My Name is Mary Sutter

February 15, 2010
The Civil War offers a 20-year-old midwife who dreams of becoming a doctor the medical experience she craves, plus hard work and heartbreak, in this rich debut that takes readers from a small upstate New York doctor's office to a Union hospital overflowing with the wounded and dying. Though she's too young for the nursing corps, Mary Sutter goes to Washington, anyway, and, after a chance meeting with a presidential secretary, is led to the Union Hotel Hospital, where she assists chief surgeon William Stipp and becomes so integral to Stipp's work she ignores her mother's pleas to return home to deliver her sister's baby. From a variety of perspectives—Mary, Stipp, their families, and social, political, and military leaders—the novel offers readers a picture of a time of medical hardship, crisis, and opportunity. Oliveira depicts the amputation of a leg, the delivery of a baby, and soldierly life; these are among the fine details that set this novel above the gauzier variety of Civil War fiction. The focus on often horrific medicine and the women who practiced it against all odds makes for compelling reading.

April 15, 2010
In Oliveira's first novel, an ambitious young woman finds love and professional fulfillment while amputating limbs during the Civil War.

Mary Sutter is a midwife—a very good one—but she wants more. She wants to be a doctor, but 19th-cetunry mores won't permit it. When the nation divides in bloody conflict, Mary seizes the opportunity to learn medicine—and flee from the pain she experiences when a man she loves marries her more conventionally feminine twin, Jenny. The book has many elements that make for compelling historical fiction, but issues with pacing and dialogue are evident from the beginning. The novel's opening scene features an expectant mother exhausted and endangered by a difficult delivery, which should provide a dramatic means of showing Mary's expertise and dedication to her craft. Instead, both the heroine and her author demonstrate a lack of interest in this woman's perilous state. Mary harangues the attending physician—the man she is determined to make her mentor—and Oliviera diffuses this tense, life-and-death scene with lengthy passages of exposition. The rest of the novel is similarly disappointing. Oliveira's knowledge of social, military and medical history seems sound, but her skill as a writer does not match her skill as a researcher.

An interesting subject that would have benefited from better execution.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from April 1, 2010
Despite her skill as a midwife, Mary Sutter cannot overcome the obstacle that bars her from further medical training: her gender. The Civil War changes everything. After her brother enlists in the Union Army, Mary follows him from Albany to Washington, DC, to volunteer as a nurse. She ends up at the ramshackle Union Hotel, crowded with recruits dying of disease, where Dr. William Stipp reluctantly agrees to hire her. As Union losses mount, her work becomes essential. But she relents to her mother's pleas to return home to help her twin sister through childbirth. After failing to save her sister, Mary returns to the front, where she eventually performs surgery in partnership with Stipp, whose admiration for her skill deepens to love before new family concerns carry her home again. VERDICT Oliveira deftly depicts the chaotic aftermath of battles and develops her own characters while incorporating military and political leaders of the time. The historic details enrich the narrative without overshadowing Mary's struggles. This well-written and compelling debut will engage all readers of historical fiction, especially those interested in the Civil War. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 1/10; eight-city tour.]Kathy Piehl, Minnestoa State Univ. Lib., Mankato

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2010
Oliveiras graceful, assured portrayal of a courageous woman shines through in her outstanding debut novel. Mary Sutters expert midwifery skills are renowned throughout Albany, New York, in 1861, yet she yearns for more. After local physicians refuse to formally train her in medicine, and her hoped-for husband chooses her twin sister instead, she heads south to Washington, D.C., bringing only a valise and her single-minded ambition. Mary runs into prejudicial roadblocks even there but gains acceptance as a charwoman-turned-nurse at the Union Hotel hospital. While caring for wounded, disease-ridden soldiers under appalling conditions, she persistently ignores family pressures to return home. The viewpoint shifts between Mary, her family members, two doctors who come to love her, and real-life figures like Lincoln and Dorothea Dix, ensuring an intimate yet wide-ranging portrait of the chaos, ineptitude, and heartbreak of wartime. Oliveira has a firm grasp on the finer details of the era and lets readers form their own judgments about the painful decisions made by her appealingly vulnerable characters. This impressive historical epic deserves a large readership.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)