My Notorious Life – by Kate Manning – independent book review – Historical Fiction (United States)

From New York City to rural Illinois, MY NOTORIOUS LIFE is an action packed historical novel about women, healthcare, and America in the 19th century. Awarded four stars on Goodreads.

The protagonist, Anne “Axie” Muldoon, is a poor Irish girl who grows up to become a prominent, caring, and dedicated midwife — but who nevertheless faces a relentless and deceptive pursuit by the legendary self-righteous anti-vice campaigner and Postal Inspector Anthony Comstock (1844-1915). Comstock appointed himself chief protector of Christian morality, opposing “obscene literature, abortion, contraception, masturbation, gambling, prostitution, and patent medicine.” (Wikipedia) He also opposed sending what he considered to be obscene information through the mail, including educational information about the functioning of women’s bodies.

While Kate Manning acknowledges in her Author’s Note that MY NOTORIOUS LIFE is essentially a work of fiction, she does incorporate aspects taken from the life of Madame Restell (aka Ann Trow Lohman (1811-78), a female physician practicing in New York City during this same era. Lohman too was pursued by Comstock. For me this book feels more like historical fiction than fiction.

Axis’s story begins when she is a child, trying to help her widowed mother by taking on the care of her younger sister and brother. After their mother is injured on the job, Axie and her siblings wind up in the hands of Charles Loring Brace (1826-1890), a philanthropist who founded the Children’s Aid Society and is known as both the father of foster care and for starting the orphan train movement. Axie and her sister and brother head west on a train to Illinois, full of promises made by adults that don’t ultimately come true. The two younger children are settled into separate homes and Axie ends up back in NYC, desperate to return to her mother.

Some years later, Axie becomes maid to a physician and his wife where she begins to learn her trade from the doctor’s wife, who handles the female patients. Midwifery work in this era included delivering babies, rudimentary contraception, medicating assorted women’s ailments, and, at times, providing abortions — usually to women too poor to support another child or those abandoned by their lovers. 

It’s fascinating to learn about women’s reproductive healthcare in the 1800s, when options were so limited. Trained male physicians actually knew little about the functions of women’s bodies, though, of course, they still felt they were the best option for providing care. There were few women physicians since most medical schools wouldn’t admit them. Some practicing midwives were knowledgeable and helpful but others were, at best, little more than women who had given birth themselves or, at worst, little more than butchers. So, choosing a caregiver was always risky and could potentially end in death.

I enjoyed MY NOTORIOUS LIFE and learned quite a bit about the lives of children and women in American cities during the 1800s. (Too often stories from this time period are about the wealthy of the Gilded Age.) There’s certainly plenty of drama, though I admit there were places where the book felt long to me. Overall, highly recommended. 

More about the author, Kate Manning.