Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Birth House
    Unavailable
    The Birth House
    Unavailable
    The Birth House
    Ebook428 pages6 hours

    The Birth House

    By Ami McKay

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateAug 30, 2012
    ISBN9780007391486
    Unavailable
    The Birth House
    Author

    Ami McKay

    Ami McKay is the author of the number–one Canadian bestseller The Birth House, winner of three Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Awards, and a nominee for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and The Virgin Cure. Originally from Indiana, she now lives with her husband and two sons in Nova Scotia.

    Read more from Ami Mc Kay

    Related to The Birth House

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      As the World Collapses

      Jul 27, 2017

      As the World Collapses
      7 min read

    • Article

      River Of A Mother’s Love

      Apr 18, 2023

      River Of A Mother’s Love
      7 min read

    • Article

      Back To Basics

      Jan 5, 2022

      Back To Basics
      4 min read

    • Article

      Cedar River Homecoming

      May 12, 2022

      Cedar River Homecoming
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Washington Island Boyhood

      Mar 7, 2023

      A Washington Island Boyhood
      8 min read

    • Article

      Moon Lake Memories

      Mar 14, 2019

      Moon Lake Memories
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Littlest Wren

      May 31, 2018

      The Littlest Wren
      14 min read

    • Article

      Gutbucket

      Feb 27, 2024

      Gutbucket
      18 min read

    • Article

      BOOK EXCERPT Tending the Valley

      Nov 19, 2020

      BOOK EXCERPT Tending the Valley
      8 min read

    • Article

      Speak, Water

      Apr 1, 2021

      Speak, Water
      7 min read

    • Article

      He Who Fishes

      Feb 6, 2023

      He Who Fishes
      15 min read

    • Article

      Woodland

      Mar 4, 2019

      Woodland
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Daintree

      Jul 9, 2021

      The Daintree
      6 min read

    • Article

      Forever Wild

      Oct 1, 2018

      When I think of the Scarborough house, I remember the wind whipping through my salt-hardened curls and my little-girl feet bare and crusted with sand as I run through its heavy wooden doors. I was four and wild as the landscape itself. My grandparent

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Story Pilgrimage

      Jun 8, 2021

      A Story Pilgrimage
      3 min read

    • Article

      Finding Home

      Jul 5, 2022

      Finding Home
      4 min read

    • Article

      Close To Home

      Apr 24, 2020

      Close To Home
      6 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Early such darkness, these oncoming nights& sure, I’m dull & even slow to concedehow mornings make equal, swerving measuresthere between those foremost shadowsalong the fence, amid the chickens & nerve,sheep & their indifference to any pair of foolsh

      3 min read

    • Article

      White Silence

      Dec 22, 2020

      White Silence
      5 min read

    • Article

      My Dinner with Denis Johnson

      Jun 25, 2018

      My Dinner with Denis Johnson
      13 min read

    • Article

      Where I Learned to Weave

      Dec 26, 2017

      Where I Learned to Weave
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Silent One

      Mar 1, 2023

      In the spring of the year 960, on the twenty-third day of the third month, a brilliant light shone in the northwest, and a baby girl was born to a fisherman’s family in Fujian Province. The girl was such a quiet, watchful child, her parents called he

      4 min read

    • Article

      The Silent One

      Mar 1, 2023

      In the spring of the year 960, on the twenty-third day of the third month, a brilliant light shone in the northwest, and a baby girl was born to a fisherman’s family in Fujian Province. The girl was such a quiet, watchful child, her parents called he

