the author described Jane's process and how she includes religion in her life and its role in her life. There is also a focus on reproductive rights in the book.

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/jes...

[Keshia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fourth Child is a winding story through a generation of family dealing with everything normal yet not normal at all. Jane, devoutly catholic grows up in her peculiar way of self punishment and almost relishes the emotional abuse she receives from her parents and boyfriend. She compliments the emotional abuse with self harm and borderline eating disorders yet when she becomes pregnant that changes. Jane adores her first child, Lauren and as the years go on we get to see through the eyes of Lauren as she is a teenager. After a sudden adoption the families life changes and unexpected consequences happen for the entire family.

I really enjoyed this book. It is very much based on personal thoughts and beliefs as opposed to conversations so it's important to remember that the internal monologues are key. The book has a gloom sort of vibe but it was beautifully written and I adore the writers style. 4 well deserved stars.

[Barbara Moher · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was definitely not for me! I actually read a review in a magazine and asked my library to order it for me because they did not have it. I was so disappointed… First there was an abundance of religion( which I thought I could overlook)…. Adoption (which I love to read about) , babies, motherhood, … I thought I would like it , it dragged on and on with too much detail about every little thing. I guess I just do not like the writing style. Glad this book is done!

[Renee · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book, for me, lacked coherence. Considering we are reading from the characters' own viewpoints, it was odd to me that I still did not really understand them nor could I relate to them. The story was interesting but somehow the writing did not live up to it.

[Rosanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful writing, no plot, one dimensioned, forgettable characters, weird unexplained events. Just no, don't waste your time.

[AMenagerieofWords Deb Coco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Their conflicts and their resentments were weather. Nothing could be so trite as to talk about the weather.
The Fourth Child
Jessica Winter
•
The Fourth Child is a very unique family saga based on a family who, after having three children, decides to adopt a little girl from Romania. But the adoption decision was made fairly unilaterally by the mother, Jane, and the story revolves around the fallout when the new baby has multiple problems adapting and how this child affects their family life - most specifically the eldest daughter Lauren.
•
This book is a deep dive into mothering, nature vs. nurture and the right to life. Jane is a devout Catholic and her every move is deep seated in her belief system. The mother/daughter relationship is examined closely and I felt the best part of this novel was watching Jane and Lauren evolve. Winter takes a very honest look at family dynamics and also puts a magnifying glass on the stressors within a marriage over time -- it felt both honest and raw. It closely examines faith and how it can drive us -- I enjoyed this as a non-religious person much in the same way I did The Dearly Beloved- I don’t think you need to be religious to connect with this book, in fact books like this tend to validate my decision to leave organized religion behind. This would be rounded up to 3.5 if possible - 4 seemed too high as is was extremely slow to get going and I considered DNF'g, but once I connected it picked up and I'm glad I did not abandon.

[Lisa Petzold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really liked the writing style- felt almost frenetic, like it was speeding up and I had to keep going to know what happens next. Family, abuse, sex, kids, abortion… this one is heavy.

[Mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fourth Child by Jessica Winter is a well-written intergenerational family drama told in the perspectives of mother and daughter. We meet mother Jane in high school and follow her journey into motherhood. We meet her daughter, Lauren, in high school as well. So many topics are covered from romantic and familial relationships, parenting, abuse, religion, abortion, etc. I liked the parallels in their lives and pondering how much choices we make when we are young can influence the rest of our lives. We get to know and understand Jane and Lauren very well, but most secondary characters were a little flat and lacked depth, like Lauren's brothers. I also liked how Jane and Lauren both changed and developed over the years. They weren't perfect characters or always that likeable, but were vulnerable and flawed. Cassandra Campbell deftly narrated the audiobook. Her narration really drew me into the story.

Thank you Harper Audio and NetGalley for providing this audiobook ARC.

[Diane Wilkes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting to read such a beautifully written, literary novel, but The Fourth Child by Jessica Winter surprised me--in a good way. Set in Buffalo, starting with approximately the time I was coming of age, it makes me think of someone I knew who lived there, in ways both overt and psychological. It's the story of a Catholic family, matrilineally (?) speaking. The overt reminders are the allusions to the Bills and how the men identify with them so completely. There's even a section about how you can tell what kind of man is by how he roots for or rejects a particular player. But its complicated, tortured center is about children and mothers and the centrality and pervasiveness of the Catholic Church, and the issue of abortion.

The tale is told through two girls-to-women, Jane, who gets pregnant in high school and marries her sometimes sweet, sometimes actively unkind boyfriend, and her daughter Lauren as she grows into womanhood.

There are repeated reminders that Buffalo is an insular, nowhere town to live in, where the brighter lights escape--and the smart girls who get pregnant rather than go to college, and their fates in the small town-city. Buffalo's limitations reflect and echo the storyline.

Until the last quarter of the book, plot takes a back seat to the emotional and psychological insights, the unfolding of the finely drawn, layered main characters. As I think about it now, I think it also perfectly evokes the differences between male and female adolescent cruelty in a way I've never previously encountered in my book travels.

Particularly beloved by me are the insights Lauren and her friend Paula produce on the subject of music: discussion of the Replacements, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana and even Crowded House are all jewels, some hysterically funny and all profound, revealing the evocative and profound impact of music during those formative adolescent years.

More central to the plot are the anti-abortion movement and babies with attachment issues. The climaxes in both cases are not written in poetic prose, but I suspect that is intentional. People are mysterious and multi-layered; action is not, not really.

It's literary fiction, not "women's fiction,"and I am now going to hunt down Winter's first novel. This one packed an intellectual and emotional punch that will continue to have me gently reeling as I continue to reflect on its epiphanies.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written, intelligent, honest, and at times, a painful book about families, motherhood, children, abortion, adoption, growing up, and living your life. If you want a plot-driven, feel-good, page-turner, this is probably not your book. But if you read to think and stretch your mind and heart, this novel is worth looking into.

[Grace H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this story; the Buffalo connection was fun and I could easily place every reference in the book. Pretty sure the high school referenced was Williamsville East. Ending was sad, but saw it coming because I knew the Slepian story. Agree with others that the writing was a little oblique, sometimes unnecessarily.

[Erika Germain · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow in the beginning. Then picks up or at least becomes more interesting with the adoption and the eldest daughter’s issues. Then it just sorta ends and it’s very unsatisfying and a bit flat. I honestly kept reading to see if they diagnosed the adopted child with a neurological deficit and the treatment.

[Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is excellent. It is a subtle and engaging look at a mother and daughter(s) through the lens of abortion and adoption. There are finely wrought details and an immersive overall plot. It felt much different than Winter's first book.

[Georgeann Gurkovich · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. I kept reading hoping it would improve. About 100 pages too long. I guessed the fate of Lauren about half way through. I would not recommend this book. Gave 2 stars for Jane's quest to be the best mother she could to Mirela.

[Morgan Nash · Rating 3 out of 5]

4th child

Not that good tbh, only finished thanks to pregnancy insomnia. Had a lot of potential but I didn’t really vibe with the writing style. Lots of unnecessary symbolism and imagery

[Sydney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read but took forever, got boring