Miles and I were milling around the book table in Costco last week and My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira caught my eye. I had never heard of this book, but since we are planning a Civil War pilgrimage (sometime before the 150 Anniversary ends) I have been trying to find interesting historical novels about the Civil War so I’m not left aimlessly wandering around gift shops while Miles thrills in the history of Battlefields and weeps over the grave of General Stonewall Jackson’s arm. In other words, I too, want to know and care about the Civil War. :)
My Name is Mary Sutter is about a young woman who comes from a long generation of midwives and who is one herself. She wants more though - she wants to be a surgeon. The story that unfolds has four narrative layers: Mary’s struggle to become a surgeon, Mary’s romantic issues with three different men, her sometimes troubled relationship with her family, and the war itself.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The story moved at a good pace until around the last 75 pages or so, when it became slow and cumbersome. Perhaps the author was trying to mirror the end of the war itself? In any case, the novel was well-researched (I fact checked with Miles) and when Oliveira wasn’t inserting melodramatic scenes of what she imagines Lincoln felt at his son’s death or when he was planning on writing the Emancipation Proclamation, the story moved seamlessly between chapters detailing historical events and the story of Mary’s many struggles and triumphs.
Oliveira’s prose was impressive as well. She was poetic without being sentimental. For instance, at one point Mary is looking up at the constellation of Cassiopeia:
“Mary was pondering the celestial queen rising to prominence in the southern sky. Ambitious, doomed, reckless. It was unfair, Mary thought, that the stars couldn’t rearrange themselves. That a queen who dared to question the gods would be forever stuck in such an unappealing posture.”
Finally, I think one the most satisfying aspects of this novel was that Mary was not a beautiful woman. It was so refreshing to have a heroine who didn’t catch every man’s eye because she had a willow thin waist and a propensity to faint whenever it was romantically convenient. Mary is a robust woman with frizzy hair, yet she’s attractive because of her confidence, compassion, and ambition. What a nice change to read about a woman who is valued for what she does and who she is, rather than how she looks.
