You Must Read This
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon
Every laboring woman suspects that she is, in fact, moments away from death. This is normal. And it does not offend me. A woman is never more vulnerable than while in labor. Nor is she ever stronger, Like a wounded animal, cornered and desperate, she spends her travail alternately curled in upon herself or lashing out. It ought to kill a woman, this process of having her body turned inside out. By rights, no one should survive such a thing. And yet, miraculously, they do, time and again.
——
I was 41 weeks pregnant when I finally went into labor with my youngest son. This being my third child, I was well aware of how I delivered and had no desire to spend hours in pain at the hospital, so I delayed. After laboring all night at home, I finally allowed myself to be driven to the hospital early that morning. I spent that brief car ride alternately hissing at my husband for the bumpy ride or enraged at the joggers we passed. Those young men were taking advantage of the cool May morning and had the gall to jog shirtless. To say that I was irrationally angry was an understatement. I yelled at them as we were driving by, “Put on a shirt for God’s sake!"
By the time we arrived at the hospital and took a quick spin in the wheelchair over a brick floor foyer (only a man could invent such foolishness for a maternity ward) I could not form a coherent sentence. I know now that I was in transition, that phase of labor right before it’s time to push where a woman is most irrational. Luckily my sister was there (my husband was parking the car) to get me checked in. All I could utter to the check-in staff was a guttural “I don’t want to talk to you, right now.” At the time I thought I was being polite, but now I realize I was probably a little scary.
Soon thereafter my husband had caught up with us and handled all the unimportant details such as my name and how long I had been in labor. They quickly realized that there was little time to spare to get me to the delivery room, and indeed it was a matter of mere moments before it was time to push. All the necessary staff was gathered–my midwife and two labor and delivery nurses, my husband on one side and my sister by the other. Every few moments though, another nurse would poke her head in the door and stay around for a while–I had become quite the spectacle at this point, an all natural delivery in a hospital that specializes in high-risk pregnancies. Also, I wasn’t screaming in pain. Turns out, the nursing staff rarely got to see a run-of-the-mill delivery, so I started to gather a crowd.
I may not have been screaming, but there was pain. My baby was face up as opposed to face down which is the normal, and much preferred, position in labor. There was no real danger, just a longer and more painful delivery as all the hard parts of the baby’s head pressed against my tailbone with every push.
There I was toiling away on the hospital bed, my husband gently wiping the sweat from my brow and my sister holding my hand and helping to prop me up. In between contractions I become aware of a conversation:
Nurse #1: “Oh my god, I love your jeans.”
Nurse #2: “Yes, they are SOOOO cute.”
Nurse #1: “I love the pocket detail!”
Sister: (slightly confused but unfailingly polite) “Oh, uh thanks. I really love these jeans. They are so comfortable”
Nurse #1: “WHERE did you get them?”
Nurse #2: “Yeah, I’ve been looking for a pair like that.”
Painful contractions prevented me from catching exactly where you could purchase these pants (I know you too must be dying to know.) But the conversation continued for quite a few minutes on the merits of these supposedly fabulous jeans, until I became fed up and raised my head from the delivery table–red and sweaty faced and declared:
“Could you please focus on the miracle of childbirth happening in front of you instead of my sister’s sparkly ass?”
Properly chastened the nurses scrambled back to their posts and delivery resumed as normal–resulting in a healthy 8 pound 9 ounce boy and a very sore mama.
——
That remains the only time that I have been irritated at my sister’s ability to command a room. I maintain that perhaps, just that one time, the spotlight should have been on me. In all other circumstances I am delighted for her to be the center of attention.
Ariel Lawhon is my sister, New York Times Bestselling author of historical fiction. I am inordinately proud of her talent and professionalism. She is an amazing author whose technical and storytelling skills increase with each book. Not only that, but she is a pretty spectacular human. It is not lost on me how lucky I am to have such a person as a sister and friend.
Ariel and I are opposite sides of the same coin. Where I hate being the center of attention she thrives in the spotlight, where she is outgoing and quick thinking I am reserved and privately snarky, she is an open book I am a locked box. We compliment each other well and are best friends and co-conspirators.
As close as we are, and as proud of her as I am, I have no influence on her books. She does not bounce ideas off of me. I am not a pre-reader, I don’t offer opinions, and I don’t edit. I usually know the premise of her current project and that is it. As a result, I come to her books just like any other reader–when they are completely finished.
