Ami McKay opens her website with quotes like "Arrange whatever pieces come your way" from Virginia Wolf. For that reason alone you should treat yourself with a visit to her blog/website/musings, so I wasn't at all surprised by the tone of the reviews of her first book.
Her highly acclaimed book The Birth House is a fictional account of a woman McKay really wanted to know more about - but couldn't find any real information. McKay and her partner had bought the house of the local midwife from 50 years previously. The woman, childless until she adopted her daughter, had opened this house to local women who needed a place to give birth, and it all spoken to Ami. She became enthralled with the history of the area and the subject. Ami's attempts to find out more about her muse revealed little, so she created this historical fiction story to breathe life back into a story that was waiting to be found.
The Quill and Quire biography of the author Ami McKay describes someone who could be your best friend. Just your everyday gal from Indiana, who moves to New Brunswick Canada. When she hears the voice of the long dead owner of the house, Ami sets out to research the lives and careers of midwives, and then recreates a life story of the woman in whose house she is living.
Illana Stranger Ross calls this book "midwitchery" - "A midwife's magic which once would have been called witchcraft."
Amazon readers seemed to find the book an easy read, recommended it, and were looking forward to her next books. They commented that the book did a good job of depicting small town New Brunswick life and revealing the trade of midwifery. Lots of readers had also read "The Midwives Tale" and felt The Birth House was easier to read, but still emotional. The biggest complaint was the lack of depth of the characters, but most said the novel was a good first book, and described the author as possessing lots of potential.
Interestingly, after reading several blogs about this novel, I am quite struck at the number of book blogs that seemed to have picked up Ami McKay and run with it. As opposed to many of the other books in this bookclub, where I found many "official" reviews (NY Times, etc.) this book seemed to really flourish outside the usual publishing networks and within the grassroots movement. Here is an example "Amelia's Passion" wrote about McKay's book:
With The Birth House, Ami McKay has invited us into a place where the tides of change are slowly rolling in, inevitably altering long-held traditions to new methods of living by those who felt that modern vs. traditional birthing methods would be better.Click here for Book Club potential questions - (provided by Ami McKay's website)
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1 comment:
I loved the slightly sweet story of women who were fighting to preserve their rights to choose their own method of medical care. As one friend said, "this was a really interesting take on the early insurance efforts." I agree. I also agree that it is very easy to appeal to people's need to be told what is the best thing for them - because most people don't have confidence with their own insight and reality. I had a lot of sympathy with those families that wanted to be signed up for the new medical procedures - we all do that when we are worried, but it's too bad we can't trust that there is wisdom in a lot of the old ways. Finding a safe compromise is possible.
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