The Blue Cotton Gown

A Midwife's Memoir

By Patricia Harman
(Beacon Press, Paperback, 9780807072912, 296pp.)

Publication Date: October 2009

Other Editions of This Title: Hardcover (October 2008)

Categories: Women, Medical - General, Personal Memoirs

Selected by Indie Booksellers for the October 2008 Indie Next List

Patricia Harman, CNM, has published frequently in the Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health. She lives and works near Morgantown, West Virginia.

“In her sweetly perceptive memoir, Harman reveals how her exam room becomes a confessional. Coaxing women in thin gowns to share secrets ... she reminds them that they’re not alone.”
—Michelle Green, People “Harman shows us the joys and sorrows of listening to women’s stories and attending to their bodies, and she leads us through the complicated life of a healer who is profoundly shaped by her patients and their journeys.”
—Perri Klass, author of The Mercy Rule and Treatment Kind and Fair
“Luminescent, ruthlessly authentic, humane, and brilliantly written.” —Samuel Shem, M.D., author of The House of God, Mount Misery, and The Spirit of the Place
“As the mother of seven children and veteran of eight pregnancy losses, I knew when I ran my bath that I would be unable to resist Patricia Harman’s memoir of midwifery, The Blue Cotton Gown. What I didn’t realize was that it would cause me, a sensible person, to get into her bath with one sock still on and rise from it when the candle was gone and the water cold. Utterly true and lyrical as any novel, Harman’s book should be a little classic.”
—Jacquelyn Mitchard, authorr of The Deep End of the Ocean and Cage of Stars “Harman has a gift for storytelling, and The Blue Cotton Gown is a moving, percipient book.”
—Karen R. Long, Cleveland Plain Dealer “Touchingly revelatory . . . deeply moving.”
—Booklist, starred review
“Patricia Harman has opened for us a window, a glimpse into her life as a midwife and the lives of those women who have entered her exam room. And as the touch of her careful and caring hands learned the story of their bodies, into her heart they poured their life stories—stories of joy, of sorrow, those bright with promise, those dimmed with grief and pain.” —Sheila Kay Adams, author of My Old True Love
“The Blue Cotton Gown is a seductive read! Read it to understand the fragile thinness between the care-giver and the cared-for. Patsy Harman does not shy away from her narrative. She does not shy away from controversial topics. She grabs the reader by the literary throat.” —Judy Schaefer, editor of The Poetry of Nursing
“Here is an intimate account of a woman, both her career as a midwife and her life as the wife of a doctor in West Virginia. Her patients’ lives are stories of hope and loss; her marriage is a story of love and faith accompanied by debt and tension.  Well-written and heartfelt.” —Boston Globe