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William Morrow
September 2006
Featuring: Dora Rare
320 pages ISBN: 0061135852 Hardcover
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Women's Fiction
The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the
first female to be born in five generations of Rares. As a
child in a small villiage in Nova Scotia, she is
befriended by Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife
with a talent for telling tales and a kitchen filled with
herbs and folk remedies. Dora becomes her apprentice at
the outset of World War I. Together they help the women of
Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labour, breech
births, unwanted pregnancies and even unfulfilling
marriages. When Gilbert Thomas, a brash medical doctor comes to Scots
Bay with promises of sterile, painless childbirth, some of
the women begin to question Miss Babineau's methods. After
her death, Dr. Thomas doubles his efforts to eliminate
midwivery in the area. He sets out to undermine Dora's
credibility by blaming her for the death of Mrs.
Experience Ketch, a woman who had once sought Dora's care.
Gossip follows, the women begin to take sides, and Dora
must sommon all her strength to protect the birthing
traditions and women's wisdom of her community.
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