Midwives by Chris Bohjalian was an Oprah’s Book Club pick back in 1998, so it’s got to be good, right? Well, I haven’t read every book that Oprah has chosen for her club, but all the ones I have read so far have been good!
A caution: don’t read it while pregnant. It’s about a respected lay midwife in Vermont who finds herself in this nightmarish situation: she’s been called to a patient’s (or is it client’s?) house during a winter storm. The strom worsens and there’s absolutely no way to go for help when complications develop and the mother dies before delivering. Sybil, the midwife, knows that the baby is still alive and needs to be delivered in order to survive, so she decides to perform a c-section – without anesthetic, of course, because she has none and the mother is dead anyway. Or is she? What follows is the trial of Sybil Danforth, which looks into whether her client really was dead at the time, or if Sybil inadvertently killed her. Between the small town’s upheavel, the growing antagonism of the medical community toward lay midwives, and Sybil’s own shifting thoughts of what went on that icy night, this book will grip you – I couldn’t put it down – but now you see why you really shouldn’t read it if you’re pregnant!
October 23rd, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I’ve read this before. It was very good. I found her family’s role in the story very interesting.
October 24th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
This does sound good. But since you said I shouldn’t read it while pregnant, then I guess I’ll pass.