Jessica Winter

"This is a work of precise social realism, in which the intricate tableau of detail offers a backdrop for larger questions about morality, family, and obligation."—Chloe Schama, Vogue

“A beautifully observed and thrillingly honest novel about the dark corners of family life and the long, complicated search for understanding and grace.” —Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation and Weather

“The Fourth Child is keen and beautiful and heartbreaking—an exploration of private guilt and unexpected obligation, of the intimate losses of power embedded in female adolescence, and of the fraught moments of glancing divinity that come with shouldering the burden of love.” —Jia Tolentino, New York Times bestselling author of Trick Mirror

“This book is remarkable enough as an engaging family saga—mapping lives across decades, teasing out the complexities of being a mother, a daughter, a spouse, a sibling, a person. What I can’t quite get over is how deftly Jessica Winter is able to tackle some of our most contentious issues: faith, reproductive rights, power, and sex. The Fourth Child is a balm—a reminder that it is possible for art to provide a nuanced exploration of life itself.” —Rumaan Alam, New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind

"I loved this novel. It’s as if Maile Meloy’s Liars and Saints met Susan Choi’s A Person of Interest. It's also a stealth treatise on Catholic mysticism. I loved its moral sophistication and nuance. There are consequences for character choices, which felt like a breath of fresh air."
—Brandon Taylor, author of Real Life, finalist for the Booker Prize

“The Fourth Child does something that seems impossible—it probes the Manichean abortion wars through a subtle and arresting family drama. Jessica Winter's portrait of Buffalo during the massive anti-abortion protests of the 1990s is pitch-perfect, and her exploration of the deep sacrifices of motherhood is indelible.” —Michelle Goldberg, New York Times columnist and author of The Means of Reproduction

“The Fourth Child is a brave, complex novel about a mother and her two daughters—and a morally astute exploration of the rewards, limits, and unexpected costs of faith and compassion.” —Francine Prose, New York Times bestselling author of Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

“A wonder of shape-shifting characters shored up by a political and cultural backdrop that is forever alive with simmering portent. It is a haunting and sometimes prophetic immersion of the ways in which lives can be trapped by the impossibility of what might have once been and the cold truth of what is now. These characters spoke to me in my dreams . . . I could not bear to come to the end, and I find myself wondering, even now, where are they? What might happen? The Fourth Child is, frankly, everything our best novels can hope to be.”
—Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises

“Winter elegantly delineates the circumstances that create her characters' belief systems, gently lays bare their foibles and convictions, and shows how even the most rigid ideology can chafe against the messy and tender realities of life.”
—Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State

“In this compassionate and riveting novel, Jessica Winter raises some of the hardest questions about motherhood, daughterhood, and personhood. In rich and insightful prose, The Fourth Child explores, with ravishing complexity, the inner lives of girls and women.” —Helen Phillips, author of The Need