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Irish Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon: Fictionalised murder mystery inspired by a towering real-life midwife
The Frozen River Author : Ariel Lawhon ISBN-13 : 9781800755529 Publisher : Swift Press Guideline Price : £14.99 In November 1789, midwife and healer Martha Ballard is summoned to determine the cause of death of a man entombed in Maine's frozen Kennebec River. Her profession ensures she is more aware than most of the intimate lives of her close-knit community of Hallowell. Ballard keeps a diary, in which she not only records births and deaths, but also any crimes brought to her attention. She had noted the dead man's name months earlier as one of two alleged rapists of a local woman. Ballard declares the death a murder, but when the town's new physician disagrees, she decides to investigate alone. From the striking opening scene describing the frozen body to the thrilling showdown and delivery of justice – in several forms – months later, this dramatic narrative powers along as sure and strong as the Kennebec itself. A bestselling author of historical fiction, Lawhon has always taken pride in sticking closely to fact. The Frozen River is inspired by real events rather than based on them, making it her first deviation from 'biographical fiction'. She alters dates and events to suit her narrative, yet Martha Ballard (who delivered more than 1,000 babies in her career without losing a mother in childbirth) and her diaries were very real. It was unusual for a woman in Ballard's situation to be literate, making her decades of record-keeping even more remarkable. Lawhon's Martha regards her diary as a form of safekeeping, a chronicle of facts not feelings: 'Memory is a wicked thing that warps and twists. But paper and ink receive the truth without emotion, and they read it back without impartiality.' The imagery is consistently imaginative and period-specific ('the light feels weak and sickly, as though sifted through old cheesecloth') and Martha's character and her relationship with her community and family make for compelling reading. The research underpinning The Frozen River is impressively extensive, though the serving sizes can be large, such as passages about the ratification of the constitution or the workings of the legal system. Martha Ballard's life and legacy are impressive. She was great-aunt to Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, and great-great-grandmother of one of America's first female physicians. Through fiction, Lawhon celebrates and honours a memorable, and very real, woman.
Irish Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Tracker by Alexis Wright; Pig by Matilde Pratesi; Taking Manhattan by Russell Shorto
Tracker by Alexis Wright (And Other Stories, £19.99) 'Am I Aboriginal, or how much of an Aboriginal am I?' This question, posed by Tracker Tilmouth, encapsulates the profound introspection at the heart of Tracker . More than a biography, Alexis Wright's work is a living, breathing testament to oral storytelling. Chronicling the extraordinary life of Aboriginal leader Tracker Tilmouth, she assembles a chorus of voices, refusing to smooth them into a singular narrative. The result is messy, brilliant, and deeply human. Tilmouth emerges as a fiercely intelligent, often mischievous visionary – someone who saw beyond political pragmatism to a radically different future for his people. Wright challenges western notions of biography, privileging contradiction and collective memory over linear storytelling. It demands patience, but the reward is immense: a portrait not just of a man but of history in motion. Storytelling here is resistance – complex, unfiltered, and utterly compelling. – Adam Wyeth Pig by Matilde Pratesi (Little Brown, £20) This debut novel, shortlisted in 2023 for the Caledonia Novel Award, addresses the topics of neurodiversity and coercive relationships. However, the author's naive understanding of these subjects makes for an uncomfortable read. Vale, our pig-obsessed protagonist and narrator, is inconsistent as a character. The young Italian woman displays a lack of self-awareness when such is required of the plot and ample self-awareness when that is required of the plot. Vale's world, viewpoint and experience of a coercive relationship with her childhood friend challenge credibility. Pratesi may be well intentioned, but this is not matched by a knowledge base worthy of the neurodiverse community. Moreover, this lack of rigour does an injustice to Pratesi's characters and her readers. – Brigid O'Dea Taking Manhattan: The extraordinary events that created New York and shaped America by Russell Shorto (Swift Press, £20) New York was not named twice because it was 'so good', as the song says, but because two European imperial powers successively ruled and developed it on land that they annexed from the indigenous inhabitants. New Amsterdam, on the southern tip of Manhattan Island, was created 400 years ago, in 1625, by the Dutch West India Company. It was renamed 40 years later following a 10-day siege by four gunboats sent by Britain's Duke of York, who had been gifted its contiguous lands by his brother, King Charles II. A bloodless Anglo-Dutch 'corporate merger' then begat the 'hybrid colony', this scholarly and engaging history shows. – Ray Burke
