Dea Trier Morch depicts with uncommon skill an experienec that pays no attention to language differences or national boundaries: childbirth. Set in a maternity ward for difficult cases, her novel is unique in focusing on the weeks immediately before and after delivery. While December gives way to the new year the women enocunter the private anxieties and mysteries of motherhood, sharing a profound sense of solidarity and warmth in the midst of winter.Joan Tate's superb translation of the European best-seller introduces Dea Trier Morch to American readers. Morch, the author of five other books and the mother of three children, has illustrated her novel with striking block prints.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A prenatal ward in a hospital, sanctuary for expectant mothers having difficult pregnancies, is a grim enough format. Coupled with biologically exact details of deliveries, postnatal care of borderline infants andshould words not sufficeline drawings by the author of women delivering, expelling placentas and pumping out breasts, the chances of novelistic success seem limited indeed. But Danish author Morch surmounts these obstacles in this compelling work with strong feminist overtones. The reader is drawn into the life of a Copenhagen hospital ward, and made to care about each of the different young women portrayed here. Marie Hansen, who reads Marx on the labor theory of value until her pains begin, is the book's core, the progress not only of her pregnancy but of her premature baby's struggles for life meticulously charted. Other women and their families are also brought into focus; nurses and midwives, the occasional doctor, have their own individuality. The permutations of waiting for a baby generate the excitement and suspense of a first-class whodunit. The booka European bestseller and the basis of an award-winning filmis an exceptional reading experience.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Morch''s gripping narrative of life and death at its most elementary stages is an unusually powerful and honest tale."—Chicago Tribune
(Chicago Tribune )"The reader will gain valuable insight into the experience of childbirth and the individual and universal feelings of the women who share its wonder."—Los Angeles Times Book Review
(Los Angeles Times Book Review )"The process of awaiting birth and adapting to motherhood is vivdly described and graphically illustrated with the author''s own stylized but anatomically explicit prints. This book is perceptive and touching."—New York Times Book Review
(New York Times Book Review )
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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