Robin Oliveira
publisher
Viking Adult
format
Hardcover
pages
384
Frank Delaney
The Flight of Gemma Hardy
Margot Livesey
American Dervish
Ayad Akhtar
Time and Again
Jack Finney
MY NAME IS MARY SUTTER is Robin Oliveira's debut novel of war, love, family, and most of all, of a young woman whose unwavering determination and vulnerability will resonate with readers everywhere.
Five years ago, Oliveira had a vision of a young woman in shabby period dress seated at a trestle table, her long neck arched over the shaft of a brass microscope, a shallow candle burning under a glass stage upon which a slide rested. Oliveira realized she was ignorant about everyday life in the 19th century: when and where were women admitted into medical school? What was Albany like during the Civil War? Did trains exist as a common mode of travel? Was it even possible for a woman to become a surgeon?
Oliveira's meticulous research resulted in this epic story of a young woman who leaves her home in Albany to nurse the Civil War wounded, encountering prejudice, violence, and devastation along the way, but through unwavering determination, becomes one of America's first female doctors.
MY NAME IS MARY SUTTER powerfully evokes the atmosphere of the period with rich historical details. But while Dorothea Dix, Abraham Lincoln, and John Hay make cameo appearances throughout, the character whom no one will forget is Mary Sutter, a truly remarkable heroine.
About the Author
Robin Oliveira grew up just outside Albany, New York in Loudonville. She holds a B.A. in Russian, and studied at the Pushkin Language Institute in Moscow, Russia. She is also a Registered Nurse, specializing in Critical Care and Bone Marrow Transplant. She received an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is the fiction editor for the literary magazine upstreet and a former assistant editor at Narrative Magazine. She was awarded the James Jones First Novel Fellowship in 2007 for her debut novel-in-progress, MY NAME IS MARY SUTTER, then entitled The Last Beautiful Day, an excerpt of which appeared in the 2008 issue of Provincetown Arts. She lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband, Andrew Oliveira, and two children, Noelle and Miles, who are away at college.
Beyond the book
The story behind the story, by Robin Oliveira:
Five years ago I had a vision of a young woman in shabby period dress seated at a trestle table, bent over the shaft of a brass microscope fitted with a slide, a shallow candle burning under its glass stage. The candle illuminated both the object she was studying and the walls of bookshelves filled with thick volumes, specimen jars and human bones. She seemed so hungry for knowledge. Who was she, I wondered, and what was she doing by herself in that lonely place at night? What were her disappointments, and to what lengths would she go to become the woman she wanted to be? Was she loved? I became worried about her; I had to find out who she was. More
From Publishers Weekly
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. (May)