Chris Bohjalian's Blog - Posts Tagged "midwives"
The novel, "Midwives," 20 years later: Is there anything I would update or change?
It was twenty years ago that "Midwives" was published: 1997. I had hair then. Our phones were considerably less smart. Our books were made of paper.
Throughout this month I will be answering questions from the Reading Group Center to celebrate the new, twentieth anniversary edition of the novel. Here is their first one.
As always, thank you so much for your faith in my work.
All best,
Chris B.
www.ChrisBohjalian.com
Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, Litsy, Twitter
* * *
1. Twenty years have passed since Midwives was first published, but it still feels relevant. Is there anything you would want to update or change if you were writing it today?
The midwife who set me on the path to write the book -- telling me about her work at a dinner party one summer night and then allowing me to interview her for hours on end -- is a lovely, brilliant, kind woman named Carol Gibson Warnock. She's also very funny. When I began writing the novel, I never thought it would be a courtroom drama: I thought it would be a gently comic, coming-of-age novel narrated by a young woman raised by a hippie midwife in rural Vermont.
But then my mother was diagnosed with cancer and it was clear she was going to die, and the novel changed. It morphed into a far more complex and morally ambiguous story.
I would end up deleting many of those early, light-hearted scenes about the "peace, love and tie-dye" culture of Vermont in the late 1960s and 1970s, but a few still remain.
The reality is that the book is set two generations ago now. It's rooted in a particular moment in time, that era when Carol Gibson Warnock and her peers were part of a movement that had its roots in the counter-culture and back-to-the-land movements in Vermont.
But its themes are pretty universal and obviously relevant today. We were all born and we all will die. In between, we all aspire to do what we love in this world and -- most of us, anyway -- to minimize the pain we cause others. Think of the novel's epigraph: "We are each of us responsible for the evil we may have prevented." (James Martineau)
And so while there may be scenes that I would approach differently now, I really wouldn't update or change anything of consequence. I love the way it brings to life that era: it was at once so hopeful and so innocent. And I think that's why Sibyl's betrayal by the medical and legal professions in the novel is so devastating.
Throughout this month I will be answering questions from the Reading Group Center to celebrate the new, twentieth anniversary edition of the novel. Here is their first one.
As always, thank you so much for your faith in my work.
All best,
Chris B.
www.ChrisBohjalian.com
Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, Litsy, Twitter
* * *
1. Twenty years have passed since Midwives was first published, but it still feels relevant. Is there anything you would want to update or change if you were writing it today?
The midwife who set me on the path to write the book -- telling me about her work at a dinner party one summer night and then allowing me to interview her for hours on end -- is a lovely, brilliant, kind woman named Carol Gibson Warnock. She's also very funny. When I began writing the novel, I never thought it would be a courtroom drama: I thought it would be a gently comic, coming-of-age novel narrated by a young woman raised by a hippie midwife in rural Vermont.
But then my mother was diagnosed with cancer and it was clear she was going to die, and the novel changed. It morphed into a far more complex and morally ambiguous story.
I would end up deleting many of those early, light-hearted scenes about the "peace, love and tie-dye" culture of Vermont in the late 1960s and 1970s, but a few still remain.
The reality is that the book is set two generations ago now. It's rooted in a particular moment in time, that era when Carol Gibson Warnock and her peers were part of a movement that had its roots in the counter-culture and back-to-the-land movements in Vermont.
But its themes are pretty universal and obviously relevant today. We were all born and we all will die. In between, we all aspire to do what we love in this world and -- most of us, anyway -- to minimize the pain we cause others. Think of the novel's epigraph: "We are each of us responsible for the evil we may have prevented." (James Martineau)
And so while there may be scenes that I would approach differently now, I really wouldn't update or change anything of consequence. I love the way it brings to life that era: it was at once so hopeful and so innocent. And I think that's why Sibyl's betrayal by the medical and legal professions in the novel is so devastating.
The novel, "Midwives," 20 years later: What was early reaction to Midwives like? Has it changed over time?
It was twenty years ago that "Midwives" was published: 1997. Seinfeld was still on the air. The Spice Girls had two of the year's biggest hits. The Dow Jones closed for the first time at. . .7,000.
