The Birth House: A Novel

In this breathtaking debut novel, Ami McKay has created an unforgettable portrait of the struggles that women have faced to control their own bodies and to keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine.

The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare—the first daughter in five generations of Rares. As apprentice to the outspoken Acadian midwife Miss Babineau, Dora learns to assist the women of an isolated Nova Scotian village through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies, and even unfulfilling sex lives. During the turbulent World War I era, uncertainty and upheaval accompany the arrival of a brash new medical doctor and his promises of progress and fast, painless childbirth. Dora soon finds herself fighting to protect the rights of women as well as the wisdom that has been put into her care.

A tale of tradition and science, matriarchy and paternalism, past and future, The Birth House is "a dazzling first novel." (Library Journal), and a story more timely than ever.

An arresting portrait of the struggles that women faced for control of their own bodies, The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare—the first daughter in five generations of Rares.

As apprentice to the outspoken Acadian midwife Miss Babineau, Dora learns to assist the women of an isolated Nova Scotian village through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies, and unfulfilling sex lives. During the turbulent World War I era, uncertainty and upheaval accompany the arrival of a brash new medical doctor and his promises of progress and fast, painless childbirth. In a clash between tradition and science, Dora finds herself fighting to protect the rights of women as well as the wisdom that has been put into her care.

[It] will educate and thoroughly charm you with its honesty and brilliant prose. - The State (Columbia, SC)

“A sweet little piece of fiction . . . a hybrid of fabulist Gabriel Garcia Marquez and prairie realist Sinclair Ross.” - Toronto Star