But unlike a regular reader, I am her sister first. She has this knack of writing real life anecdotes into her storylines. But I know how those events played out in real life. “Gah, she completely distorted that story to make a better outcome.” I know when she has written a part of her personality into a character. Then I can’t get HER out of my head as the story unfolds.
“What does she know about being a showgirl?”
“She’s never been on a zeppelin!”
“Ariel would never ride a bike through occupied France.”
Despite the fact that my logical brain knows this is what every author does to incorporate real life into a fictional storyline, I can’t ever seem to get lost in the story. I can’t see beyond her.
Until now..
The Frozen River captured my heart and imagination unlike anything else she has ever written. Her writing has leveled up, indeed you might say she skipped a few levels. But it’s more than that. The story she has crafted is meaningful and applicable to our modern world. Why? Why should a book about an unknown woman in 1789, about events that happened so long ago, matter so much?
Let me tell you why it matters to me.
Martha Ballard gives me hope for who I could be. As a reserved woman quickly approaching middle age, I am old enough to know who I am and who I am not. I appreciate a swashbuckling, convention bucking woman in literature as much as the next person, but that is not me. Martha resonated with me in a visceral way. A woman who put in years of hard work, diligently and quietly going about her business who was suddenly thrust into the spotlight and stood firm for justice–this, THIS is who I aspire to be. In her snarky thought life, but carefully moderated language, in her temper which is slowly roused but once lit burns fiercely and immoderately, in her willingness to put hand to task and do the hard thing, I see a better brighter version of myself.
Martha and Ephraim’s marriage is a satisfying answer to the promise of young love. So often in fiction we are given that first flush of romance or conversely we see a marriage in its death throes. So rarely do we see a couple as in love with each other after thirty years as they were when they first started. Maybe because it is a joy so few of us experience, but it is what we all hope for when we say ‘I do.”
We are in the twilight years of a long love affair, and it has recently occurred to me that a day will come when one of us buries the other. But, I remind myself, that is the happy ending to a story like ours. It is a vow made and kept. Till death do us part. It is the only acceptable outcome of a long and happy marriage, and I am determined not to fear that day, whenever it arrives. I am equally determined to soak up all the days between.
The Frozen River is a testament to the complexities of life. Especially as I get older, it feels as if I am jumping from one major life event to another and I still have to get dinner on the table. This book has the big tragedies of a rape trial and a murder mystery combined with professional rivalry, a land grab attempt, young love, and tragic loss all set the to the background of Martha’s daily life of delivering babies and nursing the ill.
From the moment of sheer joy that your brand new baby is laid upon your chest to the pains of burying one too soon, to the bittersweet moments of watching your youngest grow up too fast, to the ripping loss of a child who tears away from you, The Frozen River lays out the truth of what it is like to be a mother. Indeed motherhood is the core of the novel. So few books give the whole story; the unbridled joy mixed with unbearable grief of what it means to bring another human into this world and set them free.
Like all mothers, I have long since mastered the art of nursing joy at one breast and grief at the other.
It is the ordinariness of this extraordinary story that makes it so important. From motherhood to marriage to a complicated life led by an unlikely heroine that resonates despite, or maybe perhaps because of, its simple setting. Through the lens of a long, cold winter and one woman’s faithful perseverance I see the story of every woman I know reflected back at me. This is a woman’s job from the beginning of time, weaving all the disparate threads of life together for the ones she loves.
I have lost my train of thought, cannot remember what I meant to find in the diary. This is the trouble faced by any woman who sets pen to paper in a busy household. I am never guaranteed the certainty of quiet, much less a solid length of time to chase my thoughts and bind them together. That is the luxury of men with libraries, butlers, and wives. Mothers find a different way to get their work done.
I find it particularly sweet that more than ten years ago Ariel was with me in the delivery room, witnessing a midwife in action, but that it was her own lived experience of the joy and heartbreak of motherhood that created the backbone for this story. Ariel rightly deserves to be in the spotlight for The Frozen River. It is the culmination of both her skill as an author and her heart poured out for her own family.
And I may or may not have told her more than a few times since the birth of my son:
“Your personality should sparkle, not your clothes.”
Looks like there’s two writers in this family! Abby, your descriptions of both The Frozen River and your sister are stunning. And having birthed an 8# 11oz, 41 weeker, sunny-side-up baby myself, cheers to you sister. 🥂 Looking forward to getting to know you. 👋🏻
Wow! What a great way to introduce this book with quotes and glowing reviews! It’s high on my TBR list!