The Hidden Child

The horrors of the eugenics movement were not restricted to the Nazis. Larry Bowlden reviews Louise Fein’s excellent historical novel, The Hidden Child, about the rise of  eugenics pseudoscience in Europe and America. In the story Fein lays out the attempt to mistakenly apply Darwinism to social science. She exposes atrocities like sterilizing so many women considered inferior due to economic conditions or various illnesses. Epileptic children were taken from their parents and literally imprisoned for life. This novel displays in lived-life the effects on one family and one little girl who is considered an imbecile simply because she has epileptic seizures.