2013 book 223

Kate Manning's My Notorious Life
Apparently books based on REAL HISTORICAL FACTS are the hot new thing; this is like the third or fourth one I've read recently. It manages to read more like an actual novel and less like a bunch of history crammed into a novel than some of the others, though. (I did worry that it was going to turn into a polemic on Why Abortion Should Be Legal, and it does kind of skirt that line at times.) Anyway, this one is about an apparently notorious New York midwife in the mid-1860s; the story starts off strong with her childhood in extreme poverty, as she and her siblings are sent out West on an orphan train. She works her way up the ranks through some luck and through intelligence/experience, which is all pretty compelling. I will say that a large chunk of the second half involves her railing against newspapers and their accusations against her; I understand that this novel is being presented as a memoir, and someone writing a memoir certainly would want to refute accusations against them, but it got a little bit boring. And I was really discomfited by the relationship between the protagonist and her husband--they're awful to each other. It's really her relationship with her sister that was the heart of the story, to me. This is a solid work of historical fiction, for sure, with a satisfying ending. B/B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 10th.