Jane Bertram has everything she could ask for. A loving partner. Friends. A beautiful home. Security. Then, time takes them away. Having worked so hard and lost so much, can an ailing Jane once again overcome old demons? Or will she succumb to long-buried shadows and ghosts? With time running out, will she remember how to spin straw into gold?

The First and Last Lesson is the fourth novel of a four-book series that began with Blackbird and includes My Mother’s Daughter and The Perfect Mother. The quartet explores the taboos, history, and texture of women’s struggles during a profoundly transformative period of the twentieth century.

A return to Iowa for her sister’s funeral forces Jane Bertram to confront long-buried memories and uncomfortable truths. Is she more like her mother than she wants to admit? Despite her best intentions, has she made the same mistakes? Surprised by her aging mother’s whispered expression of regret, Jane weighs the possibility of reconciliation.

Feeling as if she had no choice but to abandon her newborn to the authorities, Jane Bertram is eager to turn her life around. She escapes Iowa aboard a train to Chicago, determined to rise above her abusive past, hoping a new environment will allow her to break away from her dysfunctional relationships and start over. Memories, however, can never be left behind, and some wounds never heal.

Can a Young Woman Break the Cycle of Abuse?

The idealized scenes in Norman Rockwell’s illustrations seldom reflected the reality of American families, including Jane Bertram’s. Her world consists of a mostly absent father and an angry mother who vents her frustration on her daughter.