| Midwives (Oprah's Book Club) | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 542 reviews)
Sales Rank: 40908
Category: Book
Author: Chris Bohjalian
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Label: Vintage
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st Vintage Contemporaries Ed
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 374
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0375706771
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780375706776
ASIN: 0375706771
Publication Date: November 8, 1998
Release Date: November 8, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
"Superbly crafted and astonishingly powerful. . . . It will thrill readers who cherish their worn copies of To Kill A Mockingbird." --People
With a suspense, lyricism, and moral complexity that recall To Kill a Mockingbird and Presumed Innocent, this compulsively readable novel explores what happens when a woman who has devoted herself to ushering life into the world finds herself charged with responsibility in a patient's tragic death.
The time is 1981, and Sibyl Danforth has been a dedicated midwife in the rural community of Reddington, Vermont, for fifteen years. But one treacherous winter night, in a house isolated by icy roads and failed telephone lines, Sibyl takes desperate measures to save a baby's life. She performs an emergency Caesarean section on its mother, who appears to have died in labor. But what if--as Sibyl's assistant later charges--the patient wasn't already dead, and it was Sibyl who inadvertently killed her?
As recounted by Sibyl's precocious fourteen-year-old daughter, Connie, the ensuing trial bears the earmarks of a witch hunt except for the fact that all its participants are acting from the highest motives--and the defendant increasingly appears to be guilty. As Sibyl Danforth faces the antagonism of the law, the hostility of traditional doctors, and the accusations of her own conscience, Midwives engages, moves, and transfixes us as only the very best novels ever do.
Amazon.com Review
Oprah Book Club Selection, October 1998: On a violent, stormy winter night, a home birth goes disastrously wrong. The phone lines are down, the roads slick with ice. The midwife, unable to get her patient to a hospital, works frantically to save both mother and child while her inexperienced assistant and the woman's terrified husband look on. The mother dies but the baby is saved thanks to an emergency C-section. And then the nightmare begins: the assistant suggests that maybe the woman wasn't really dead when the midwife operated: Did she perform at least eight or nine cycles as my mother said, or four or five as Asa recalled? That is the sort of detail that was disputable. But at some point within minutes of what my mother believed had been a stroke, after my mother concluded the cardiopulmonary resuscitation had failed to generate a pulse or a breath, she screamed for Asa and Anne to find her the sharpest knife in the house. In Midwives, Chris Bohjalian chronicles the events leading up to the trial of Sibyl Danforth, a respected midwife in the small Vermont town of Reddington, on charges of manslaughter. It quickly becomes evident, however, that Sibyl is not the only one on trial--the prosecuting attorney and the state's medical community are all anxious to use this tragedy as ammunition against midwifery in general; this particular midwife, after all, an ex-hippie who still evokes the best of the flower-power generation, is something of an anachronism in 1981. Through it all, Sibyl, her husband, Rand, and their teenage daughter, Connie, attempt to keep their family intact, but the stress of the trial--and Sibyl's growing closeness to her lawyer--puts pressure on both marriage and family. Bohjalian takes readers through the intricacies of childbirth and the law, and by the end of Sibyl Danforth's trial, it's difficult to decide which was more harrowing--the tragic delivery or its legal aftermath. Narrated by a now adult Connie, Midwives moves back and forth in time, fitting vital pieces of information about what happened that night like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle into its complicated plot. As Connie looks back on her mother's trial, she is still trying to understand what happened--not on the night of the disaster--but in the months and years that followed. --Margaret Prior
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| Customer Reviews: Read 537 more reviews...
 Yawn and yawn again! October 29, 2008
The first Bohjalian book I read was "Double Bind" and both my husband and other family members thoroughly enjoyed it. It held our interest from page one and maintained a keen level of suspense with a truly WOW ending. So when I was lent "Midwives" I thought it might be an interesting story and probably a quick read considering its size. WRONG! This book reminded me of all those women who must tell you every detail of their deliveries whether you care to know or not. I had no trouble envisioning all those weepy-eyed souls who groove on this smaltz. Don't waste your time on this book but DO make the effort to read "Double Bind" which is Chris Bohjalian's redeeming novel.
gripping September 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Once you get past the first 65 pages with i found boring as hell, too descriptive, and seems to get of track by describing every miniscule thing, i didnt know if i could go on any longer, but at page 66 it all changes and gets good from then on i couldnt put it down.
 Entrancing! May 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Surprised by how much I enjoyed this book...couldn't put it down. Very suspenseful, enlightening, thought-provoking...VERY well-written.
Classic May 19, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
It gives great insight into what can happen to an average person with the POWERS that be! No more should be said before it is read.
EXQUISITELY WRITTEN...A NOVEL TO REMEMBER... March 31, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This beautifully crafted novel is set in 1981 when a midwife, leading an otherwise uncomplicated and simple life with her husband and daughter in rural Vermont, is thrust into a legal, moral, political, and ethical nightmare. It evolves around a split second decision made in a life and death situation and the aftermath of that decision.
An experienced and respected midwife, Sibyl Danforth, attends a woman during a home birth. When she realizes that dangerous complications have set in, she tries to call for help in vain, as a severe ice storm has knocked out the phone lines. An attempt to drive the expectant mother to a hospital only results in the car being wedged into an icy snow bank, as travel conditions were impossible.
Trapped in this isolated home with a physically fragile, expectant mother in the throes of a labor that will not bear fruit, Sybil struggles to do the best that she can. Unfortunately, her best is just not good enough, given the complications that had set in, and the expectant mother appears to succumb to the ravages of a laborious childbirth.
Under the belief that the expectant mother had died, Sibyl performs an emergency caesarean section in an effort to save the unborn child. She successfully does so, presenting the stricken husband with an infant son. Yet, the next day, her assistant, Anne, who had been present throughout the ordeal, denounces Sibyl to the authorities, claiming that the expectant mother had, in fact, been alive, when Sibyl had commenced the caesarean. Consequently, Sibyl is charged with manslaughter, and the political winds blown by the traditional medical establishment, as well as that of the legal system, threaten to tear asunder all that she holds dear.
The story of this event, its aftermath, and the impact it had on many lives, is told through the eyes of Sibyl's daughter who had been a young teenager at the time of the incident, and through the pages of Sibyl's journal. The book takes the reader through a number of moral dilemmas for Sibyl, as well as for her daughter who is forced to come of age during this time of trial and tribulation for her family. Absorbing and often surprising, this sensitively wrought novel is a well nuanced literary gem from a gifted writer.
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