A recommendation from Vidhya, from her book club!
First off, I definitely thought this was a book that was going to hop between 1789 and 1989 or something like that, so kept waiting for the flash forward? It does not, in case you also have this mistaken allusion.
This is however a great work of inspired historical fiction based off the life of a truly astounding midwife in the 1700s who delivered over 1,000 babies and never lost a mother. Possibly because she is forever washing her hands in lye. And because doctors of the era weren’t really going off of science yet.
However, this is also a book with REAL content warnings, because it’s also about the horrible ways in which men treat women and how powerless they’ve been (and continue to be) to fight back. Our main character, Martha Ballard, is both the local midwife and the medical practitioner of record, and as the novel starts a dead body has showed up frozen in the river. The issue is that said dead body is a man that Martha testified against as having viciously raped a townswoman, based on ministering to the woman’s injuries.
This book reminded me a LOT of The Witch of Blackbird Pond, perhaps only because it takes place in that colonial Revolutionary-War-esque time and focuses on the lives of woman as they go about their days. Except, of course, this is more of a murder mystery whodunit, except we know who did it, he’s a monster, and we need to figure out a way to make sure he pays SOMEHOW for his crimes, even if the likelihood that he will is really low.
I did love throughout how Martha’s relationship with her family grounds her and supports her at the same time. She had nine children, six living, and yet has a thriving career as a town midwife. It’s no trick that it’s due to her husband being supportive of her endeavors, which you might cry anachronism except that it’s based on a real person! Nice to see what is possible when two people really do love one another and try to make each other the best versions of themselves.
Fun fact: Martha Ballard’s grand-niece was Clara Barton, so the medical kickassery genes clearly ran strong with the family.