The Birth House - Hardcover

McKay, Ami

4.03

43,957 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061135852 ISBN 13: 9780061135859

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 2006

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

An arresting portrait of the struggles that women faced for control of their own bodies, The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare--the first daughter in five generations of Rares.

As apprentice to the outspoken Acadian midwife Miss Babineau, Dora learns to assist the women of an isolated Nova Scotian village through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies, and unfulfilling sex lives. During the turbulent World War I era, uncertainty and upheaval accompany the arrival of a brash new medical doctor and his promises of progress and fast, painless childbirth. In a clash between tradition and science, Dora finds herself fighting to protect the rights of women as well as the wisdom that has been put into her care.

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Review:

"Fresh as a loaf of homemade bread just out of the oven, The Birth House, a tale of sex, birth, love and pain will more than satisfy the hungry reader."
-Joan Clark, author of An Audience of Chairs
"The moon over Nova Scotia must have extra magic in it to have fostered a writer of Ami McKay's lyrical sway and grace. She retrieves our social history and lays it out before us in a collage of vivid, compelling detail. In McKay's depiction of Dora Rare, an early twentieth century midwife, attention is paid to the day-to-day moments of love and tending that enable humans to endure. And we the readers get to witness the emergence of a powerful new voice in Canadian writing."
-Marjorie Anderson, co-editor of Dropped Threads I and II
"Ami McKay is a marvellous storyteller who writes with a haunting and evocative voice. The novel offers a world of mystery and wisdom, a world where tradition collides with science, where life and death meet under the moon. With a startling sense of time and place The Birth House travels through a landscape that is at once deeply tender and exquisitely harsh. McKay is possessed with a brilliant narrative gift."
-Christy Ann Conlin, author of Heave
"Reading Ami McKay's first novel is like rummaging through a sea-chest found in a Nova Scotian attic. Steeped in lore and landscape, peppered with journal entries, newspaper clippings and advertisements, this marvellous 'literary scrapbook' captures the harsh realities of the seacoast community of Scots Bay, Nova Scotia during WWI. With meticulous detail and visceral description, McKay weaves a compelling story of a woman who fights to preserve the art of midwifery, reminding us of the need, inchanging times, for acts of bravery, kindness, and clear-sightedness."
-Beth Powning, author of The Hatbox Letters

"From the Hardcover edition."

"The Birth House is a poignant, compassionate, bittersweet and nostalgic look at early 20th-century Nova Scotia.... Reading McKay's novel is like dipping into a saner, more intimate, past; a past that's long gone.... McKay is not only a new author to note, but one to look forward to with anticipation."
-"National Post"
"From the beginning of Ami McKay's debut novel, The Birth House, we know we're in for a bit of magic.... The Birth House is compelling and lively, beautifully conjuring a close-knit community and reminding us, as Dora notes, that the miracle happens not in birth but in the love that follows."
-"The Globe and Mail"
"The Birth House is filled with charming detail.... McKay has a quiet and lyrical style that suits her subject.... �It is� a story of individual human tenderness and endurance.... McKay is clearly a talented writer with a subtle sense of story, one that readers will look forward to hearing from, again and again."
-The Gazette (Montreal)
"She's dug deep into Maritime history to tell a story that rips right along.... You can tell that McKay's got the goods."
-NOW (Toronto)
"The Birth House is bound to be one of the most read novels of 2006.... Authentic, gripping and totally compassionate ... The Birth House will be there next fall when they hand out the literary nominations."
-The Sun Times (Owen Sound)
"An altogether remarkable work from an impressive new talent."
-Ottawa Citizen"
An astonishing debut, a book that will break your heart and take your breath away."
-Ottawa Citizen
"Fresh as a loaf of homemade bread just out of the oven, The Birth House, a tale of sex, birth, love and pain will more thansatisfy the hungry reader."
-Joan Clark, author of An Audience of Chairs
"The moon over Nova Scotia must have extra magic in it to have fostered a writer of Ami McKay's lyrical sway and grace. She retrieves our social history and lays it out before us in a collage of vivid, compelling detail. In McKay's depiction of Dora Rare, an early twentieth century midwife, attention is paid to the day-to-day moments of love and tending that enable humans to endure. And we the readers get to witness the emergence of a powerful new voice in Canadian writing."
-Marjorie Anderson, co-editor of Dropped Threads I and II
"Ami McKay is a marvellous storyteller who writes with a haunting and evocative voice. The novel offers a world of mystery and wisdom, a world where tradition collides with science, where life and death meet under the moon. With a startling sense of time and place The Birth House travels through a landscape that is at once deeply tender and exquisitely harsh. McKay is possessed with a brilliant narrative gift."
-Christy Ann Conlin, author of Heave
"Reading Ami McKay's first novel is like rummaging through a sea-chest found in a Nova Scotian attic. Steeped in lore and landscape, peppered with journal entries, newspaper clippings and advertisements, this marvellous 'literary scrapbook' captures the harsh realities of the seacoast community of Scots Bay, Nova Scotia during WWI. With meticulous detail and visceral description, McKay weaves a compelling story of a woman who fights to preserve the art of midwifery, reminding us of the need, in changing times, for acts of bravery, kindness, and clear-sightedness."
-Beth Powning, author of The Hatbox Letters

[It] will educate and thoroughly charm you with its honesty and brilliant prose.--The State (Columbia, SC)

From the Author:

An Interview with Ami McKay, author of The Birth House

Q: How did you become a writer?

