It's Not All About Babies. (The Midwife's Tale - Gretchen Moran Laskas)

Member Name: wendybull

Product:	The Midwife's Tale - Gretchen Moran Laskas
Date:	31/07/07 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A love story with a sense of realism

Disadvantages: None

This had been in my pile of books to read for a while and something about it kept making me put it off. I think it was the thought that it is set in the early 1900’s that made me dismiss it as my next read so often, but I eventually needed a change in direction in my genre and picked this up.

Elizabeth Whitely had been born to a long line of midwives and everyone expected her to be no different from her mother and grand-mother before. Elizabeth settled into the lifestyle well if somewhat reluctantly, and helped her mother deliver the women’s babies around Denniker’s Mountain in West Virginia. She learned the vocation well and her granny taught her the family knowledge of herbals to relieve pain and a lot more besides. As she grew older and more involved in the birthings she gained knowledge of all the writings her mother would enter into the volumes of black ledgers lining their cabinet, the names and dates of all the births that had occurred through the generations of her family. She would happily read them until one night her mother came home from a birth and Elizabeth witnessed her entering details into a red ledger. A ledger she had not seen before and knew nothing of its contents.

The truth she was told about the contents turned her from her mother and her family’s way of life and up into the mountains to stay with the wife of the one man she had loved her whole life, Alvin Denniker.


I have to say I have never read a book that was not set in a time frame I have been familiar with. Everything I have read before has been set in the 70’s upwards so to read of life in the early 1900’s, especially one which is filled with tales of midwifery and the way families had to live back then was a real eye opener. I was enthralled from the start as I do have an interest in midwives as a general occupation and so found the detailed descriptions of hard labours and difficult births, as well as the number of children some of these families had very appealing to read about. The content of the red book was horrific though and I can only guess these things really happened back then. I don’t want to reveal the substance in case it spoils the story for you.

I surprised myself with the way in which I was drawn into the story, of Elizabeth’s attitude at times and her mother’s weary yet wise way with words and actions. The love between mother and daughter is written about so cleverly, that although you don’t read them telling each other the words all the time, the very actions and thoughts are obvious in their ways. I loved interpreting this for myself and felt extreme sympathy for them at times as it was not an easy life for anyone on the mountain.

Her relationship with Ivy and Alvin Denniker, the couple she stayed with after leaving her mother’s cabin, is remarkable as well. She had grown up falling slowly in love with Alvin, keeping her feelings secret, as only a teenage girl can do, then finding he had returned from his travels with a new young wife, Ivy, her heart was almost broken. She hated Ivy with a passion for she had everything Elizabeth wanted in her life, but despite her hatred she found she liked Ivy when they got to know each other starting with the delivery of her daughter, Lauren. This relationship made me feel content that Elizabeth would begin to mend her life and find something solid to go forward with and even though I had read the back of the book and knew it could not last long I was still desperately disappointed when their friendship ended before it’s time.

The Midwife’s Tale is a short book, at only 239 pages, but one that was read neatly in a few days and thoroughly enjoyed. There wasn’t anything specific that stays in my mind as a best bit, but rather it was a continuation of well thought out and interesting story developments. There were turns in the book that were completely unexpected and surprised me in a good way and other plot turns that I had seen coming and welcomed. I could imagine this as an old film on the TV, where story lines were never really too in your face but instead dealt with issues like love and growing up and that for me is probably the essence of this book. It’s a love story from a teenager’s point of view through to her thirties and we get to read about her life and loves, thoughts and experiences along with her and her family. While it may not be outstanding in the plot it is certainly an enjoyable and engrossing book and one that I am glad finally made it to my “next to be read” pile.

Summary: RECOMMENDED