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Harper Perennial

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jessica Purcell
212-207-7507
jessica.purcell@harpercollins.com 

the birth house

Ami McKay

ON SALE NOW

"THE BIRTH HOUSE is an astonishing debut, a book that will break your heart and take your breath away…To read THE BIRTH HOUSE is to enter a world, a richly imagined and keenly observed ….To say this is a powerful debut is to damn Ami McKay's novel with too faint praise; it is an altogether remarkable work from an impressive new talent." - Ottawa Citizen "A poignant, compassionate, bittersweet and nostalgic look at early 20th-century Nova Scotia... McKay is not only a new author to note, but one to look forward to with anticipation." - National Post "A hybrid of fabulist Gabriel Garcia Marquez and prairie realist Sinclair Ross…THE BIRTH HOUSE could easily be subtitled An Argument in Favour of Midwifery... In an era of family doctor shortages, it does give one pause." -Toronto Star

A #1 Bestseller in Canada
Over 30 weeks on bestseller lists across Canada including: The Globe and Mail, the Canadian Booksellers Association, Maclean's and the Toronto Star. Winner of the Canadian Booksellers Award for Fiction Book of the Year & Author of the Year!

When Ami McKay left Chicago for Nova Scotia, she didn't realize that her home in the Bay of Fundy would become the inspiration for her bestselling debut novel. In the spirit of Chris Bohjalian's Midwives, and Annie Proulx's The Shipping News comes THE BIRTH HOUSE (William Morrow; On-Sale August 22, 2006; Hardcover; $24.95), a glimpse into pre-industrial, pastoral Canada, and a period of history left largely unexplored in current literature-a time when the medical establishment set out to eliminate midwifery and exert authority over women's bodies, and pregnancy was deemed a "medical condition." In clear and eloquent prose, THE BIRTH HOUSE reveals the lives of women in the early 20th century-their struggle for independence, recognition, and autonomy.
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THE BIRTH HOUSE tells the story of Dora Rare, a young woman living in rural Nova Scotia. At 18, Dora wonders if she'll ever be married, or have the children she so desperately wants. Fortunately, as an apprentice to the local midwife, Marie Babineau, Dora finds a gift, and potential career, in helping women through natural childbirth. But Dora lives on the cusp of a revolution. While the men are off at war, the women of Scots Bay are fighting a war of a different kind - a war against modern medicine, which threatens to deprive them of age-old traditions, and their rights, as mothers, to the childbirth of their choosing. Dora soon finds herself the champion for a cause that may cost her reputation, and forces her to find temporary refuge in America. Amidst a colorful and strange group of women unlike any she has ever known, Dora enjoys her first taste of modernity, and independence unfathomable to the community of friends she has left behind. She also comes to discover who she is and what is most important to her, finding the strength to finish in the fight she began.
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A "literary scrapbook," drawn from century-old journal entries, letters and newspaper clippings, THE BIRTH HOUSE carries both historical weight and a poignant story. McKay's stunning debut novel will transport its readers from Halifax to Boston and beyond, to a time and place so evocatively realized we will come to look at our own beliefs differently. We are still, universally, looking to find the balance between tradition and modern medicine. THE BIRTH HOUSE offers, in response, a message of hope in an uplifting tale of a community, preserving itself in the face of danger.

~AN EDITOR'S PICK FOR AUGUST BY THE HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY~

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ami McKay started her writing career as a freelance writer for CBC Radio. Her work has aired on numerous public radio programs throughout Canada, the United States and around the world. Her documentary, Daughter of Family G won an Excellence in Journalism Medallion at the 2003 Atlantic Journalism Awards. Born in rural Indiana, she now lives with her husband and two sons in an old birth house on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia.

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THE STORY BEHIND THE BIRTH HOUSE

"In 2000, my partner and I moved from Chicago to Nova Scotia where we bought an old farmhouse on the Bay of Fundy. By the following spring I was pregnant with my second child. As word spread through the community of my 'condition,' my neighbors began telling me tales about the history of my home, which was once a midwife's house…Not only had the midwife traveled to other homes in Scots Bay…she had opened her home to the women in the community as a birth house. She took them in and saw them through labor and delivery, and then both mother and child stayed in the birth house for a week or more after the birth… My neighbor encouraged me to visit a woman who had grown up in my house. Nearly 90 years-old, she explained that her biological mother had died three days after her birth and that the midwife had adopted her… She then began to recite the names of all the women who had given birth in the house as well as the names of their children. I was so inspired by her stories that I decided to have a midwife assisted home birth. My son was born at home in the middle of a March snowstorm, another child in the long lineage of babies born in my house. Not long after his birth I began the first scribblings towards what became THE BIRTH HOUSE."

