Lara Feigel’s Custody traces mothers’ struggles in child custody history

Lara Feigel’s book Custody: The Secret History of Mothers surveys historical and contemporary child custody cases to show how mothers have been separated from their children and continue to fight for them. Feigel casts her net across history and fiction, reportage and memoir. The book opens with George Sand’s anxiety while waiting to fight for custody, moves to Feigel’s own custody battle and to the 19th century case of Caroline Norton, whose campaigning helped secure women basic rights over property and children but was also marked by tragedy.

Other cases discussed include Elizabeth Packard, who was forced into an asylum after disagreeing with her husband’s religious views, and a 2008 episode in which Britney Spears was held in a psychiatric hospital without her beloved children. The reviewer finds Feigel’s research impressive and her candour moving, but says the narrative often flicks between eras and stories in ways that make it hard to hold the tales together or to see clear progress.

Key Topics

Culture, Lara Feigel, Child Custody, Caroline Norton, George Sand, Elizabeth Packard