      4 min read

    Reviews for The Birth House

    4/5

    668 ratings65 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      The first girl child born in five generations of Rare male children, Dora Rare is viewed with some caution by the locals in her small Nova Scotia town. In her isolation, she is drawn to and becomes apprentice to the eccentric Miss B, the local midwife. WWI is changing everything and Dr. Thomas arrives in the area determined to move the community into the next phase of medical practice. He charges that midwifery is out of date and offers painless childbirth through the administration of new medicines. The women of the community begin to question the age-old practices of Miss B and transfer this skepticism to Dora when she takes over the practice after Miss B's death. Dora, however, carries the spirit and wisdom of Miss B within her; her care and compassion fuel her determination to protect women's ownership of the birthing process and all that surrounds it, including acceptance of its pain and risk. This is a compelling story written in deceptively straightforward prose. The characters are richly developed, the plot engaging, the setting palpable. Definitely a worthwhile read.
    • 5/5
      Phenomenal from the first page to the last. After giving birth for the first time this past year, it was fascinating to read about midwifery at the time when the medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth was happening.
    • 3/5
      3.25 starsIt is 1917 in small town Nova Scotia. Dora is 17 and learning from the local midwife. A doctor arrives in town and declares that a hospital is being built for local women to get modern medical care. This book varied for me. Some parts were more interesting than others. The entire first half was o.k., but not all that exciting for me. I found it more interesting after Dora got married, but the part where she was in Boston, I found boring. There was an interesting backdrop including WWI, the Halifax Explosion in 1917, the flu in 1918, and women's suffrage, but all this was mostly in the background and only for a short time. The medical stuff was interesting, to see what was "modern" at the time vs. the midwives "old wives tales" and such. I did like the old advertisements in the book.
    • 5/5
      Great read
    • 5/5
      A captivating tale.
    • 4/5
      Pretty good - suffers a bit from "I found this REALLY cool thing when researching, must include!" syndrome.
    • 4/5
      I always enjoy a good book about midwifery, especially after having a child myself (who knows why). While McKay's style gets some getting used to, overall I felt the push-and-pull of modern versus traditional was interesting. However, I did not for a second believe the relationship between the two main characters was extremely sincere; it felt more hodgepodge and convenience.
    • 5/5
      Librarything said that I probably won't like it. This time it was so wrong. Although, I love this book, I did find the first half of the book better than the last half, but at the same time, I liked the way it ended. There wasn't the fairy tale ending I thought it would have.It story moved quickly, and kept my interest throughout. An amazing read.
    • 4/5
      The narrator of this story is Dora Rare, the only female child born into the Rare family in five generations. She is born in the middle of six boys. The setting for the novel is Scott's Bay, Nova Scotia at the beginning of WWI. Her father, uncles, and brothers are shipwrights in an era where wooden schooners are fast being replaced by modern steel shipbuilding. Farming is also a mainstay of life in this hardscrabble country. Dora is not a beauty. But she loves to read, a practice that her father discourages in the belief that reading will make her unfit for marriage. As the eligible male population is bled off to the war in Europe, Dora's mother engineers an apprenticeship to the local Acadian eccentric and midwife, Miss Marie Babineau. Through this vehicle of midwifery, various aspects of women's issues and control over their bodies are explored. Ancient Miss Babineau teaches 17 year old Dora the use of herbs and lore to help women with infertility, pregnancy, labor and birth, unwanted pregnancies, and even sexual satisfaction. Dora quickly learns that suffering and loss are a part of living. Meanwhile unscrupulous, ambitious Dr. Gilbert Thomas enters the community with his modern "scientific" approach to obstetrics. He has little respect or regard for women and their bodies beyond the money he can make from prepaid insurance plans for