the birth house
SPECIAL FEATURES
The Real Birth House
Recipe for a Groaning Cake
Interview with a Book Designer
Writing Under the Influence
THE REAL BIRTH HOUSE
A week after The Birth House was first published I received a call from an interested and eager news reporter in Halifax. “We’re thinking of coming out to Scots Bay for an interview. We can film the spot in the birthing room. Do you have any relics from the midwife?”
“Relics?”
“You know, an old cradle, a rocking chair, midwifery things.”
In that moment, I realized that the house fared much better in fiction than it looked in real life. In my writing, the house is new and at the centre of Dora’s world. In my life, the house is under continuous reconstruction and filled with toys, boys and noise. In my life, I wear overalls, garden clogs and a bandana on my head. In my life, I’m usually listening to my five-year-old pontificate to his big brother about the fundamental differences between belches and farts and whether or not they can exist in a black hole. In my life, I’m constantly battling my dog’s mysterious skin condition (one which causes her hair to fall out and her skin to smell as soon as the grass turns green in the spring). In my life, the reason I get any writing done at all is because I’ve given up on housework and embraced the “clutter fosters creativity” way of life.
“I have some medicine bottles that I found while digging in my garden and I have some old newspapers I peeled off the crumbling plaster walls in an upstairs storage room.”
“So, you haven’t restored the birthing room or anything like that?”
I sighed, thinking of the messy bookshelves and computer desk that now inhabit that space. “No, I’m afraid we haven’t gotten to that yet.”
“How about the kitchen?”
I sat at the kitchen table looking at the mishmash of wall coverings various residents had used to hold up the crumbling plaster—faux panelling, a patch of faux brick wallboard, the ugly wallpaper I’d been meaning to remove. Were the chubby white farm geese speckled on a blue background mocking me?
“Haven’t gotten to that yet, either.”
We settled on my travelling to the studio instead.
Since then, people have made their way to Scots Bay, asking, “Where’s the birth house?” Cars creep down my road, rolling to a long stop at the end of my driveway—and on several occasions there’s been a knock on the door. Sometimes I have time for tea, sometimes, (as much as I wish I did) I simply don’t.
I always wonder how the house had been pictured in their imaginations. It’s a question I’ve never had the courage to ask. Besides, my visitors have questions of their own: What happens to Wrennie? How did Miss B. wind up in Scots Bay? Do Rhett and Scarlett ever get back together? (Oops, that’s Margaret Mitchell’s question). I nod and smile. I’d like to know these things as well. Maybe one day my cluttered, wonderful old crone of a house will tell me.
RECIPE FOR A GROANING CAKE
The tradition of the groaning cake, or kimbly, at (or following) a birth is an ancient one. Wives’ tales say that the scent of a groaning cake being baked in the birth house helps to ease the mother’s pain. Some say if a mother breaks the eggs while she’s aching, her labour won’t last as long. Others say that if a family wants prosperity and fertility, the father must pass pieces of the cake to friends and family the first time the mother and baby are “churched” (or the first time they go to a public gathering) after a birth. Many cultures share similar traditions—a special dish, bread, or drink, spiced with cinnamon, allspice and/or ginger. At one time there was even a “groaning ale” made to go with it!
I made groaning cake the day of my son’s home birth and my neighbour brought me “health bread” the day after the birth. This recipe is a combination of the two. It has apple, molasses, orange juice and spices and can really help to see a woman through a long labour, or give her strength after the birth!
2½ cups
flour
2 tsp
baking powder
1 tsp
baking soda
2 tsp
cinnamon
½ tsp
cloves
3
eggs
1½ cups
apple, peeled and grated
½ cup
vegetable oil
½ cup
orange juice
¼ cup
molasses
11/3 cups
sugar
1 tsp
almond extract
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Line the bottoms of two 9? x 5? loaf tins with parchment. Oil the sides with vegetable oil.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and cloves.
In a separate bowl, beat eggs. Add apple, oil, orange juice, molasses, sugar and almond extract. Blend well.
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Mix well.
