Today's special feature is by a debut fiction author who is not new to writing, although all the "before" products have been non-fiction. It's always intrigued me about the difference between fact and fiction and Patricia's guest blog post is about just that. So sit back sip your coffee or tea and enjoy a story.
Midwife
Book touring for my new novel,The Midwife of Hope River, (WilliamMorrow) across the South and in the Midwest, I’m often asked what it was liketo change from writing memoirs to writing my first novel. There are some uniquechallenges in writing a memoir, especially when you are a nurse-midwife orother health care provider. Youhave to be so very careful to protect patient privacy. In both my memoirs, The Blue Cotton Gown and Arms Wide Open: A Midwife’s Journey (BeaconPress), all my patients were deeply disguised. They were also asked to read their own chapters to be surethey were ok.
“You are more important to me than my book,” I told them as we sat inthe exam room. “If you want me tochange anything I wrote about you or if you don’t want to be in the book atall, I’ll take you out.” Fortunately, not one patient said no.
“If my story will help someone to not feelalone, I want it to be in there,” is what one woman said and I was touched.
In writing the memoirs, I also had to weigh concerns that friends,family members or colleagues might disagree with my account of our mutualexperiences. This was a challengeat first, until my husband gave me encouragement to speak the truth as I sawit. “It’s your story,” he toldme. “If they want to tell theirstory, they can write their own memoir.”
Writing ahistorical novel is quite different. For one thing, you don’t have to worry about hurting anyone’sfeelings! You don’t have tocarefully disguise every character. You are making them up! For another, there is meticulous research to do, but that was fun andcould mainly be done online or by reading books at home. I also used photographs to get the feelof the period.
They say, “Write what you know,” and I began my book, The Midwife of Hope River, by thinkingabout that. As a midwife, I knewabout delivering babies. I have performedhome and hospital births for over 30 years. I lived off the land much like a pioneer on rural communes forover a decade. I was a politicalradical back in the 1970s when we protested the war in Vietnam. I’ve even been in jail for peaceprotests.
Thus Patience Murphy was born, 36-year-old midwife living during theGreat Depression on a broken down farm, not by choice, but necessity. She’s a widow twice over, an ex-radicalfrom Pittsburgh and also wanted by the law in two states! (Now, for sure, you have to read thebook!) The story, told in the firstperson, opens on the day Wall Street crashed. The midwife is sitting at the bedside of KatherineMacIntosh, the wife of a wealthy mine owner, writing in her new leather boundjournal. Maybe that’s why writinga novel about a midwife, as if it was her account, wasn’t that hard. TheMidwife of Hope River is a memoir, Patience Murphy’s memoir.
Once Istarted writing, Patience and the others of the Hope River Valley, Bitsy, heryoung black assistant, Mrs. Kelly, her benefactor and Daniel Hester, the localvet, took on a life of their own and the story unfolded like a movie behind myeyes.
Thecharacters have now all become real to me and apparently to readers too. More than once I’ve received thecomment, “While reading The Midwife ofHope River, I forgot I was reading fiction, I began to feel that the peopleof the Hope River were real.” Inmy mind they are.
Here is a trailer for the book
Here are Patricia's other works
Buy the book here visit the author's website here
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