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(664 reviews)
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ISBN : B000TD168S
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The time is 1981, and Sibyl Danforth has been a dedicated midwife in the rural community of Reddington, Vermont, for 15 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 14-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.
Books with free ebook downloads available Epub Midwives
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 4 hours and 39 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Abridged
- Publisher: Random House Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: June 18, 2007
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000TD168S
Epub Midwives
Midwives is a wonderfully written and powerfully told story of a family's life in small-town Vermont and the events that changed it forever. Gripping and real, Chris Bohjalian has woven together a murder mystery that will have readers guessing until the very end.
Sybil Danforth, midwife and mother of the story's narrator, 14-year-old Connie, has a thriving practice and normal family life. Then the unthinkable happens: on a cold winter night in the middle of coaching Charlotte Bedford through her lengthy and strenuous labor, tragedy strikes -- Charlotte dies while trying to give birth to her son. With phone lines heaving with ice and roads too treacherous to drive upon, Sybil is forced into a decision -- to save the unborn baby via a homemade Caeserean or let him die along with his mother.
As the events of that evening unfold, readers are privy to shocking information: the Caesarean Sybil is forced to perform may have been done on a living woman. Soon a courtroom battle ensues, pitting the medical community against midwifery, and readers will be left wondering after each page is turned what really happened on that cold, dark night.
Chris Bohjalian is a very talented writer who has obviously spent a lot of research on this novel. Telling this story in a female voice as accurately as he did makes Midwives all the more compelling and authentic. His writing style was very easy to understand even though it jumps back and forth between past and present. A hearty mystery with a riveting conclusion. I will be reading more by this author.
This is a book I couldn't put down. It is amazing how Mr. Bohjalian was able to put into writing the feelings of women during childbirth. Certainly it is difficult enough to express those feelings, but to do so as a man shows an incredible amount of compassion and understanding. A lesson to us all, I'm sure. This is a tightly written novel concerning a normally safe home birth gone terribly wrong, and how it affects the lives of all those involved. It twists and turns and leads the reader to wrong assumptions over and over again. At the same time it manages to bring forth the mystery and wonder of life, and especially the moment of birth. The novel is written from the point of view of the Midwife's daughter, who is, at the time of the writing, a doctor, specifically an OB/GYN. Armed with first hand knowledge as well as her mother's copious notes, Constance spins the story of her mother's passion for midwifery, devotion to her trade, and tragic loss of that love after the death of one of her mothers. The trial scenes are wonderfully exciting and maddening at the same time. But more important is the story of love and support in the Danforth family, though not without it's stress and misunderstandings. And Constance tells her own story of growing up and through the tragedy of the public trial, her mother's too close relationship with her lawyer, and her father's struggle to understand and support his wife. All in all, a wonderful book that surprised me a great deal. Thanks to my wife and our book club for getting me to read it.
By Dave Kinnear
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