Divide batter between two prepared loaf tins.
Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick tester comes out clean.
Modify to make it your own by using about a cup of raisins, dates, dried fruits or nuts.
INTERVIEW WITH A BOOK DESIGNER
Ami McKay interviews Kelly Hill, the designer of The Birth House’s book cover
Q: Can you explain the process you went through in designing the cover for The Birth House? What were you trying to convey to the reader?
A: For every book I design, I first sit down with the editor, who describes the general themes and the storyline, the audience for the novel and offers comparable books or authors. I also like to read a portion of the manuscript to get a feeling for the writing and to look for “images” within the text. What I always want to do with a cover is present something that is true to the book with just enough intrigue, and hopefully beauty, that whoever picks it up will want more. In the case of The Birth House, I used the image of a pregnant woman (Who is she? Is she going to be okay?) and the label and botanical print, which hint to the Willow Book and the “scrapbook” style of the novel.
Q: The Birth House also includes many design elements within the text of the book, including advertisements, invitations, old news clippings and an herbal notebook—all circa World War I. What sorts of challenges did these elements present?
A: These were fun to work on. I used some actual ads from that time period as inspiration and did my best to mimic the fonts and graphic style. Since some of the authentic ads were not well designed I was allowed to break some of my own rules for the purposes of authenticity.
WRITING UNDER THE INFLUENCE
As an author, I’ve gotten used to answering the question “which writers have influenced your work?” I thoughtfully list off my favourites—Austen, Hardy, Dickens, Nabokov, Toni Morrison, Carol Shields—the assumption being, books beget books. While this is a valid assumption, I have to admit, there’s another artistic medium that shares an equal part of the light when it comes to inspiration and my writing.
Before I took up writing as a career, I was a full-time music teacher. I started piano lessons at the age of five and by the time I was seventeen, music school seemed the natural next step. (My sister always predicted I’d wind up being an opera diva, jazz singer or a punk rock star.) Lucky for me, being a musician and being a writer have much in common. The best way to get to publication (and to Carnegie Hall) is to practice, practice, practice.
Before I sit down to write, I often take a few minutes to noodle around on the piano or listen to a favourite piece of music. When I was writing The Birth House, folk and acoustic music played large into my musical taste—I spent hours listening to Pete Seger, Kate Wolf, Alison Krauss, Sarah Harmer, Joni Mitchell, Mary Jane Lamond and sacred harp singing. Truth and heart are at the core of those songs, and that was exactly what I was after when I was trying to find Dora’s voice.
Now as I turn to new projects (another novel,
as well as my first play), I find myself going back to the well of music for inspiration. Here’s some of the music that’s been the soundtrack behind my scribbling as of late.
Flamenco music
This is music that is mind, body and soul all at once. There’s passion and heartbreak, there’s spirit and movement. It’s a rich mix of cultures and history with a fair bit of mystery thrown in—making it irresistible to me.
Sketches of Spain
Miles Davis is an innovative jazz genius. I’ve gone back to listening to Sketches of Spain because it’s a beautiful example of what can happen when various forms of music collide. Gil Evans pulled inspiration from classical pieces of music inspired by Spanish folk music, and Miles then placed himself inside the music, bringing it to a whole new place. I can only hope to do this with my writing…
Madeleine Peyroux
Her voice is past and present all at once. This is what I’ve been after with the voice of my narrative as well—writing that feels very present and intense, yet holds a tone that comes from somewhere in the past. It’s the stuff of fairy tales, ghost stories and myths.
Danny Elfman
He isn’t only the wacky songwriter behind the group Oingo Boingo and the composer of the theme music for The Simpsons and Desperate Housewives; he’s also scored most of Tim Burton’s movies. The soundtracks to Edward Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow are my favourites. I love the way he brings dark and whimsy side by side. I’d love my next novel to “read” like an Elfman score sounds.
