The Book of the Unnamed Midwife (The Road to Nowhere, #1) in Beyond Reality

Sep 10, 2016 Bradley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, 2016-shelf, dystopia-yes-pls

Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC.

Post-Apocalyptic survivalism, featuring perhaps the very last midwife upon the planet.

This wasn't a particularly easy novel to get through, mostly for the emotions and the horror of what would likely happen to the surviving women after 98% of all men die from a virus and only 1/100 of that counts as women.

The author makes a pretty convincing case that what would result would be massive maltreatment of the rare women, mirroring what still happens today, but much ...more

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Aug 10, 2016 Althea Ann rated it liked it · review of another edition

Upon reading this, I was immediately reminded of PD James' 'Children of Men' - after all, how many stories are there which feature a near-future in which universal sterility has afflicted humanity, with the exception of one solitary pregnant woman, who is escorted through a dangerous journey by a former professional midwife? Well, there are at least two!

However, by happenstance, my post-apocalyptic book club was reading 'Children of Men' this month, so I re-read it after about two decades. (Whic Upon reading this, I was immediately reminded of PD James' 'Children of Men' - after all, how many stories are there which feature a near-future in which universal sterility has afflicted humanity, with the exception of one solitary pregnant woman, who is escorted through a dangerous journey by a former professional midwife? Well, there are at least two!

However, by happenstance, my post-apocalyptic book club was reading 'Children of Men' this month, so I re-read it after about two decades. (Which was interesting, thoughts here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) The two stories are far more different than I'd immediately realized, treating their themes in very different ways.

While James used the sterility as a jumping off point for a musing on faith and the corrupting nature of power, Elison is far more concerned with gender issues. 'The Book of the Unnamed Midwife' lets us know right off that the post-apocalyptic future is matriarchal, with women in charge, and pregnancy revered - perhaps even worshiped. This future society, still struggling, looks to an 'ancient' text as history and guide. This text is the diary of the title's 'midwife.' And from there, we jump into said diary...

The midwife wakes after illness to a changed world. A plague (which she'd been researching) has wiped out nearly all of humanity. Survivors are few and far between - but only 1 out of 100 survivors are women. On top of that, no new babies are being born. The illness is particularly fatal to babies, and it seems that even if a woman has survived, she will definitely die if she becomes pregnant and attempts to give birth. Soon, it's a world of lawless thugs and dangerous gangs where the few women are viewed as commodities to be bought, sold and of course, gang-raped. To protect herself, our narrator disguises herself as a man, and wanders the post-apocalyptic landscape, trying to find other women and to help them with knowledge - and birth control - when she can.

The writing is very good - I found the book riveting, even though the plot was rather meandering. However, once I took a step back from the direct experience of reading it, I did have some criticism. My main one does have to do with the rather aimless meandering. In the introduction, we're given a "Point B." Then, we flash back to "Point A." However, the book never takes us from Point A to Point B. How did a world of women as abused commodities transform into the matriarchal society of respected women that we first glimpse? Yes, the 'midwife' sees in passing, the emergence of 'hives' - groups of men who cluster around one "Queen Bee" in hopes of her favor, but that phenomenon isn't really deeply explored by the text. The main character finds this mildly interesting, but not something she's interested in pursuing for herself. While I did find the wanderings interesting, I feel like the book set the reader up to expect something that it never delivered.

My other quibbles probably just have to do with my reading so much post-apocalyptic fiction, and seeing the same themes crop up over and over: the aimless journey, the pockets of religious groups who may hold it together longer, but who might get weirdly cultlike, & the future characterized by violent gangs and violence toward women. In some stories, this treatment can often feel somewhat misogynist, but in this book swung toward the misandrist. Actually, with few exceptions, humans in this book are really portrayed as falling into negative stereotypes. Men are either violent oppressors, or weak and ineffectual. But other women are also portrayed as self-interested backstabbers. I don't think of myself as having a particularly sunny view of human nature, but this book exceeded even my cynicism. Again, I wish that it had taken the reader a bit further, through the days of disaster and into the days of rebuilding and cooperation.

