The Midwife of Venice

“Odd that you should choose to be a midwife, having never experienced birth yourself.”

In other circumstances the words would have stung. She thought, Do not physicians provide medicaments for illnesses they have never suffered? But Hannah held her tongue. Two in her care were suspended between life and death. She had more important matters to worry about.

I want to start with a caveat: I don't tend to read historical fiction, and if I did, I wouldn't be looking for historical fiction built around domestic drama and romance. So, for all I know, The Midwife of Venice might be a very fine example of its genre, and if others find it satisfying, then it succeeds. As for me, I picked this book up because I'll be in Venice next week and wanted to get in the mood – and it worked for my purpose, too. This was a fine, if lightweight, read; I doubt I'll seek out the other volumes in this trilogy.

You are ruled by men – the Rabbi, Isaac, our father when he was alive. You are a little ghetto mouse and will never be anything else.

As the book begins, Hannah – a Jewish midwife of extraordinary gifts – is summoned by a rich Venetian nobleman to attend to his wife. Not only is it against the law for Jews to offer medical aid to Christians, but as Hannah's Rabbi warns her, if either the Contessa or the baby were to die under her care, their Ghetto's entire population would be held to account. Hannah is moved by the Conte's account of his wife's condition, but more so, she sees his desperation as an opportunity: Hannah's husband, Isaac, has recently been kidnapped and enslaved by Maltese Knights, and if she is able to demand a high enough fee for her services, she'll be able to pay his ransom and bring the man she loves back home. The narrative moves between Hannah's drama in Venice and Isaac's in Malta, and with plenty of cliffhangers, manufactured suspense, and not-quite-credible circumstances, the plot advances through a fairly predictable story arc. The historical facts are often inserted inorganically:

Now he was in Valletta, capital city of Malta, stronghold of the Knights. During their long nights and endless days in jail, Simón, another Ashkenazi Jew and a fellow prisoner, had explained to Isaac that in 1530, Charles V of Spain had bestowed this island of rock and wind on the Knights of St. John in exchange for their protecting the archipelago against the infidel Turk. The Knights succeeded in defending the land from the rapaciousness of the Ottomans, but over the years they had grown greedy. Bewitched by their victories, they used the pretext of defending their island to prey not only upon the infidel ships of the Ottomans but on Christian ships as well, seizing cargo and enslaving all on board, rich or poor, merchant or servant, woman or child. They called themselves Knights but they were little more than pirates, grown rich through crimes sanctified in the name of the Holy Crusade.

And the drama was quite dramatic:

Hannah felt a pain under her breast and a tearing sensation, as though her heart had come loose from its moorings. In her mind's eye, she covered the mirror and rent her clothing. These were not the empty gestures prescribed by the Rabbi years ago, but heartfelt this time. Shiva was complete. Now, Jessica was truly dead to her.

But still, author Roberta Rich captured something of the feeling and history of Venice; this wouldn't be inappropriate for high school students to read before The Merchant of Venice in order to get a sense for Shylock and the injustices he lived under. With mention made of everything from the canals to plague doctors to Commedia dell'arte, Rich obviously put in plenty of research and she whetted my appetite for the soggy city. Good enough for my purposes.

When you unconsciously dress like a gondolier in Venice