The Story of Molly and Me: A Memoir

Fran Gruss Levin takes us on a raw and honest emotional journey as she tells her story of first love, longing, and loss. At seventeen, unsure of herself but full of hope and passion, she falls deeply in love with a young man from her hometown and soon finds herself pregnant and terrified. Her parents’ response, a reflection of the attitudes of the time, is to forbid contact with the baby’s father and send her away to have the baby, who is then given up for adoption. These events mark the beginning of Fran’s long and painful struggle to deal with the guilt, shame, and grief that she carries along with her closely held secret. The pain of her loss and the yearning to find her lost child only grows over time. The Story of Molly and Me takes the reader through Fran’s odyssey from the very beginning through several decades as she learns to draw on her optimism and strong spirit to find what she needs to make her family, and her life, complete.