By Piyali C.
Set in a small town called Hallowell in Maine, the year is 1789. Maine is in the throes of winter and the mighty Kennebec River has frozen, entombing a man in the ice. The midwife and healer of Hallowell, Martha Ballard, is called to examine the body and determine the cause of death. Several months ago, the wife of Hallowell’s pastor, Rebecca Foster, was allegedly raped by two prominent citizens of Hallowell; one of them, Joseph Burgess, is the man found dead, stuck in the ice. There are horrific bruises on the body of the dead man to indicate that he may have been murdered before being thrown into the river. This incident pushes the sleepy town of Hallowell into an intricate legal battle, full of conspiracy, power plays, and intrigue. The punishment for rape is death, but proving rape is almost impossible.
Martha Ballard finds herself deeply entrenched in all of this, as she was the one who determined that Rebecca Foster had been raped after examining her bruised body. By doing so, Martha makes some powerful enemies, and they try to intimidate Martha by targeting her husband and children. But Martha, who has learned to read and write at a time when women were discouraged from doing either, kept records of the weather and her activities in midwifery every day of her life. She is called to be a prominent witness and her journal plays a pivotal role. Having read The Sewing Girl’s Tale by John Wood Sweet not too long ago, I knew that this trial to prove rape and hold the perpetrators accountable in the late 1800s would likely be an exercise in futility.
This book, unlike Lawhon’s other ones, is inspired by true events but not based on them. She admits that she took real-life characters and while relying heavily on historical facts, she fictionalized certain aspects of the story to make modern readers completely immersed in the plot and the characters. Martha Ballard indeed kept detailed accounts of her daily life, profession, and weather throughout her life. She was called regularly to court to give her professional opinion on cases relating to rape, children born out of wedlock, murder, and female promiscuity at a time when women were not allowed to enter courthouses without the presence of their husbands or fathers. She was respected for her midwifery, and it has been recorded that she made no distinctions between White or Black mothers at the time. There were 12 free Black families living in Hallowell according to the census, and Martha delivered babies of every color. Martha Ballard is the great aunt of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross. And according to the author’s note, “She is also the great-great-great grandmother of Mary Hobart, one of the first female physicians in the United States. She left a medical legacy in this country that is unmatched. And it is thanks to the diary she kept.”
I had a difficult time putting this book down, not simply because of the mystery surrounding the death of Joseph Burgess or the rape case, but because of the courageous protagonist and her determination to tell the story of women at a time when they were subjugated. The characters are superbly etched. They came alive in my mind as I read the book and so did the frigid winter of Maine. The writing is beautiful, lucid, and atmospheric. I lived in Hallowell in the deep, dark winter, witnessing the events alongside the Ballard family as Ariel Lawhon navigated through the lives of the characters in this book, documenting their joys, sorrows, triumphs, and losses.
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon is available in print and large print, as well as e-book and e-audiobook formats.
Piyali is an instructor and research specialist at HCLS Miller Branch, where she facilitates Light But Not Fluffy and co-facilitates Global Reads. She keeps the hope alive that someday she will reach the bottom of her to-read list.
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