Published 1997 / Length 310 pages
One freezing winter night in 1981, a home birth goes badly wrong, and hippie Vermont midwife Sibyl Danforth is accused of killing her patient. As the legal system grinds into action, Sibyl is forced to contemplate a life without her calling, her family and her freedom. Yet this isn’t Sibyl’s story alone, although her diary entries are interspersed throughout. Midwives is narrated by her daughter, the watchful and ever curious Connie, who looks back on the life-changing events that happened when she was fourteen. Partly a tense courtroom drama, partly an introspective coming-of-age tale about the loss of innocence, Midwives is a compelling read, expertly woven with a strong sense of foreboding. The novel builds to an excruciating climax, and has enough power left to deliver a killer blow on the final page.
‘As with the Woodward affair [see BACKGROUND INFORMATION], several stories march hand in hand alongside the central question – did she or did she not kill? – which are stirred up into a nicely poisonous stew in order to flesh out a background of small-town politics and vested interests. They include a traditional north–south hostility, religious fundamentalism and the big battle between the medical orthodoxy which favours high-tech births in hospital and the smocked, peasant-frocked midwives who defend a woman’s right to have her baby in her own home.’ – The Times
• Is Connie a biased narrator? How would the book differ if Asa or Foogie narrated it?
• What is the effect of including Sibyl’s diary entries, particularly the last entry in the book?
• Stephen always dresses ‘one click above’. How important are external appearances in the book? Do you think Bohjalian exaggerates this for dramatic effect, or is it true to life?
• ‘Lawyers have a language as cold as doctors.’ Is it ultimately language that wins or loses this case?
• Is justice served? Does Connie do the right thing?
• The same year the book was published, the world was transfixed by the case of Louise Woodward, the British au pair accused of killing her eight-month-old charge in America, to which The Times compares the storyline of this book (the two are not directly linked).
• Midwives was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 1998.
• Perfect Match by JODI PICOULT – a book that is also centred on a fraught courtroom drama and a morally ambiguous death, and explores the impact that legal cases have on family life. Bohjalian is one of Picoult’s favourite authors.
• Atonement by IAN MCEWAN (see here) – this novel features another child voyeur compelled to involve herself in adult machinations.
• To Kill a Mockingbird by HARPER LEE (see here) – legal complexities seen from the viewpoint of a child.