Throughout this month I will be answering questions from the Reading Group Center to celebrate the new, twentieth anniversary edition of the novel. Here is their second one.
As always, thank you so much for your faith in my work.
All best,
Chris B.
www.ChrisBohjalian.com
Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, Litsy, Twitter
++++++++
What was early reaction to Midwives like? Has it changed over time?
Let's start with the midwives, those remarkable individuals who work with moms (and dads) and catch babies.
When the novel was first published, there were a lot of midwives who thought I was the antichrist. The Hollywood flyover of the novel was this: a midwife performs a cesarean section in a homebirth that goes tragically wrong, and the mother dies. The midwife is tried for manslaughter. And, oh by the way, the daughter becomes an OB/GYN.
I remember at one of my events in downtown Boston, there were midwives protesting the book. There were midwifery conferences in which midwifery activists discouraged midwives from buying the book, checking the book out of the library, or even talking about the book. They just wanted it to disappear.
But the wonderful thing about midwives is this: when a midwife is concerned about something, she asks questions. When she is very concerned, she asks a lot of questions. I had so many wonderful exchanges with midwives when the book was originally published, even with those midwives who were very troubled by it.
Eventually, as more and more midwives read the novel, they begin to like it very, very much. They understood that I had never meant to write a book about an incompetent midwife; my intention all along was to write a novel about an immensely competent midwife who is beleaguered by a medical and judicial system beyond her ken.
How supportive of the book did they become in the end? A year and a half after the novel was published, when Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club, the Midwives Alliance of North America actually linked their site to the novel's page at Amazon.
I also was thrilled by the way general readers gravitated quickly to the story, and how many readers were sharing with me their "amazing" birth stories from the very beginning. I felt like a talk show host at many of the events on the hardcover and paperback book tours, because woman after woman would stand up during the Q and A and volunteer some powerful or poignant or outrageously funny moment from when she was in labor.
And Midwives was my first national bestseller. And then, months after it had fallen off the bestseller lists, a year and a half after it was published, Oprah Winfrey would select it for her book club and return it to the bestseller lists -- where it would remain for a long time.
Throughout this month I will be answering questions from the Reading Group Center to celebrate the new, twentieth anniversary edition of the novel. Here is their second one.
As always, thank you so much for your faith in my work.
All best,
Chris B.
www.ChrisBohjalian.com
Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, Litsy, Twitter
++++++++
What was early reaction to Midwives like? Has it changed over time?
Let's start with the midwives, those remarkable individuals who work with moms (and dads) and catch babies.
When the novel was first published, there were a lot of midwives who thought I was the antichrist. The Hollywood flyover of the novel was this: a midwife performs a cesarean section in a homebirth that goes tragically wrong, and the mother dies. The midwife is tried for manslaughter. And, oh by the way, the daughter becomes an OB/GYN.
I remember at one of my events in downtown Boston, there were midwives protesting the book. There were midwifery conferences in which midwifery activists discouraged midwives from buying the book, checking the book out of the library, or even talking about the book. They just wanted it to disappear.
But the wonderful thing about midwives is this: when a midwife is concerned about something, she asks questions. When she is very concerned, she asks a lot of questions. I had so many wonderful exchanges with midwives when the book was originally published, even with those midwives who were very troubled by it.
Eventually, as more and more midwives read the novel, they begin to like it very, very much. They understood that I had never meant to write a book about an incompetent midwife; my intention all along was to write a novel about an immensely competent midwife who is beleaguered by a medical and judicial system beyond her ken.
How supportive of the book did they become in the end? A year and a half after the novel was published, when Oprah Winfrey picked it for her book club, the Midwives Alliance of North America actually linked their site to the novel's page at Amazon.
I also was thrilled by the way general readers gravitated quickly to the story, and how many readers were sharing with me their "amazing" birth stories from the very beginning. I felt like a talk show host at many of the events on the hardcover and paperback book tours, because woman after woman would stand up during the Q and A and volunteer some powerful or poignant or outrageously funny moment from when she was in labor.
And Midwives was my first national bestseller. And then, months after it had fallen off the bestseller lists, a year and a half after it was published, Oprah Winfrey would select it for her book club and return it to the bestseller lists -- where it would remain for a long time.
Win a Vermont gift basket -- and a signed copy of Midwives
That's right. Free stuff and a free book.