A: It all started with a 'Thank-You' note. All through high school, university, and grad school I wrote in secret, keeping all of my thoughts, ideas, short stories and poetry in notebooks under by bed. My New Year's resolution for the year 2000 (after much prodding from my partner) was to start putting my writing out into the world. So, I declared 2000 to be 'the year of sending thank-you notes to people I didn't know.' My first letter led to a guest appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show (and that was just January!) After that whirlwind experience, I kept writing, freelance documentaries for CBC radio, a short story here and there, and eventually my first novel. I still commit random acts of writing thank-you notes from time to time...just to keep the karma flowing.

Q:How did the idea for your book originate?

A: The inspiration for The Birth House came from the place where I live. When my partner and I moved to from Chicago to Nova Scotia we bought an old farmhouse on the Bay of Fundy. While exploring an unfinished room over the kitchen, I discovered the walls had been sealed with seaweed and horsehair plaster and then covered with newspapers. Each layer of paper dated back to a different era. Advertisements for 1930’s appliances were pasted over pictures of the Hupmobile Coupe...cars and washing machines gave way to testimonials for Lydia Pinkhams female toners and home remedies.

We moved to Scots Bay, NS in 2000 (it was a big year for me). By the following spring I was pregnant with my second child. As word spread through the community of my 'condition', my neighbours began telling me tales about the history of my home, which was once a midwife’s house. I was captivated by their stories. Not only had the midwife traveled to other homes in Scots Bay, but she eventually opened her home to the women in the community as a birth house. My neighbour encouraged me to visit a woman who had grown up in my house, the daughter of the midwife. Nearly 90, and living in a nursing home, her mind and words were clear, her eyes bright. While I sat with her, she explained that her biological mother had died three days after her birth and that the midwife had adopted her (when no family could be found to take her in). She spoke of her mother’s calling as a midwife, how she cared for the women, keeping them at the house for a week or more after a birth. She then began to recite the names of all the women who had given birth in the house as well as the names of their children. I was so inspired by her stories that I decided to have a midwife assisted home birth. My son was born at home in the middle of a March snowstorm, another child in the long lineage of babies born in my house. Not long after his birth, I began to make the first scribblings towards what would become The Birth House.

Q What makes this book relevant today?

During the early decades of the 20th century, while the world was at war and women were still struggling for the vote and greater equality in society, the medical establishment set out to eliminate midwifery. Doctors of obstetrics called for precision, speed, and control in childbirth and wasted no time in declaring midwifery 'outdated and dangerous'. Pregnancy became a 'medical condition' rather than a natural state of being.

In the last few years there has been a rebirth of midwifery around the world. Community birth centres (birth houses) are popular in Europe as well as in Quebec. While decision makers are looking for ways to help our overburdened healthcare system, midwives are providing welcome assistance to mothers and their children. Feminists such as Naomi Wolf and Dr. Christiane Northrup have been encouraging women to take back control of their rights and choices in childbirth, and to find a balance between modern medicine and traditional birthing methods.

Who or what inspires you? Is your book modeled on anyone in particular?

When setting out to write The Birth House, I knew that I wanted to bring women's history from the WWI era (specifically the history of midwifery, women's health, and reproductive rights) into a fictional narrative that might reflect the way that women record their own personal histories. I created a 'literary scrapbook' from fictional journal entries, newspaper articles, folk tales, home remedies, letters, etc. These elements of the novel were all based on historical research - research that led me to find many commonalities with the lives of women in the 21st century. (It seems women are now, perhaps more than ever before, trying to find their way to understanding their bodies in all aspects of their lives - from their sexuality to childbirth.) Although I didn't set out to model the novel after any specific writer or work, I did find inspiration in the works of many writers - from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice to Carol Shield's The Stone Diaries. From Ann Marie Macdonald's Fall on Your Knees to the feminist writings of Margaret Sanger and Emma Goldman. As far as contemporary authors with similar novels that explore women's lives and the importance of women's rituals and friendship, Joanne Harris' Chocolat, Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees and Rebecca Wells' Ya Ya Sisters novels come to mind.

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