‘The girls who got pregnant were stigmatised – until their babies were born. Then they were revered as mothers’

It’s an unflinching tale. ​The Forgotten Girls, Monica Potts’s exploration of friendship, the nature of opportunity, and small-town life, is subtitled ‘An American Story’. But it’s not the kind of American story we’re used to. And yet it carries elements of the expected – ambition, dreams achieved against all odds, hard choices leading to good outcomes, perseverance followed by success.