My Name Is Mary Sutter

By Robin Oliveira (384 pages)

Published by Viking

Bookish rating: 4.25

“Did you know this book won the Langum Prize for historical fiction?” asked the librarian at my teeny tiny local library, slamming the book down on the counter (she’s the loudest librarian I’ve ever met. She yells, too—not at you but to you, as part of normal conversation. I find it refreshing, as librarians have always scared me, mainly because they’re usually—in my experience—cranky, controlling beeyotches.)

“No, I didn’t know that,” I said, not wanting to admit that I had no clue what the Langum Prize was, though I certainly appreciated how up to date the loud librarian was on bookish prizes. “It didn’t have much of a queue for the holds,” I added. “Are people not reading it?”

She shrugged and asked me if I wanted a print-out of my books’ due dates. I declined.

In the mood for a good, absorbing historical novel, I remembered my quasi-conversation with the librarian and selected the Civil War–era My Name Is Mary Sutter from my rather ambitious stack of reading material.

I was hooked by the first page, which dumps us into a birthing scene that’s not going terribly well. Mary Sutter, a talented midwife, swoops in, turning the baby and saving the day. I am not typically a nail biter, but I’ll freely admit that I nibbled a bit on my pretty nails during the first pages.

Obviously, the novel starts out strong. Continually blocked from entering medical school, and thus becoming a surgeon, Mary is stuck delivering babies (which I think would be far more exciting and gratifying than hacking off legs, but whatever.) As the Civil War dawns, she seizes her opportunity and moves to Washington to care for the wounded. There, she’s sort of apprenticed as a surgeon.

Oh, the horrors of (1) war, (2) DC summers, (3) lack of flushing toilets, and (4) 19th-century medicine. Mary comes face to face with disease, death, the futility of war, and the Union’s sheer lack of preparedness. The logistics alone—how do you transport thousands of wounded soldiers to Washington for medical care? What will you use for supplies? Where should you put all those legs you chopped off?—were fascinating.

Also fun (for this Marylander, anyway) was the constant referencing of areas right here in our neck of the Potomac. In fact, my teensy town was mentioned in the novel as one of the places for makeshift hospitals housing the wounded. I read that and thought, that’s right! Our old, brick, one-room church was made into a makeshift hospital after the Battle of Ball’s Bluff! Snuggled in my bed, a quarter mile from the church, reading about my quaint town (and my old church) so vividly, I loved the unexpected connection to the story. And that’s some top-notch research done by Oliveira.

My Name Is Mary Sutter is a highly entertaining, wonderfully written novel. (My only quibble was that President Lincoln was portrayed as a way better dude than he actually was.) Highly recommended.

CORRECTION: This book won honorable mention for the Langum award. My thanks to the anonymous commenter for pointing this out.