ABOUT THE BOOK
"A simply remarkable book. Robin Oliveira brings the Civil War era vividly alive with a heroine no reader will ever forget." -Ron Rash, author of Serena
Mary Sutter is a brilliant young midwife who dreams of becoming a surgeon. Eager to run away from recent heartbreak, Mary travels to Washington, D.C., to help tend the legions of Civil War wounded. Under the guidance of two surgeons, who both fall unwittingly in love with her, and resisting her mother's pleas to return home to help with the difficult birth of her twin sister's baby, Mary pursues her medical career against all odds. Rich with historical detail-including cameo appearances by Abraham Lincoln and Dorothea Dix, among others-My Name Is Mary Sutter is certain to be recognized as one of the great novels about the Civil War.
From Publishers Weekly
The Civil War offers a 20-year-old midwife who dreams of becoming a
doctor the medical experience she craves, plus hard work and heartbreak,
in this rich debut that takes readers from a small upstate New York
doctor's office to a Union hospital overflowing with the wounded and
dying. Though she's too young for the nursing corps, Mary Sutter goes to
Washington, anyway, and, after a chance meeting with a presidential
secretary, is led to the Union Hotel Hospital, where she assists chief
surgeon William Stipp and becomes so integral to Stipp's work she
ignores her mother's pleas to return home to deliver her sister's baby.
From a variety of perspectives—Mary, Stipp, their families, and social,
political, and military leaders—the novel offers readers a picture of a
time of medical hardship, crisis, and opportunity. Oliveira depicts the
amputation of a leg, the delivery of a baby, and soldierly life; these
are among the fine details that set this novel above the gauzier variety
of Civil War fiction. The focus on often horrific medicine and the
women who practiced it against all odds makes for compelling reading. (May)
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