The Frozen River (2023) by Ariel Lawhon (2024 Goodreads Choice Nominee for Reader’s Favorite Historical Fiction) was a recent book group choice, and I’m so glad that it was. Although I love historical fiction, I might not have gotten to it as quickly if it hadn’t been a book group choice. And it has the honor of being a book that I started listening to as an audiobook and then got so into it that I needed to get the print copy so I could read faster to find out what happens!
Lawhon fictionalizes the true story of Martha Ballard, a midwife in Maine, who in real life left a diary, and in the long winter of 1789-1790 testified in court about a rape that had occurred in their small town. Here, though, the book opens with a murder, and quickly follows with a birth. Martha becomes heavily involved with investigation of the murder, and many more births follow. There’s also something strange going on, as her husband is sent to do a survey north in the middle of winter, and she just can’t seem to connect with one of her sons any more.
She is just past midlife, married with six surviving children–one has married and moved away, but five children–a son who is about 12 through two nearly grown daughters about 17 or 18, to two sons in their early and mid-20s still live at Ballard’s Mill with Martha and her husband, Ephraim. Ephraim taught her to read when they married, and the midwife who attended her first two births trained her as her replacement. Because there were no doctors in the town of Hallowell at the time, Martha was often called to testify regarding births if the mother was unmarried and disclosed the father during the birth, and suspicious deaths. Though rape has always occurred, it was rare for trials to happen.
The murdered man is one who was accused of rape by the preachers’ wife several months ago. But the judge was also accused of participating in the rape, and Martha knows that can’t be appropriate for him to preside over the inquiry. And there were several witnesses to a beating of the murdered man at a dance the night before by her mute son. And when she testifies about the death and her belief it was a murder, a Harvard-trained doctor new to town shows up and contradicts her belief, claiming he thinks it was an accident–the man merely fell into the river, which froze over that same night.
There are a lot of characters, but they aren’t too difficult to keep track of. I loved how Lawhon made the area, including the Kennebec River itself (and the difficulty or ease in crossing it), a character as well. There is a silver fox that appears to Martha at opportune times, and her husband has a falcon named Percy who also shows up at significant times.
Martha herself is fierce, a defender of women and of those she cares about. She knows when she needs to get help, and I loved her partnership with Ephraim. But they have also faced loss together, as three of their daughters died as children from diptheria, which also left her eldest son, Cyrus, mute. He was completely literate, but his voice didn’t work after the illness.
The historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich won the Pulitzer in 1990 for her research with Martha’s diary with A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812. At the time, not many women were literate, and so the fact that she detailed her daily life and that the record survived is amazing. In her author’s note, Lawhon admits to using Martha’s diary and A Midwife’s Tale for about 75% of the book, but because historically there was rarely justice for a raped woman, Lawhon made sure to craft a satisfying, just ending in the book. All of the loose ends are tied up–it is an excellent story and I highly recommend it.
I consider it weight-neutral. There was some mention of a woman’s plumpness or curves, or a man’s bulk, but all of those descriptions were neutral and were not done with any negative associations.
Reading While Fat 