IN THE HANDS OF WOMEN

In Rubin’s historical novel set in the early 20th century, an obstetrician fights to overturn laws that endanger her patients by restricting their reproductive rights.

In 1900, Hannah Isaacson is training to become a doctor at Johns Hopkins University. She is one of a small number of women the school permits to matriculate. Early on, Dr. Adams, the senior physician, threatens to report her to the medical board for insubordination after she expressed disapproval of how his negligence led to a baby’s death, and a fellow student, Roger Holloway, drunkenly attempts to rape her. Hannah perseveres and becomes a talented obstetrician who works at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, and Rubin inspiringly captures her tenacity in this first-person narration. Hannah becomes deeply concerned about the potential dangers of midwives performing abortions, an increasingly common practice: “My first and only true concern was safety. Midwives had no oversight, no formal training, and the anti-abortion laws were difficult to enforce,” leading to deadly complications for many women. Ultimately, she joins forces with the suffragist Margaret Sanger, to provide education to midwives and overturn the Comstock Laws that denied women access to contraceptive devices as well as sexual education, potentially endangering their lives. The author deftly captures the social challenges for women of the era, when sexism restricted their access to the best protections that science could offer. One can’t help but be impressed by the rigor of the author’s research; however, her portrayal of Sanger feels somewhat bowdlerized, as it elides the real-life figure’s support of eugenics theories. Also, the tone of the prose can be clumsily earnest, although it’s unfailingly clear. Still, the depiction of the era in which Hannah lives is so vividly instructive that it makes this a worthwhile read, especially at a time when its principal lessons seem on the verge of being forgotten.

A novel that features compelling history, hampered by uneven execution.