delivering their babies at a far away hospital, rather than in their homes which was the norm for the community. The transportation and expense were beyond what most families could afford, but the doctor appeals to the vanity of the husbands. In additon he sets out to disparage Miss Babineau and exploit Dora's youth.At this point, a marriage of convenience is put forth for Dora that her parents make it impossible for her to refuse. The stipulation is that she must give up her practice of midwifery.This story of women's issues unfolds against the backdrop of the war in Europe, the influenza epidemic of 1918, the introduction of allopathic medicine to rural Canada, the Halifax explosion, and the Great Molasses Flood of Boston in 1919.The author does a great job of weaving the story together. I'm not sure that the "extras" of folkloric remedies and the recipe for groaing cake add much to the book, though.
    • 3/5
      Set around the time of WWI in Nova Scotia, this novel examines the contest between fact, fiction, medicine, folklore, common sense, legend, myth, midwives and doctors. I found the book interesting, but as a male I'd put it into a "chick-lit" category of only passing interest to male readers.It is interesting that a modern author would research and recreate a fictional heroine who aids birthing with a mixture of old fashioned remedies of doubtful effect and genuine compassion and understanding. The medical doctor who appears is also a mixture of medical training and misunderstanding of women. Ultimately, he leaves to seek greener pastures and compassion wins over science.
    • 4/5
      Set in the early 1900s in rural Nova Scotia, this novel about midwifery, friendship and women's rights strikes all the feminist chords.
    • 4/5
      Set mostly during WWI in the little town in Nova Scotia, Dora is the apprentice to the local midwife, Miss B. When Miss B passes away, Dora inherits her practice and the ill will of a physician in a nearby town who believes that his hospital, twilight sleep and exact science (coupled with a costly insurance policy that pays for his services) is the best way for the women of the tiny town. Dora eventually has to move away for a while, when she's accused of killing a local man's wife. Turns out the it was his beating that killed the wife, not Dora's medicine at all. Eventually Dora moves back to town, making her old home into "The Birth House", open for free to any woman for any reason.
    • 5/5
      A well told tale, focused on one woman's life but deftly merging in historical events (Acadian eviction, Boston's molasses flood, home effort in WWI, Suffragettes). Social class divisions are a factor, with more educated women being pretentious and the country women focusing more on mutual aid, and was used by Dr Thomas who shamed men into providing "the best" for the wives during childbirth and flattered women who chose the scientific approach. While the women gathered to knit socks and mittens for the soldiers, they shared what they knew about how to get pregnant or avoid it. Yes, there were deaths for women under the care of midwives, but this also happened to women in hospitals. Marie Babineau, Dora's mentor, saw some women pull through difficult births while others couldn't, and sadly accepted that some women's lives were so hard or were so abused, that they didn't have "enough love to make a life" (p. 102), didn't have the will to fight for their life, that the outcome was ultimately in the hands of God.I enjoyed the folk wisdom scattered throughout the book and appreciated that these were all compiled at the end. One of my favorites was collecting the first dew of May, "Mary's Tears", used for blessing the sick. "You'd think the fruit was the prize [for growing plants]...but it's the seeds that keeps the secrets. Like any other mother, the plant done spent all her life learnin' the earth. It's her seeds that does the rememberin' for her." (p. 153)
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book, loved the herbal knowledge and the Acadian lore.
    • 4/5
      I quite liked this book. It reminded me of Beth Gutcheon's work a bit. It might have been the historical part, it might have been the common northeastern coastal setting, it might have been the feminine-centered plot. Really a 4-and-a-half star book.
    • 4/5
      The story is not so much a story about birthing as it is one of the evolution of becoming re-born. There is character development—and then there are characters that already have everything they need to engage you with ease, curiosity, nostalgia, and a little spunk.

