Midwives

Chris Bohjalian’s novel is narrated by Connie, looking back on the year her mother, a respected Vermont home-birth midwife, performed an emergency cesarean on a laboring woman she believed had died, only to be accused of killing her. As the case goes to trial, the family’s life is upended. The book weighs competing kinds of expertise and asks how certain anyone can be about a life-and-death choice.