-Ami McKay, on the inspiration for her novel

All through high school, university, and grad school I wrote in secret, keeping all of my thoughts, ideas, short stories and dreadful poetry in notebooks under by bed. My New Year's resolution for the year 2000 (after much prodding from my partner) was to start putting my writing out into the world. So, I declared 2000 to be "the year of sending thank-you notes to people I didn't know." My first letter led to a featured guest appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show (and that was just January!) After that whirlwind experience, I kept writing - freelance documentaries for CBC radio, a short story here and there - and eventually my first novel. I still commit random acts of writing thank-you notes from time to time… just to keep the karma flowing.

My husband is Canadian. When he first brought me to visit Nova Scotia, I fell in love with the ocean, the landscape and the people. The area around Scots Bay is known for its amazing beauty and the famous hiking trail at Cape Split. While moving from a city of 6 million to a small village of 250 people can cause quite a case of culture shock, I knew it was what I needed to do. I had been through a lot of personal changes in the months leading up to the move, including a nasty car accident that left me in the hospital and then laid-up in my apartment for a month, so I was really ready to find a quiet place I could call 'home.'

I've been blessed with wonderful neighbours and friends since I moved here. Although I suppose I'm something of an odd-duck to most. They are (for the most part) people who are part of the land and the land has been a part of their lives and their families' lives for generations. It's not unlike the area where I grew up in Indiana in that respect, although so far, the families of Scots Bay have been able to hold on to their land and way of life, whereas the sadness of so many losing 'the family farm' in Indiana still lives in me. Most have seen the book as a tribute to that way of life, to their tradition of having great respect for nature, and they thank me for writing it down. But I'll admit, there are a few in the community who have been offended by it and spoken out against the novel. It's been called everything from "a book of lies" to "smut." It was the hot topic of conversation and debate at the little general store for quite a while. Of course, I'd much rather have people have an opinion about my work than to not care about it one way or the other. That's when I know I've done my job as a storyteller…

After speaking with the women in the community and hearing all of their stories about the real midwife who had once lived in the house and the respect they had for her, I started researching modern midwifery. My first birthing experience had been in the States and was highly medicalized…my labour had been induced, a lot of interventions followed and I felt like I had very little if any control, choice or place in the situation. So with my second pregnancy, I consulted with my family doctor and then began seeing a midwife as well. She was amazing! She had delivered over 200 babies. She spent at least 45 minutes to an hour at every visit. She included my husband and my son as well. What I also learned through the process is that today's midwives are individuals who are both highly trained and embrace tradition. Our society is caught up in the notion that childbirth is something that needs to be feared. It's portrayed as always being a life and death situation. We expect the pain to be unbearable, we expect something to go wrong, we willingly accept interventions that lead to more aggressive measures. Women are joining the 'too posh to push' club because they are scared of giving birth. Women who can afford it are checking out of the hospital and straight in to five-star hotels so they will have someone to wait on them.
That's what communities used to do. And in my case, that's what my little community did after my son's home birth. They brought enough food to feed my family for weeks! They visited and made sure I had everything I needed. All these things caused me to ask myself, "what's happened?" "What happened to the midwife?" "What happened to the community of birth?"

When I was researching the history of midwifery in North America, I found evidence of a movement to eliminate midwives. Obstetrics was still a young branch of medicine in the early 1900's and with WWI came the desire in all parts of society for things to be faster, more efficient, and standardized. Childbirth was included in that march towards progress.

I found quotes from leading doctors of obstetrics outlining how to 'solve the midwife problem.' They actively went to women's organizations - like women's auxiliary and extension clubs - and lectured about the complications of childbirth, the shortcomings of midwives and told the women that they should do whatever they had to have a hospital birth with a doctor. There are quotes from medical conventions where doctors say things like "Midwifery is a relic of barbarism."

We live with that same tension today. Some OB's work hand in hand with midwives, while others have a real distain for them. There was a quote in a national newspaper in Toronto this past February where a doctor tells the reporter, "Parents forget how many things can go wrong. Delivering a baby is a major medical procedure. It's potentially dangerous, and it hurts like hell. Who do you want to be on the receiving end -- a trained doctor backed up by modern life-saving machines and painkillers, or some woman with a Guatemalan hat?" An OB's car in a hospital parking lot had a bumper sticker that read, "Home delivery is for pizza." I may have written a story set nearly one hundred years ago, but we're still trying to work out these issues.

At the turn of the century, a woman might be diagnosed with hysteria for the following symptoms - speaking her mind too often, reading too many novels, writing cramps, headaches, fear of impending doom, and being overly 'fretful'. (just to name a few). In the 1880's British physician, Joseph M. Granville, was searching for a better way to 'cure' hysteria in his female patients. By 1883, he had patented the first electromechanical vibrator, a medical device that could perform "therapeutic massage" in a quick and effective manner. (Yes, I'm talking about bringing a woman to orgasm.) Early in the 20th century, portable home units were advertised in women's magazines and almanacs, thus making the purchase of a personal vibrating massager through mail order a popular alternative to visiting the doctor for prescribed 'treatments.'
There's even a hysteria quiz on my web site you can take to see how many treatments you may require…
http://www.thebirthhouse.com/hysteriaquiz.htm