Ami McKay's The Birth House proved a worthy opening act of my book club. Set in a seaside village in Nova Scotia in the early 1900s, McKay's novel centers on a young girl, Dora, mentored in the ways of midwifery by an eccentric old woman who has been delivering the island's children for decades. Modern medicine arrives in the form of a charming doctor promising clean, pain-free deliveries, and challenges the practices and beliefs on which Dora has been raised. As World War I unfolds across the globe, the women of the village struggle for the right to control their own bodies. A full summary can be found here.
I fell in love with this book because of its protagonist, Dora, the only daughter born into her family in something like five generations, who has just about every trouble possible thrown at her and still comes out on top, alive and kicking. Though wise and strong in her beliefs, I found myself loving Dora for her weaknesses as well, like how she longs for her own child so desperately that she puts up with, and even welcomes, the often violent advances of her good-for-nothing husband.
As a Vagina Monologues alumna, I appreciated the feminist themes of the novel, especially the inclusion of the "female hysteria" diagnosis of which 20th century physicians were so very fond of. Just by including details from this bizarre chapter in history, McKay at once brings to attention how this diagnosis was part of society's oppression of women, and makes light of how utterly, utterly ridiculous it was. Women with "hysteria" were treated with vibrators, for heaven's sake!! I was also very pleased that McKay consulted Rachel Maines' Technology of Orgasm, which is quoted in the "Outrageous Vagina Fact." Vag kudos, Ami!
I could go on, about the characters you can't help feeling passionate about (positively or negatively), the mysterious elements of midwifing that are well-researched and magically rendered, and the thoroughly modern ending, but you really ought to discover it for yourself.
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