Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

Summary and review:

Midwives is told from the perspective of Connie Danforth, a thirty-year-old woman. When Connie was fourteen, her mother, Sybil Danforth, was a midwife in rural Vermont. That March, Sybil was called to assist at the bedside of a laboring woman. During the labor, it appeared that the mother had died of a stroke and so, in order to save the baby, Sybil performed an emergency c-section on the woman with a kitchen knife. Sybil saved the infant, but the next day faced questioning from state police and was later arrested in the death of the mother. The book follows the Danforth family through the summer and into the fall of Sybil's trial.

My husband saw me reading this book and said, "Huh. Midwives. Sounds boring," and I have to say, this is not a book that your average male is going to feel comfortable reading. There is far too much talk of female anatomy for that. I am actually rather surprised that the author is a man. Maybe that's sexist of me but, it really is a compliment. I thought the predominately female characters were very believable, and I'd imagine it could be difficult for a man to write like that. And anyway, as the novel makes clear, the birthing room has historically been the woman's domain.

My reaction toward this book was kind of unusual. While I found myself being more and more drawn in to the life of Sybil Danforth and the outcome of the trial--I even had to stop a couple of times to remind myself that it was fiction--there were places when I was kind of bored. I had a hard time with the courtroom scenes in particular. Not to sound too cliche, but the posturing of the attorneys really irritated me, and all stereotypes about lawyers aside, I don't think Bohjalian meant for it to be that way. I really can't figure out how the book managed to be both compelling and tedious at the same time. There were a couple of spots during the courtroom chapters where I was tempted to skim ahead to read the verdict, much like I would have done if reading about an actual trial in a newspaper. I am glad I didn't; the end (like seriously, the very end) of the book was so, so good. I actually gasped when I read the last page, and it's been replaying in my head over and over again ever since.

I do have to take issue with the people who keep comparing this book to To Kill a Mockingbird. (Interestingly enough, on his website, Chris Bohjalian lists Atticus Finch as his favorite fictional hero). Okay, Midwives does feature a courtroom drama, and the narrator is a young girl (I'm going to sound prudish here but whatever, she was WAY too mature for my taste. Or not mature, depending on how you classify premarital sex, underage drinking, and drug abuse), but that does not make it To Kill a Mockingbird. This book is good, but not that good.

One thing that I really liked about the novel was that I finished reading and still didn't know know how the author, Chris Bohjalian, felt about the home births vs. hospital births (in this interview, Bohjalian says that although his daughter was born in a hospital, he and his wife would not hesitate to have a child at home). I had a baby less than a year ago, so I've heard a lot from both sides about the debate, and one thing that is not lacking in the argument is fiery opinions from both sides. Before I began to read, I expected to encounter a lot of propaganda from one side or the other, but fortunately the book was free of that. ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ (6/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: Two words: emergency cesarean. There is some major home birth carnage going on here. Those of you with weak stomachs might want to steer clear of some of this.

Sex: besides the obvious (if there weren't any, Sybil Danforth would have been out of a job), there is some teenage experimentation and various parts of the female anatomy are discussed, but there isn't anything gratuitous.

Language: Mild