Because my novel "Midwives" turns twenty this year, the Reading Group Center and Vintage Books are giving away a basket of Vermont swag -- and a signed copy of the special 20th anniversary edition.
That's right: it was twenty years ago that the novel was first published, and nineteen when Oprah Winfrey picked it for her Book Club.
To enter the contest, click here:
sweeps.penguinrandomhouse.com/enter/m...
Thank you, as always, for your faith in my work. Color me deeply grateful.
All the best,
Chris B.
www.ChrisBohjalian.com
Facebook, Instagram, Litsy, Twitter
“Astonishing … will keep readers up late at night until the last page is turned.”
— Washington Post Book World
Because my novel "Midwives" turns twenty this year, the Reading Group Center and Vintage Books are giving away a basket of Vermont swag -- and a signed copy of the special 20th anniversary edition.
That's right: it was twenty years ago that the novel was first published, and nineteen when Oprah Winfrey picked it for her Book Club.
To enter the contest, click here:
sweeps.penguinrandomhouse.com/enter/m...
Thank you, as always, for your faith in my work. Color me deeply grateful.
All the best,
Chris B.
www.ChrisBohjalian.com
Facebook, Instagram, Litsy, Twitter
“Astonishing … will keep readers up late at night until the last page is turned.”
— Washington Post Book World
The novel, "Midwives," 20 years later: What was your writing process like for Midwives? Is it similar to your writing process now?
Greetings!
Throughout this month I've been answering questions from the Reading Group Center to celebrate the new, twentieth anniversary edition of my novel, "Midwives." Here is their third question.
As always, thank you so much for your faith in my work.
All best,
Chris B.
www.ChrisBohjalian.com
Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, Litsy, Twitter
++++++++
QUESTION: What was your writing process like for Midwives? Is it similar to your writing process now?
ANSWER: The essentials of my writing process remain unchanged. I am at my desk in my library before six in the morning, and I really don't leave my library until lunchtime. The goal is to write 1000 words. I don't always write that many, but as my friend Jodi Picoult once said, "You can edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page."
But some things have changed. Instead of coffee, I now start the day with an 8.4 ounce can of sugarfree Redbull. I still skim the dictionary for interesting words -- noctivigant, luminescent, phantasmagoric -- but now I also watch movie trailers. Those impeccably produced two minute previews of movies instantly catapult me into the appropriate emotion for whatever scene I'm hoping to write that morning.
I print out every fifty or so pages I write at the computer and edit those pages by hand with a fountain pen. I use a fountain pen because they can be messy and using one forces me to write more slowly and thus think more carefully. It compels me to find the right synonym for red: crimson, burgundy, plum.
And I still know that when I have writer's block, it means that I haven't done my homework: I need to roll up my sleeves and do some research to really understand what's going on. Then I can return to my desk and my characters.
Throughout this month I've been answering questions from the Reading Group Center to celebrate the new, twentieth anniversary edition of my novel, "Midwives." Here is their third question.
As always, thank you so much for your faith in my work.
All best,
Chris B.
www.ChrisBohjalian.com
Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, Litsy, Twitter
++++++++
QUESTION: What was your writing process like for Midwives? Is it similar to your writing process now?
ANSWER: The essentials of my writing process remain unchanged. I am at my desk in my library before six in the morning, and I really don't leave my library until lunchtime. The goal is to write 1000 words. I don't always write that many, but as my friend Jodi Picoult once said, "You can edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page."
But some things have changed. Instead of coffee, I now start the day with an 8.4 ounce can of sugarfree Redbull. I still skim the dictionary for interesting words -- noctivigant, luminescent, phantasmagoric -- but now I also watch movie trailers. Those impeccably produced two minute previews of movies instantly catapult me into the appropriate emotion for whatever scene I'm hoping to write that morning.
I print out every fifty or so pages I write at the computer and edit those pages by hand with a fountain pen. I use a fountain pen because they can be messy and using one forces me to write more slowly and thus think more carefully. It compels me to find the right synonym for red: crimson, burgundy, plum.
And I still know that when I have writer's block, it means that I haven't done my homework: I need to roll up my sleeves and do some research to really understand what's going on. Then I can return to my desk and my characters.
