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Product Description
Amazon.ca
Dora Rare is the first girl in five generations born to the Rare family who live in a small Nova Scotia fishing village. Set in the years before World War I, this down-to-earth novel relates the life story of a most unusual woman. In her youth, Dora apprentices to Miss Babineau, an aged Acadian midwife known for her storytelling and herbal acumen. She is also considered something of a witch by those locals most desperate to embrace modernity. The arrival in the village of Dr. Gilbert Thomas, a doctor of obstetrics, sets up the major conflict of the novel as the haughty and presumptuous newcomer quickly denigrates the use of midwives by the local women. McKay has caught the voice of rural Nova Scotia with uncanny clarity ("A breech baby’s just waitin' on trouble") and adds period documents from local newspapers, including an advertisement for an early vibrator from Sweden. Altogether this is a richly satisfying novel filled with intriguing characters, both good and evil, as well as voluminous lore on birthing traditions, herbs and earthy wisdom. --Mark Frutkin
Books in Canada
Poetic, lyrical, tough. That’s The Birth House, Ami McKay’s intimate portrait of life in early 20th century Scots Bay, Nova Scotia. Young Dora Rare, a girl with witchy associations (she was born with a caul) is chosen to apprentice with Marie Babineau, the local Acadian midwife. “Miss B.” as she’s called, has returned from Louisiana to devote herself, her herbal knowledge, and her Catholic beliefs to the “catching” or birthing of babies. If need be, she can also end a pregnancy. The stage is set for conflict with the arrival of Dr. Thomas, who sells insurance the locals can barely afford, while guaranteeing painless deliveries in his shiny new clinic in town. “Science don’t know . . . kindness from cabbage,” declares old Miss B. and creepy, barely competent Dr. T proves her point.
McKay’s book sometimes reads like a paean to the wonders of folk wisdom and womanhood: there is much herein about blood, moons, potions, teacup readings and the Virgin Mary. The characters that oppose Dora and Miss B-like snobbish Aunt Fran and the up-to-date doctor, not to mention low-life Brady Ketch-are revealed as hypocrites, and the mountain community womenfolk, though fun and likeable, can seem Brigadoon-like. But McKay, a shrewd and gifted writer, refuses to romance the past beyond recognition. Dora marries a well-to-do brute, because as a girl of limited means her choices are few. McKay further lards her narrative with news reports and ads for medical ‘advances’: “Twilight Sleep” was indeed the drug used to create painless, passive labours; a rather more interesting stress-reliever was the “White Cross Battery Powered Vibrator” that Dora orders through the mail. Who knew?
Details about the Great War, the Halifax Explosion, Dora’s escape to urban Boston, and the Spanish Flu further anchor the narrative. And among life’s enduring mysteries, as Dora wonderingly observes, is that some couples, like her own parents, enjoy a mutually loving relationship all their married lives: no herbal remedies necessary.
Nancy Wigston (Books in Canada)
McKay’s book sometimes reads like a paean to the wonders of folk wisdom and womanhood: there is much herein about blood, moons, potions, teacup readings and the Virgin Mary. The characters that oppose Dora and Miss B-like snobbish Aunt Fran and the up-to-date doctor, not to mention low-life Brady Ketch-are revealed as hypocrites, and the mountain community womenfolk, though fun and likeable, can seem Brigadoon-like. But McKay, a shrewd and gifted writer, refuses to romance the past beyond recognition. Dora marries a well-to-do brute, because as a girl of limited means her choices are few. McKay further lards her narrative with news reports and ads for medical ‘advances’: “Twilight Sleep” was indeed the drug used to create painless, passive labours; a rather more interesting stress-reliever was the “White Cross Battery Powered Vibrator” that Dora orders through the mail. Who knew?
Details about the Great War, the Halifax Explosion, Dora’s escape to urban Boston, and the Spanish Flu further anchor the narrative. And among life’s enduring mysteries, as Dora wonderingly observes, is that some couples, like her own parents, enjoy a mutually loving relationship all their married lives: no herbal remedies necessary.
Nancy Wigston (Books in Canada)
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