      This book is about a number of struggles…a tension between choosing and ultimately accepting the dichotomies of our lives: what it means to be a woman embedded in the rural roots of the Bay of Fundy, Maritimes and what it could mean to be a woman witnessing the narrow streets filled with heavy brick buildings of a modernizing city called Boston; to the struggle of keeping the sentimentality, spirituality, and instinctive old wisdom of traditional midwifery versus the collision it faces with the sterility of new and upcoming science, technology, and modern medicine.

      This is a story about women, for women—the empowerment needed to realize autonomy over choices, especially of those choices having to do with a woman’s body—her fertility, her pregnancy, her labour, her sex life, and the secrets of her desires. It’s also about community, home, and the special relationship women can and do have with one another, exclusive of their partners, the male-dominated assumptions that can be imposed on them, and the circumstances of a changing world.

      In the face of fierce opposition, women in this novel bond, grow, and struggle together as fiercely as labour itself, to not reclaim themselves— but to proclaim themselves according to an identity that is acceptable to each of them personally.

      It’s a tribute to the female struggle and the glorious gift we have been given as women: the tolerance and endurance to suffer pain and tragedy in order to make a life, carry it, save it, and also live it. Generation by generation. One moon, one prayer, one knit, and one choice at a time.
    • 3/5
      The Birth House. Ami McKay. 2007. I have enjoyed reading about Nova Scotia and Newfoundland since I read The Shipping News and the books by Anne Emery. Written in diary form this is the story of a midwife in Nova Scotia in the early part of the 20th century. Dora Rare learned about midwifery and herbal healing from Miss B, a strange woman who came to Nova Scotia from New Orleans. After Miss B dies, Dora takes over and continues to deliver babies at home much to the displeasure of a doctor who has move to town and opened a center to provide painless, i.e. drugged child birth. Most of the young men have gone to fight in WWI and there is a vivid description of the explosion in Halifax Harbor. At the end of the book is a copy of the “Willow Book,” which contains Miss B’s recipes for herbal remedies. More interesting than a lot of the Kindle books I’ve downloaded
    • 4/5
      I found it interesting to read the other reviews of this book that, by and large, view the battle between obstetrics and midwifery as something from the past (or as a device to illustrate a science vs religion point). After Midwives by Chris Bohjalian, I found it very refreshing to see a fictional portrayal of the ongoing schism between obstetrics and midwifery as I also view it: as a battle between the rights of women and a male-dominated profession telling women what they should do. Only a tiny bit of research shows just how historically accurate McKay's book is (for example, in small communities in the early 20th century, the maternal and infant mortality rates skyrocketed when an obstetric "maternity home" was introduced. The mortality rates only started to decline when antibiotics were invented, and for some reason, people translate this to mean that the obstetrical model of care in childbirth is safer than the midwifery model, despite the fact that even studies done in the past decade show that homebirth is actually safer than giving birth in the hospital (check out The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer for references). OK, off my soapbox).

      I do agree with other reviewers that at times the story is disjointed because of McKay's style. To get a great deal of information into a small number of pages and keep the story moving, she uses diary entries, letters, news clippings, and advertisements. I admire the ingenuity behind using this scrapbook style, I just found it a little disorienting.
    • 4/5
      This 2007 debut novel by Canadian author Ami McKay (well, Canada claims her since she lives here now) is set in Nova Scotia on the shore of the Bay of Fundy, the bulk of the story taking place in the years 1916-1919.The protagonist, Dora Rare, is befriended and mentored by the community’s midwife/herbalist. Over the course of her life, Dora’s home becomes the birth house – or the place where the women of the community go to have their babies, rather than making the sometimes dangerous trip into the nearest town where ‘modern’ male medicine suits their needs rather less. The 'Birth House' has been described as “an unforgettable tale of the struggles women have faced to control their own bodies and keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine.” While I’m all for that, the rabid superstition and novena cures of the training midwife detracted from the strength of the women’s positions, in my opinion.Read this if: women’s issues are important to you and you want to know something of their evolution in rural North America; or you want an authentic picture of WWI era Nova Scotia (the description of the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion is particularly moving). 3½ stars
    • 5/5

      The ending was a little bit rushed, otherwise great book! Liked the characters and the storyline.

