A great book for Women's History Month.
This is a work of historical fiction centered around a woman physician in the early decades of the twentieth century battling sexism, ageism, and conventional mores.
The fictional Dr. Eliza Edwards is a rarity in her time as a gynecologist and obstetrician in private practice in Boston. When the Great Depression forces her and professional partner to close down due to dwindling business, she is at loose ends. As a woman in her late 50s, there are very few options.
She finds a temporary opportunity at the polio institute in Warm Springs, GA where she will encounter a frustrating and difficult situation.
Her next challenge is in Jellico, Tennessee, a remote and impoverished community in the mountains of Appalachia, where she first assists a surgeon operating on children with facial birth defects, but then stays on to provide gynecological and obstetrical medical care. There she also meets individuals who will change her life in many ways.
As the 1930s roll into the 1940s, Eliza will return to Boston where she cares for an aging aunt who is suffering from dementia, seeing her younger son off to the war in the Pacific, and a host of other personal challenges – an early example of what we now call "the sandwich generation".
This is a fascinating book full of carefully researched historical information and memorable settings, and is peopled with both real-life figures and institutions, as well as well-drawn fictional characters. It is the second book featuring Eliza Edwards – the first is The Unlocked Path, covering her earlier years, which I plan to read as soon as I can.
No comments:
Post a Comment