Reading it. Late to the Party, obviously- it came out in 1997. But, oh, wow, so good.

It's set in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. The main character drives a station wagon. She is a hippie. A big part of the book is in the daughter's voice. There are lists of other midwives. The names, ahhh, imagine a big, deep satisfied sigh- feminine names, female names, women's names, whole lists of competent women.

barter, trade, wool socks, snow, gardens, eating food from the garden, high school boyfriends, lawyers as a whole "nother world, but an accurate description of that world, sigh, breath in, sigh.

ari

How far into it are you? I don't want to talk about it too much if you're just starting. LOL.

I borrowed that one from someone I used to babysit for (pre-kids). Loved it. I should read it again.

Great book. I may need to pick it up and read it again.

Let us know what you think when you get to the end.

Well, I finished it. I hope someone else picked it up and read it. I know that when I go to the library with small children-well, every time I go to the library- that facing a wall of book spines is daunting- which one is good? which one is a waste of my time? Which one might be good later? Which one is the best thing going on right now?

And, also, where is my life reflected? Or, where is an imagined life reflected? It's harder finding these, since I'm not really in the book reviewer demographic- I'm not in my twenties, nor do I live in New York, and I am not particularly interested in being a death eater- devouring crime and frustration and despair. Nor do I need a motivational poster between hardcovers. But a well- written, powerful statement of life--motherhood, relationships, *not* exotically high- career achieving ( I am thinking of consumption porn, or say, LInda Fairstein style thrillers) Or treacly, washed kitsch- that is so much harder to find. Oh, and not particularly boomer- ish, finding virtue in the 60's, and only decadence and despair in the 70s. I wasn't around for the 60s. It was actually exciting reading 'the lovely bones' just for the dignity of prose lavished on the regular seventies.

Anyway, I loved the book for everything listed above. It had very human twists and turns. It was recognizable. It was very good up to the last sentence. That was a parlor trick. And that parlor trick explains, very likely, why the book might have made a splash way back when, but is not essential. The author was willing to not put one of the major moral struggles into the story. He's got good ingredients that he can't taste, in a sense. He has a classic gothic elements- screams, fears, closed doors, a chlorotic female far from home and in miasmic danger, childbirth. Fay Weldon makes the case that homebirth is a genesis of gothic/horror fiction in Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen. He faithfully puts in all the elements, and has them bump up against current, physical, concrete reality- a cold winter in Vermont, which makes for a dense, textured story. But then, he just has the possible villain fainting and declaring innocence. He could use Wilkie Collins as a model- a villain who continues, rather than is annihilated, or brought to justice. I don't know what that book would look like. I trust that this guy is a good enough artist that it would still be a powerful, good book. Better, somehow, thatn this one, though.

Like, it is set up so that the mother chooses to not midwife b/c she lost a case, not, necessarily that she is aware that her judgment faltered in a state of exhaustion and grief. The possibility that she did, indeed, do the right thing- well, so the mother came back for a minute- are you sure? It is not explored. What if she did come back- there is still a baby in fetal distress, a weak, thready pulse, and no ambulance. We don't know that she might have gone to the hospital, and died on the table. That discussion is completely precluded.

The "jury of your peers"- that concept was not developed around scientific fact. So I've been told by a poli sci prof. The jury of peers got together and decided if you were the sort of person who might do something- are you a good person or not? If you were of good and reliable character, you were considered innocent. Otherwise, you were probably guilty. This book hinges on the tension between these two notions of guilt and innocence. Namely, character--wise, her advising physician says she is of good, reliable character. Others do not.

Please tell me I am not ranting off on tangents.

ari

I enjoyed the book at first, then it really started to piss me off, to be honest. Of course the final moral of the story is that midwives are dangerous and uneducated and the daughter becomes an OB instead. The ending bothered me, if you can't tell. LOL.

Kerri

I really enjoyed the book. I don't recommend reading it if you're pregnant though. (I did & I was a little freaked out by the end.)