Carolina has christened us “The Gynesaurs” – a bunch of bitter old hags – way past our reproductive prime, destined to die alone and be eaten by our cats. It's a very loose association. Mostly, you have to whine and complain about the sorrowful state of your life and resent the hell out of anyone who actually has one.
I came to read The Gynesaurs because of an article in our community newspaper celebrating a local author's success with self-publishing a novel based on her experiences working in an OB-GYN office. After finishing it, I have to admit that I found the book to be a little uneven – and it could definitely have used some extra proofreading – but ultimately, this story has a lot of heart and some interesting tales to tell. I don't know that it would have wide appeal, but I'm glad to see that author P. H. Oliver has succeeded in making something of a local stir.
You may as well know now that any preconceived ideas you have about the delicacy of women's conversation will be shattered when you're here. We feminists didn't burn our bras just so we could run through Elysium with our breasts flapping in the wind, you know. We did it so that we could scratch the balls we grew to get there, without apology.As the book opens, we meet Dr. Anthea Brock – a busy gynecologist and single woman living in a country home with two big dogs – and when she lets her mutts out that first morning, she needs to race after them as they escape to the yard next door. When she finally catches up, Anthea finds it hilarious that her young unfixed male has mounted her new neighbour's purebred, in-heat female, and in between laughing at the spectacle and cursing out loud and to herself, she apparently doesn't understand why this man is so upset (in a later scene, when she considers apologising, Anthea thinks to herself, “But really, anyone who cares that much about proper breeding in anything alive is probably not someone I'd get along with anyway”; which to me, is a weird thought for an OB-GYN.) I'm sharing the opening at length because my initial reaction was that I wasn't going to like Anthea or the book at all – too coarse, too unrelatable – but when the action moves to the doctor's office, I warmed up to both her and the story. Between the office staff and the patients, there is a wide range of women's experience to explore, and because a new medical student joins Anthea's office, the conversations the two of them have about atypical gynecological concerns is naturally and interestingly related. (I do think it is a misstep, however, to have had this student be a hot young man that the staff tease and leer at, leading one of them to quip that it's a good thing he has a sense of humour and doesn't sue them for harassment; sexual harassment is never funny.)
Anthea has a complicated background – her parents were from Wales, she was born in Canada but raised in the old country, returning to Canada to start her medical practise upon her divorce from the only man she'll ever love – and while this lends quite a bit of melodrama to the storyline, as the author is also from Wales, when Anthea travels back there for her recently deceased mother's interment ceremony, the added atmosphere and cultural touches were lovely and appropriate. Dating and parenting and caring for their elders adds a lot of further melodrama to the other staff's lives (not to mention mob hits, cancer scares, and dancing drunk and naked on the lawn), but the support that these women show for one another felt ultimately real and touching.
As for the proofreading: I'm no Grammar Nazi, but the constant misuse of commas and frequent wrong word choices (“perhaps [something] is praying on my mind”, “the familiar base tone of his voice”, “trying to find that one illusive pair of shoes”) was too distracting not to spoil my enjoyment. Further: I was left with a bad taste in my mouth with a final scene I couldn't believe; don't tell me someone has made a careful line-by-line read through a book, twice, and never noticed a note written to herself in the margin. Ah, but that's the risk of self-publishing, I guess, and overall, I'd say that P. H. Oliver has accomplished what she set out to do, as reported in the above article: “I tried to document the great depth of humour, pathos and support women generously share, when joined in the common experience of womanhood.” I got that from this book, and I enjoyed it.
