Three of the issues examined in this book-as well as in its sequel, The Book of Etta-are, first, the status of women in the post-apocalyptic world and second, the question of whether and to what extent women should use violence to defend themselves and finally, the subject of gender and identity.
These events and the midwife’s subsequent decision are plot points, but they also matter thematically. It is shortly after these events that the midwife makes her decision to disguise herself as a man-to wear a binder, to dress as a man, to adopt the characteristics and language of a man. The second and third men she meets are a pair of gay lovers, and the group of men after that try to kill this earlier pair, again in order to rape the midwife. The first man the midwife encounters after waking in the post-plague world tries to rape her.
As a healthcare worker, however, the midwife worked at the San Francisco hospital in which she awakens, and has firsthand knowledge of the early stages of the plague. It follows the midwife from her origin as an ob-gyn nurse in San Francisco through her years struggling to survive as a virus-driven plague kills almost all the men on the planet, even more of the women and children, and every single fetus and newborn infant.Īs in similar works, such as The Walking Dead, the story begins with our narrator waking in a hospital, surrounded by the dead. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife is a post-apocalyptic novel, told in a combination of journal entries and short narratives.
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