Still, regardless of its flaws, this is still a book that I would recommend - and have recommended - to other fans of post-apocalyptic fiction.

Many thanks to 47North and NetGalley for the opportunity to read. As always, my opinions are solely my own. ...more

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Aug 07, 2018 Paul Perry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2018, post-apocalypse, fiction, apocalypse, america, us-author, society, female-protagonist, scifi, completed-series

Perhaps it's not surprising that a book set during and after an apocalypse is bleak, and this is less bleak than The Road, but in many ways it's still a book that I'm not sure the word 'enjoy' attaches to.

A sudden, rampant plague starts to kill people in massive numbers. Women seem even more effected than men, perhaps only a tenth as many surviving, and not a single child survives birth.

A maternity nurse recovers from the fever, waking in her apartment to witness that the ravages she had been tr ...more

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Jan 29, 2018 Suzanne rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian

This was a grim book. I tend to really like "end of the world" type books - my mind likes dwelling on what I would do, etc., so this book was fascinating in that respect. I felt like some of the groups were a bit too stereotypical, especially the Utah Mormon group, so that is why my 3.5 star rating is rounded down vs. rounded up. But I think it is a well done book, and I especially liked the ending. ...more

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Aug 08, 2016 Tomislav rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: net-galley, science-fiction

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife won the Philip K. Dick award for best original SF paperback published in the US in 2014. Originally, paperback original publication was an indication of a less proven writer, one who does not guarantee a return to the publisher, or one who might take risks in writing style. Philip K. Dick was such a writer, and hence the award is named for him. In these days of ebooks, perhaps paperback original falls into a middle ground with regard to cost of publication. Unname The Book of the Unnamed Midwife won the Philip K. Dick award for best original SF paperback published in the US in 2014. Originally, paperback original publication was an indication of a less proven writer, one who does not guarantee a return to the publisher, or one who might take risks in writing style. Philip K. Dick was such a writer, and hence the award is named for him. In these days of ebooks, perhaps paperback original falls into a middle ground with regard to cost of publication. Unnamed Midwife was published in a small press paperback, and only this year (2016) republished in ebook. I received a kindle format ebook at no cost, prior to ebook publication, in return for publishing an honest review.

The setting is dystopic near future where a not-understood disease has wiped out most of the human population, but especially women and children. The main character is a physician’s assistant and midwife from San Francisco, who survives the plague and the immediate social breakdown, and who lives disguised as a man. While she uses several assumed names, her actual name is never given, nor is a physical description of her.

This book was presented to me as similar to Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, but truthfully the tone has more in common with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale - except that the feminist tropes were more original 30 years ago in The Handmaid’s Tale than they are now. Rape and slavery of women is the norm among survivors, except in isolated communities where women are reduced to their reproductive capabilities. Birth control is the only possible last defense of women’s autonomy. A large portion of the narrative involves a setting in a surviving LDS (Mormon) community in Utah, and Elison demonstrates a high awareness of that culture, using it to call out and condemn aspects of American society in general.

The travelling unnamed midwife is able to enter and explore various social patterns that are emerging in isolated locations across America, some of which are certain to collapse, and others of which may survive. The frame of the story is from a more distant future, when the journal of the unnamed midwife is a historical document. In these emerging societies, the role of women seems polarized into either the top or the bottom rung with regard to the larger male population. One such society is patterned after a hive, with a central queen and a number of drones and sexual partners. I’m not sure how sustainable this would actually be, and that is definitely not explored in any depth. It’s just presented as an accomplished fact, at which the reader can marvel.

Still, the plot is engaging, with tension especially in survival and sexuality. The secondary characters are as fascinating as the unnamed midwife herself, with their own personalities and perspectives which go beyond simply decorating the main character. I have read that a sequel is being written, which focuses on a very minor character from near the end of the book. Since I felt that minor character was very much a poorly developed stereotype, I am not inclined to pursue the sequel. But I could be wrong. In any case, this is a strong first novel, and I recommend it.
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