Novel: The Lucky Morons

Yes, it's true.  I'm writing a novel.  My work-in-progress is titled The Lucky Morons, after a poem by a Depression Era Progressive who sought to eliminate what he deemed to be inferior human beings through targeted sterilization--a process and mindset picked up and expanded upon by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.  I think you know the rest of that story.

My book, unlike the inflammatory poem and the elitists who adhered to its philosophy, does not applaud bigotry, sterilization, racial cleansing or any of  its offspring. My book explores the lives of two little girls who were sterilized under the North Carolina eugenics program.  Two little girls who were targeted because their parents were poor, their father was a drunk, and because their mother was dying.  Their journey takes place during the Great Depression, a frightening period for adults, but an terrifying, unrelenting time for homeless and unwanted children.

I hope you'll join me and my main characters, Dorothy and Flossie, as they grieve, flee, suffer at the hands of  friends, family, county and state, lose everything but eventually find peace within the state that targeted them for extinction.

This book is close to my heart because the children I write about are real people. One of the two girls, Flossie,  grew up to become my grandmother.

Ultimately, this book is written for my grandmother, a loving, spiritual being who chose to forgive all who injured her. I'm still working on the forgiveness part.  My book is part of that process.

-Karen Beck

**Watch here for the first chapter posting**

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