Donati,
bestselling author of the historical Wilderness series, returns this
Fall and examines the lives of two descendants of her famous characters
Nathaniel and Elizabeth
Bonner: their granddaughters Liliane (Anna) and Sophie Savard. Their
story is set against the backdrop of the wondrous and exciting Gilded
Age, one of the most fascinating periods in America’s history, in New
York City.
THE GILDED HOUR highlights the touchstones of the Gilded Age,
which was characterized by enormous economic and industrial growth as
well as massive immigration and urbanization, which allowed extreme
poverty to coexist with extreme wealth in New York
City. Donati’s immensely researched novel explores the real-life
historical context of the Comstock Act, key advances in sanitation and
public health, career opportunities for 19th
century women and contraception practices. It’s also a beautiful novel, filled with mystery and intrigue.
The
year is 1883 and New York City is aflutter with extraordinary change.
As the Brooklyn Bridge nears completion in the background, the gap
between severe poverty and extreme
wealth and splendor is visible on every corner. Anti-vice crusader
Anthony Comstock is determined to purge the city of anything indecent,
and will stop at nothing to make sure his agenda is pursued. Anna
Savard and her cousin Sophie Savard have become successful
physicians, graduates from the Woman’s Medical School, and they treat
the city’s most vulnerable occupants.
Anna
works with orphaned children who remind her of her own upbringing as an
orphan herself. When she encounters four children that have lost
everything, she is faced with
dealing with the pain of her past or choosing to allow love into her
life. Sophie, the orphan daughter of free people of color, is an
obstetrician. Comstock’s anti-vice crusade puts any physician
administering contraception or abortions in harm’s way. Sophie
struggles between upholding the oath as she took as a physician and
helping a young, desperate mother, and fearing for her own life if she
dares defy Comstock. Her choices catapult both her and Anna into the
orbit of this very dangerous man.
Fans of the Wilderness series will see some glimmers of the characters they have grown to love, but new readers will enjoy
THE GILDED HOUR as a standalone novel set in one of the most exciting times in America’s—and New York City’s—history.
Please visit
www.saradonati.com for more information on her work!
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Sara Donati tells how she developed this book:
When
I started reading about medicine in the latter part of the 19th century, three
themes struck me:
First, Ignaz Semmelweis, Louis
Pasteur, Joseph Lister and Lawson
Tait were responsible for the revolution in bacteriology and
asepsis that that sent medical science leaping forward.
Second, things were evolving so fast that for a long time
there was no infrastructure and doctors and researchers developed their own
protocols. Any theory, no matter how specious the underlying science, could be
pursued, and with human subjects. Probably the best known instance of this was
J. Marion Sims, who was credited, for many years, as the father of
gynecological science. Eventually his methods came to light, and they weren't
pretty: he was a southern slave holder when he first started practicing
medicine, and he used female slaves to test and refine his theories on surgical
treatment of gynecological problems. Systematically, over a period of years
when there was no anesthesia, he operated on the same female slaves again and
again. As a result he did actually develop a way to fix fistulas -- tears in
the vaginal walls that sometimes protruded into bladder or colon, and were
horrific for the sufferer -- surgically. He also invented the speculum. When
asked about his use of slaves, he gave the usual answers: his slaves were
thankful for his help. This kind of experimentation went on throughout the 19th
century, and not only with slave women. For example, there was a theory that
hysteria and insanity originated in the female reproductive organs. I can show
you multiple medical journal articles claiming that a woman could be cured of
her unnatural leanings (which could mean anything) by female castration
(excision of the external genitalia) and complete hysterectomy. There are
reports of this surgery being done and claims of success. I imagine that a
woman who was forcibly hospitalized and subject to this kind of mutilation
would either shut down emotionally, or be consumed by anger.
Third -- and what struck me especially was that all this was happening as women were finally breaking into medicine. Because they were not allowed into traditional medical schools, they set up schools and hospitals and infirmaries and societies of their own. Even then, by law, in some parts of the country, female physicians were restricted to treating women and children, and for the most part this meant the poorest and most vulnerable.
So the thing that interested me was how these three things
came together. How a woman could train as a scientist and a physician and in
the process, be exposed to these theories and practices without rebelling.
Because not all female physicians had a problem with the state of affairs, but
many did. A female physician who spent all her time treating the poor and
destitute was confronted, first and foremost, with issues of reproduction. Poor
women, undernourished, overworked, often died in childbed -- even after
antiseptic measures were universally accepted as necessary. Men were working
overtime to restrict access to birth control, and abortion was outlawed.
Anthony Comstock went after any physician who broke these laws, and was
sometimes successful at sending them to prison.
These were the things that I had in mind as I began writing The Gilded Hour and thinking about the two female physicians at the center of the story.