    • 2/5
      I liked the setting of the book and the interspersed newspaper advertisements of the era but wasn't so keen on the storytelling. To me it felt as though the author had thrown everything she knew about the era into the book without much feeling for whether it actually needed it. So we find the First World War, the Halifax Explosion, Spanish Flu and the Boston molasses disaster all featuring, but curiously briefly and without full engagement with any of them.Dora seemed anachronistic: a woman of late twentieth century attitudes who was never entirely believable in this early twentieth century context. And yet she meekly agrees to marry a man who is clearly a complete bastard. Unconvincing...
    • 4/5
      The story is not so much a story about birthing as it is one of the evolution of becoming re-born. There is character development—and then there are characters that already have everything they need to engage you with ease, curiosity, nostalgia, and a little spunk.This book is about a number of struggles…a tension between choosing and ultimately accepting the dichotomies of our lives: what it means to be a woman embedded in the rural roots of the Bay of Fundy, Maritimes and what it could mean to be a woman witnessing the narrow streets filled with heavy brick buildings of a modernizing city called Boston; to the struggle of keeping the sentimentality, spirituality, and instinctive old wisdom of traditional midwifery versus the collision it faces with the sterility of new and upcoming science, technology, and modern medicine.This is a story about women, for women—the empowerment needed to realize autonomy over choices, especially of those choices having to do with a woman’s body—her fertility, her pregnancy, her labour, her sex life, and the secrets of her desires. It’s also about community, home, and the special relationship women can and do have with one another, exclusive of their partners, the male-dominated assumptions that can be imposed on them, and the circumstances of a changing world.In the face of fierce opposition, women in this novel bond, grow, and struggle together as fiercely as labour itself, to not reclaim themselves— but to proclaim themselves according to an identity that is acceptable to each of them personally.It’s a tribute to the female struggle and the glorious gift we have been given as women: the tolerance and endurance to suffer pain and tragedy in order to make a life, carry it, save it, and also live it. Generation by generation. One moon, one prayer, one knit, and one choice at a time.
    • 3/5
      Dora Rare from the day she was born stood out like a sore thumb in the small Novia Scotia town of Scots Bay. Dora happened to be the only daughter in five generations of Rares. Adding to the mystery surrounding her, Dora was also born with a caul over her face. As superstition goes being born with a caul over one’s face is a foretelling. Dora soon became good friends with another mysterious woman, the local midwife, Marie Babineau. Babineau was a transplant from Louisiana to Scots Bay and deemed a witch by most of the locals. Dora soon became Babineau’s live in apprentice.Dora soon pushed her midwife skills to the side and became occupied with becoming a wife and a mother. When a new maternity home was built in the nearby town it almost put Dora's midwife skills to rest for good. Thoughtless and distracted husbands, illness, and pregnancies brought about a common alliance with Dora and a few other women forming the Occasional Knitter’s Society. The society was the strength that all the women needed. These women also shared a very big secret.McKay gives us an insightful glimpse into the mysterious world of midwifery. She also deals with some more serious topics of war, feminism, abortion, and the effects of poverty. Dora’s coming of age story was the undercurrent that carried all of the other topics. I was very surprised at how well McKay blended women’s rights and feminism within the narrative.I decided to snatch the Birth House out of my TBR pile since I received an ARC of Ami McKay's new novel, The Virgin Cure. Overall, I would have to say that The Birth House, in my opinion, was flat. I liked Dora’s character she really reminded me of, Jane Eyre. McKay often strayed away from the main theme of midwifery which happened to be the most interesting portion of the book.
    • 4/5
      A most interesting read, and an eye-opening look at fast-changing times for women. Set in Scots Bay, Nova Scotia in the years leading up to and through World War I, in a time and place where poor rural women had few choices and women and men both had few opportunities. The story traces the life of a fictional young woman, Dora Rare (born with a caul, the first daughter born in 5 generations of Rares), apprenticed somewhat reluctantly to an aged Acadian midwife. The tale follows the arrival of the first medical doctor to attend births (for a substantial fee, in a 'modern, scientific medical facility' where the reader is introduced to the 'wonders' of ether and scopolomine and to early 20th Century male attitudes to women's medical issues), and continues through the horrific Halifax explosion, and, later, the Spanish flu epidemic in Boston and , peripherally, the collapse of the molasses tank in Boston's North End. Those interested in childbirth will be fascinated by the changing attitudes and options open to women; others will hoot at the 'vibrator treatments' designed to relieve hysteria in women. I don't know if I was more horrified by the incantations offered by the old midwife or the 'scientific' approach of the pompous male doctor. In any event, Ami McKay has created a readable and thought-provoking novel peppered with journal entries, newspaper clippings and what may or may not be real advertisements of the time. I wish she had let on which were made up and which were reproductions of the real thing. Dora Rare, the protagonist, is easy for modern readers to like, although her courageous attitudes must have been extremely rare in such a time and place. All in all, a satisfying read that led to much thought and many questions. Time to go do some research now.
    • 5/5
      I really enjoyed this book. A young girl, in small town Nova Scotia during the World War, finds herself husband-less and sent away to live with the local midwife. What ensues is a struggle between the good ol' ways and innovation. This book, although seeming to make a villain out of the doctor, is really quite spiritual and I enjoyed the old midwife more than the other characters. I saw the ending coming although it didn't dissuade me from enjoying the book and placing Ami McKay on my list of favorite authors. Very nicely written.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed reading this, but didn't find that it was anything special, or something that I HAD to get back to. But, it was well written and interesting, the characters were good, it was a good book...nothing to rave about, but nothing that I can really rant about either...
    • 2/5
      I feel like I've read this book a million times before so it was hard to get very excited about it. And I am someone who is a strong believer in midwifery so I wish I could rate it more highly. I have no doubt that many women will really like it. If you liked the Red Tent, you'll like it. To me it seemed contrived and sentimental. The bad characters are really bad, the good characters are really good. The tone was somewhat uneven as well, as if the author couldn't decide whether to make the book a serious drama or a light feel-good read. And I didn't really need to read another novel about how awful men can be and how women should band together to create their own beautiful world. I kept reading mainly because I was reading it for bookclub and wanted to be able to talk about it. That said, it is a quick read and fairly painless.
    • 3/5
      Not my normal type of book but I enjoyed it!
    • 5/5
      I absolutely loved reading this book. It is a beautiful book to hold in your hand as well as a beautiful story. Dora Rare is definitely a' rare' character and I read with concern and interest her story. This could have been a very awful book about awful people and the awful treatment of women, but instead, whilst being a very thorough look at life for women of that time period, it wasn't despairing but heartening instead, and I loved the strength of all the female characters. The notes in the back from the Willow Book are just lovely and I will be sure to give this novel to all my female friends along with a gift of raspberry tea.
    • 4/5
      The Birth HouseBy Ami McKayThe story is not so much a story about birthing as it is one of the evolution of becoming re-born. There is character development—and then there are characters that already have everything they need to engage you with ease, curiosity, nostalgia, and a little spunk.This book is about a number of struggles…a tension between choosing and ultimately accepting the dichotomies of our lives: what it means to be a woman embedded in the rural roots of the Bay of Fundy, Maritimes and what it could mean to be a woman witnessing the narrow streets filled with heavy brick buildings of a modernizing city called Boston; to the struggle of keeping the sentimentality, spirituality, and instinctive old wisdom of traditional midwifery versus the collision it faces with the sterility of new and upcoming science, technology, and modern medicine. This is a story about women, for women—the empowerment needed to realize autonomy over choices, especially of those choices having to do with a woman’s body—her fertility, her pregnancy, her labour, her sex life, and the secrets of her desires. It’s also about community, home, and the special relationship women can and do have with one another, exclusive of their partners, the male-dominated assumptions that can be imposed on them, and the circumstances of a changing world.In the face of fierce opposition, women in this novel bond, grow, and struggle together as fiercely as labour itself, to not reclaim themselves— but to proclaim themselves according to an identity that is acceptable to each of them personally.It’s a tribute to the female struggle and the glorious gift we have been given as women: the tolerance and endurance to suffer pain and tragedy in order to make a life, carry it, save it, and also live it. Generation by generation. One moon, one prayer, one knit, and one choice at a time.