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| Although it focuses less on reproductive rights, Obstetrix still provides commentary on modern misogyny. (Image via MacMillan) |
Set in a near-future United States where women’s access to reproductive rights have faced further erosion, Obstetrix follows obstetrician Dr. Elizabeth Gwynn. The book’s setup centres on Gwynn’s criminal charges for performing a medically necessary abortion, forcing her to flee North Dakota. This suggests that Kritzer has set her sights on a work criticizing the broad-scale rising tide of authoritarian right-wing misogynist politics in her home country. However, the story quickly narrows its focus and policy issues take a back seat.
Within the first chapter, Gwynn is kidnapped by an eschatological sect and imprisoned in a compound run by fundamentalists with a narrow interpretation of the Bible. These Christian cultists force their children to get married at the age of 14, and expect every married woman to bear children on a regular basis. Gwynn’s role is to serve as their captive obstetrician, handling the complications of childbirth alongside other medical issues that arise on the compound.
Rather than offer us an over-the-top cult, Kritzer depicts a group based on a fairly mundane, bland, and terrifying version of Christianity that is removed from the American mainstream by degrees, rather than leaps and bounds. Their misogynistic control of women is fairly easy to find textual support for in the King James Bible, and the close-minded censorship and rejection of literature is not much different than many Christian groups that sprung up throughout America’s Second Great Awakening. The cult is scary precisely because its most fervent adherents could well be people we all know.
Kritzer has clearly spent some effort thinking about how a person of Gwynn’s educational and professional background might go about solving problems. For example, her approaches to handling the psychological pressures of dealing with the insanity of a fundamentalist sect are informed by medical practice and experience dealing with newborns and distraught new parents.
Since the cult has prohibited all books (even the Bible can only be read by the cult leader Father John), the captive Gwynn first finds comfort in trying to recount passages from a favourite novel titled, The Onyx Dagger. She then builds a semblance of community with select other women in the camp by sharing stories from the book. These other characters go on to play an important role in the denouement.
If anything is likely to keep Obstetrix from the Hugo ballot it’s that the award has often been likelier to recognize works that are more overt in their fantastical elements. This is instead a near-future dystopia that is sometimes indistinguishable from present-day U.S. What little technological progress may have taken place is largely outside of the purview of the story.
Given the turmoil in Kritzer’s home town of Minneapolis this winter, it is interesting that this book — which had to have been written prior to the chaotic deployment of armed officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement — seems to speak so directly to the present moment. If anything, events are outpacing the fiction we turn to as a source of comfort in these trying times.
Within the first chapter, Gwynn is kidnapped by an eschatological sect and imprisoned in a compound run by fundamentalists with a narrow interpretation of the Bible. These Christian cultists force their children to get married at the age of 14, and expect every married woman to bear children on a regular basis. Gwynn’s role is to serve as their captive obstetrician, handling the complications of childbirth alongside other medical issues that arise on the compound.
Rather than offer us an over-the-top cult, Kritzer depicts a group based on a fairly mundane, bland, and terrifying version of Christianity that is removed from the American mainstream by degrees, rather than leaps and bounds. Their misogynistic control of women is fairly easy to find textual support for in the King James Bible, and the close-minded censorship and rejection of literature is not much different than many Christian groups that sprung up throughout America’s Second Great Awakening. The cult is scary precisely because its most fervent adherents could well be people we all know.
Kritzer has clearly spent some effort thinking about how a person of Gwynn’s educational and professional background might go about solving problems. For example, her approaches to handling the psychological pressures of dealing with the insanity of a fundamentalist sect are informed by medical practice and experience dealing with newborns and distraught new parents.
Since the cult has prohibited all books (even the Bible can only be read by the cult leader Father John), the captive Gwynn first finds comfort in trying to recount passages from a favourite novel titled, The Onyx Dagger. She then builds a semblance of community with select other women in the camp by sharing stories from the book. These other characters go on to play an important role in the denouement.
If anything is likely to keep Obstetrix from the Hugo ballot it’s that the award has often been likelier to recognize works that are more overt in their fantastical elements. This is instead a near-future dystopia that is sometimes indistinguishable from present-day U.S. What little technological progress may have taken place is largely outside of the purview of the story.
Given the turmoil in Kritzer’s home town of Minneapolis this winter, it is interesting that this book — which had to have been written prior to the chaotic deployment of armed officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement — seems to speak so directly to the present moment. If anything, events are outpacing the fiction we turn to as a source of comfort in these trying times.
