Obstetrix, by Naomi Kritzer

[mrissa]

 

Review copy provided by the publisher. Also the author is a good friend.

Thrillers and near-future SF are not the same beast. Naomi has written tons of the latter, but as far as I know this is her first foray into the former. And she nails it--the differences in pacing and focus are all spot-on for a thriller. The general plotline of this particular thriller is: an obstetrician under fire for having provided an abortion to a high-risk patient is kidnapped by a cult to handle their obstetrics (and general medical) needs. If you just went, "Ohhhhhh," this is the novella for you.

Some points of clarity: the cult is not a sensationalized one. It's a very straightforward right-wing Christian compound, not wild-eyed goat-chompers but the sort of people who firmly believe that they're doing the right thing while they treat each other horribly, the sort you can find in some remote corner of every state of the US. Without violating someone's privacy, I know someone who joined a cult like this, and Naomi gets the very drab homely terror of it quite right.

One of the things I love about Naomi's writing is that she never relies on Idiot Plot. You never have to say, "but why doesn't Liz just blah blah blah," because Liz does just blah blah blah--that is, she does try the things a sensible person might try, and there are reasons they don't work, or don't work instantly, or are considered but actually can't be tried for lack of some particular element of the plan. But Naomi's characters not only try things, they keep trying things. I love the doggedness of Liz and of several others who aren't even sure what they're reaching for, who have been in a terrible place to find it, but keep striving all the same.

Comments

[profiterole_reads]

Fascinating! Any sapphic rep?

[mrissa]

It's not really the kind of book with romantic relationships at all. The protagonist is in a situation where she is just surviving, and the people she's forced into helping have very little room for choice in their lives. So there's a lot of acknowledgment of other possibilities but that's not where the focus of the story is.

[profiterole_reads]

Good to know. I don't really mind, but my time is limited, so we'll see.

[pameladean]

I am really looking forward to reading this one! And I do like how often in Naomi's work badassery strongly resembles just not quitting. It's great.

P.

[kass]

Ooh. Hm, I will consider this. Thrillers aren't usually my jam but I do love Naomi's writing. I note that there was a cult in the second Catnet book, also; I hope this is just a subject of deep interest for the author rather than something she's had to live through?

[gwynnega]

I just went "Ohhhhh" and requested it from my library. (Darn it, it doesn't come out until next year!)

[davidgoldfarb]

I'm a fan of Naomi Kritzer and will get this, but the title keeps making me think that it ought to be set around 1 CE in a Gaulish village at the tip of Brittany.

[mrissa]

I feel like I shouldn't answer this because then if you ask something similar of someone else later in a circumstance that requires privacy, the lack of answer will feel like an answer. But in fact Naomi is a dear friend who grew up in a healthy family and has had a very stable adulthood; the cults in her books are all fiction rather than immediate...to the extent that they're not-immediate to anyone in 21st century America.

[asakiyume]

What's the origin and significance of the term "goat-chomper"? Like is that people chomping goats? Or they're like goats? (I know this is a very minor thing to focus on....)

[kass]

I didn't mean to put you on the spot, though I am really glad to hear that the cult experience is not her personal experience. Her books have brought me SO much joy. (And my teenager, too.) And I reread "The Year Without Sunshine" when I need to feel less despair about the world.

[mrissa]

I made it up on the spot to describe the kind of fiction about cults that is extremely melodramatic about things like sacrificing goats.

[asakiyume]

Got it, got it! It's very vivid! I was trying to connect it to The Witch somehow.

Thanks!

[anef]

I know exactly what you mean!