When I lived in Newfoundland, we referred to Nova Scotia and all other points west as ‘the mainland.’ So, as I embark on yet another Canadian book, I am finally taking a break from my home province and am heading to the mainland. I’ve been interested in the history of midwifery in our society for years, since first reading A Midwife’s Tale back in university. I even got to take a seminar course on the subject, taught by a nurse-turned-professor, who specialized in the topic. So, when I saw The Birth House in the bookstore a couple years ago, the subject matter combined with its setting made me buy a copy.

This is Ami McKay’s first novel, and takes place in the last months of World War One, in a small seaside Nova Scotian town. Young Dora is chosen by the village’s elderly midwife, Marie Babineau, to take up the mantle of midwife. The midwife is both respected and feared, loved and shunned – and matters get even more complicated with the arrival of a new male doctor determined to be the one delivering the babies. Dora’s character is the central focus here, and thankfully, she’s complex and likeable enough to mostly make up for the book’s sometimes underexplored plotlines – the seemingly superfluous insertion of the Halifax Explosion, and an overly long excursion to Boston, for example. So, while I’m not raving about the book, it kept me interested and is a decent novel historical fiction on a fascinating subject. For a great book on the controversy of midwifing in modern times, check out Chris Bohjalian’s Midwives, which I think was made into a movie with Sissy Spacek.

Winner of the Canadian Booksellers Association Best Fiction and Best Author awards in 2007, and also longlisted for the 2008 IMPAC Dublin Literary Awards. The Birth House is another Book Awards Challenge choice and also counts for the Canadian Book Awards Challenge.