Midwives

After The Lovely Bones I moved on to Midwives by Chris Bohjalian which was lent to me by Amy. This may actually be the first time that I’ve read an official Oprah’s Book Club selection. I’m not saying that there’s anything the matter with it, but it’s interesting to me. In any case, it was good, not great, but a solidly good and interesting novel.

Midwives is the story of Sibyl Danforth, a midwife who is charged with murder after one of her patients dies in childbirth. It’s told through the eyes of Connie, Sibyl’s now adult daughter, as she looks back at the trial and the events leading up to it and tries to make sense of what happened.

There’s not a tremendous amount to analyze about the story. Like I said it was interesting and solidly written. Whether Sibyl should be held responsible for Charlotte’s death is an interesting question, the evidence is put forth slowly throughout the book giving the reader time to decide. I didn’t and still don’t know a tremendous amount about midwifery and enjoyed getting a peek into the world of women who deliver children at home. I thought that all of the characters were well fleshed out, especially Connie, the bewildered teenager, first watching her family fall apart around her and later performing a very daring act to try and protect her mother.

Spoilers Follow

I can’t claim to be any kind of expert on the subject of childbirth, but it did seem to me that Sibyl’s actions were justified. Even though it does appear that Charlotte was likely still alive when the c-section was performed it seems that it came to a choice between saving the child and letting them both die. I felt that ultimately Sibyl was stuck in a series of very unfortunate circumstances.

I have to say I was truly surprised when Sibyl was acquitted, as I’m sure I was supposed to be considering all the buildup leading me towards the opposite conclusion. The device of having Sibyl’s journal entries scattered throughout the story worked very well and the very last one had the appropriate impact and shock value.

Before finishing this I checked an archive of Oprah’s book club selections and found that I’m wrong. To date I have read 4 other book club books: The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard, Gap Creek by Robert Morgan, As I Lay Dying by William Falkner, and White Oleander by Janet Fitch. Again, this is not to say that there is anything inherently wrong with Oprah’s book club, I just found it interesting.