Midwives by Chris Bohjalian

This book was set in a time (the early 1980s) where home birth was still largely frowned upon. It struck interest with me at first as I was a home birth in 1988 where according to my mother, the situation was much the same. She actually had to persuade our family doctor to accept it and the midwife she had was one of the few in Wellington who would do a home birth.

Midwives written in the perspective of the daughter of a lay midwife, Sibyl Danforth who performs most of her births at home and is taken to court for involuntary manslaughter when she is forced to perform a c-section in terrible conditions and later accused of doing this while the woman was still alive, killing her. We are provided throughout with excerpts from Sibyl's notebooks which show her criticisms of "doctor speak" and put across her opinion as a full advocate of home birth. Her daughter, Connie, the narrator is looking back at this period of her life, having now become an OB/GYN and recalling the trial that changed her family's life when she was just 14.

We are drawn into Connie's fear for her mother and more widely for her environment early on as she documents the days after the fateful night when she discovers her mother is going to be criminally charged. The early life of her mother and father is also shown throughout, always outside the mainstream, yet they bring up Connie sensibly and by 14 she seems to be a reasonably mature girl.

I didn't enjoy this book quite as much as Trans-sister Radio, another book by the same author but I think it was definitely a good read and an interesting insight into both the criminal justice system and the process of birth. I would highly recommend it.

Trans-sister Radio by Chris Bohjalian

I have been reading, just not updating due to an influx of before mid-term tests. Anyway this book was lent to me by a friend. It was I thought a pretty good description explored in different perspectives when Dana a male-female transexual about to receive a sex change operation tells his (will refer to as his until post-sex change otherwise I get confused) girlfriend and the wider community becomes aware of it. The story is also punctuated by excerpts of a radio show on transexuality and gender dysphoria.

Allie, Dana's girlfriend goes through highs and lows confused about her own sexual orientation through the process of Dana's transformation. Her daughter, Carly who has gone off to college adjusts to the news and tries throughout the book to create her own concept of gender which is so fluid yet seems so stringent. The struggles of Dana are also told, depressive teenage years, parents who don't understand and a final acceptance. These characters are all very real, the story very poignant and it also shows the reaction people can have to something which even in this day and age is widely misunderstood. It's also effective that Dana, once a female attempts to maintain her relationship with Allie and also is forced to confront her own sexual orientation, which is also quite fluid.

This book I thought did a very good job of exploring how a sex change operation affects both the person undertaking it, and more widely the people around. I highly recommend it.