Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Erickson applies his research and reporting skills to look into what may have contributed to generations of misfortune and heartbreak in his own family…. The 20th century’s evolving approaches to mental health, intellectual disabilities, developmental delays and criminal behaviors – all of that gets sucked into this cyclonic history. This book may prompt readers to consider what’s needed to improve current systems that are designed to confront and allay the legacies of suffering we see around us.
When Mortals Play God offers an insightful and necessary personal account of one of our nation’s most misguided and devastating chapters – the American Eugenics Movement. John Erickson’s painstaking research into his grandmother’s classification as feebleminded and her subsequent commitment and sterilization gives voice to the horrors visited upon countless American families. Erickson captures the fear, stigma, and dearth of compassion towards those marginalized by eugenic policies, making When Mortals Play God a vital wellspring in the social history of eugenics.
When Mortals Play God is a brilliant journalistic dissection of how a family was nearly destroyed during a dark era when governments embraced eugenics in a depraved attempt to prevent reproduction of the “unfit.” But in the hands of a gifted reporter and writer like John Erickson, it is so much more. A story of cruelty and calamity becomes a riveting, colorful, fast-paced saga that is both inspiring and memorable.
When Mortals Play God exposes the state-sponsored practice of sterilization of women in early twentieth century Minnesota. Based on extensive genealogical research, John Erickson offers a clear-eyed and deeply personal look at his family’s experience with the now discredited policy of institutionalization of individuals deemed to be feebleminded. Erickson vividly tells the stories of family members plagued by demons and misfortune and asks what might have happened under a more enlightened social policy. Erickson also offers stories of resilience and triumph, as other family members demonstrated the advocates of eugenics were very wrong about heredity. Along the way, the author recounts the painstaking and often frustrating process of reconstructing family history.
It is very clear that Erickson put in a lot of time and effort to research his own family history as well as the history of the laws and the area that his family called home. His writing allows the reader to find not only relatable humanity but love and compassion for a family that was fundamentally failed by their community, society as a whole and by the government created to establish order and protection for its most vulnerable citizens. He allows the reader to “walk a mile in their shoes.”
John Erickson relied on his skills as a tenacious reporter to uncover the hard truth of his family’s past in Minnesota, a story that included suicide, alcoholism, forced sterilization, death by drowning, and murder. It is a powerful story that portrays the sheer hardship of life in 20th century America for many immigrants and their descendants. Yet it also shows the ability of one family to endure and survive.
In vivid and evocative prose, John Erickson reveals the interwoven traumas wrought when the State of Minnesota declared his grandmother feeble-minded, institutionalized her against her will, and forcibly sterilized her in 1925 – the first year that Minnesota implemented eugenic sterilization. By detailing the ripple effects of the State’s actions, Erickson illustrates the devastating effects of intergenerational trauma. This book is a valuable addition to contemporary understandings of ableism, State control of women’s lives and bodies, and legacy trauma.
John Erickson’s When Mortals Play God is a marvel of meticulous research and expansive reportage. It reveals a stranger-than-fiction saga about the impact of eugenic policies on generations of the author’s own family and sounds a shocking alarm that will awaken you from historical amnesia about the country’s eugenic past.
Fans of Hidden Valley Road and Educated will be spellbound by John Erickson's account of an unspeakable social injustice and the way it has reverberated through generations of his family. Part mystery, part expose, part lyrically-written memoir, When Mortals Play God ultimately proves to be a redemptive tale of one woman's triumph over all the odds that have been stacked against her family.
In When Mortals Play God, John Erickson employs the detective work of an experienced researcher and reporter and the prose of a gifted storyteller to recount how his grandmother was a victim of eugenic sterilization in the 1920s. When Mortals Play God is a must-read for anyone interested in never forgetting how our government once sanctioned medical brutality against tens of thousands of women like Erickson’s maternal grandmother, Rose DeChaine, whose only crime was being a free-spirit who suffered from some mental-health issues.
By daring to explore the dark corners of his own family’s past, John Erickson breathes life into a shameful period in American history of less than a century ago. When Mortals Play God artfully weaves his family’s tragedies and triumphs through five generations to bring home to all of us the tragic impact of a system that once allowed our government to sterilize society’s least wanted and most vulnerable – the mentally ill and handicapped.
John Erickson's compelling family saga makes clear that truth is not only stranger than fiction. It's crueler, less forgiving but somehow more fulfilling. Erickson's powerful writing and dogged reporting chronicle his family's trials, tragedies, and the hard-won triumphs that offer glimmers of hope for the human condition.