AMI MCKAY’s work has aired on CBC Radio’s Maritime Magazine, This Morning, Outfront and The Sunday Edition. Her documentary, Daughter of Family G, won an Excellence in Journalism medallion at the 2003 Atlantic Journalism Awards. She lives with her husband and two sons in an old birth house on the Bay of Fundy. Visit Ami’s website at www.thebirthhouse.com.
praise for the birth house
“Modern medicine clashes with folk remedies in The Birth House, McKay’s stirring saga of midwifery in Nova Scotia…. This is an impressive novel, laced with quirky research and rippling with muscular poetry.”
—The Observer (UK)
“An unusual, vigorous and disciplined novel.”
—The Irish Times
“By turns lyrical and gripping, brimming with historical detail and with a touching love story at the core, The Birth House brings to life a time, place and traditions long forgotten.”
—The Irish Post
“The Birth House has a spirited momentum and it is difficult not to be swept along by it. McKay’s writing is often beautiful, with colourful turns of phrase that mirror the earthiness of her setting, and her protagonist.”
—Sunday Business Post (UK)
“[McKay’s] writing is…injected with a sly sense of humour and chockablock with vivid images…. The Birth House is deeply infused with Maritime lyricism and more than a dash of its salty roots.”
—CBC Arts Online
“McKay has done her research…and along with her lyrical prose and deft storytelling, she cements the historical context with clippings of advertisements, news articles and correspondence among the characters.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Fresh as a loaf of homemade bread just out of the oven, The Birth House, a tale of sex, birth, love and pain, will more than satisfy the hungry reader.”
—Joan Clark, author of An Audience of Chairs
“The moon over Nova Scotia must have extra magic in it to have fostered a writer of Ami McKay’s lyrical sway and grace. She retrieves our social history and lays it out before us in a collage of vivid, compelling detail. In McKay’s depiction of Dora Rare, an early twentieth century midwife, attention is paid to the day-today moments of love and tending that enable humans to endure. And we the readers get to witness the emergence of a powerful new voice in Canadian writing.”
—Marjorie Anderson, editor of the Dropped Threads series
“Ami McKay is a marvellous storyteller who writes with a haunting and evocative voice. The novel offers a world of mystery and wisdom, a world where tradition collides with science, where life and death meet under the moon. With a startling sense of time and place The Birth House travels through a landscape that is at once deeply tender and exquisitely harsh. McKay is possessed with a brilliant narrative gift.”
—Christy Ann Conlin, author of Heave
“Reading Ami McKay’s first novel is like rummaging through a sea-chest found in a Nova Scotian attic. Steeped in lore and landscape, peppered with journal entries, newspaper clippings and advertisements, this marvellous ‘literary scrapbook’ captures the harsh realities of the seacoast community of Scots Bay, Nova Scotia, during WWI. With meticulous detail and visceral description, McKay weaves a compelling story of a woman who fights to preserve the art of midwifery, reminding us of the need, in changing times, for acts of bravery, kindness and clear-sightedness.”
—Beth Powning, author of The Hatbox Letters
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2007
Copyright © 2006 Ami McKay
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2007. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2006. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.
www.randomhouse.ca
This is a work of fiction. Any references to herbal remedies and/or midwifery techniques are not meant to be considered as a substitute for professional advice. They are not to be considered as viable treatments.
Excepts from the following songs are included in the book:
Chapter 11 “I Don't Want to Play in Your Yard” (Wingate & Petrie) copyright Petrie Music Co., Chicago, 1894; Chapter 13 “Waltz Me Around Again Willie” (Cobb, Shields) copyright F.A. Mills, N.Y., 1906; Chapter 30 “Little Bessie”(J.M. Barringer) copyright P.W. Search 1876; Chapter 41 “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (Eddie Green) copyright Handy Brothers Music Co. 1918; Chapter 44 “Come All Ye Old Comrades” traditional Nova Scotian folksong based on the Scottish folksong “The Donside Emigrant’s Farewell.”
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
McKay, Ami, 1968–
The birth house: a novel / by Ami Mckay.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37144-7
I. Title.
PS8625.K387B57 2007 C813'.6 C2006-904703-0
v1.0
Ami McKay, The Birth House
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