Crystal Falls District Community Library

UP Notable Book Club presents a Q&A session with Sue Harrison, author of "The Midwife's Touch",  an epic 19th-century tale of alienation and avarice, survival and sacrifice,

Dear Evelyn Gathu

UP Notable Book Club: The Crystal Falls Community District Library in partnership with the U.P. Publishers & Authors Association (UPPAA) has scheduled author events with winners of the UP Notable Book List. The 41st event is with EUP author Sue Harrison whose novels have sold more than two million copies and have been published in more than twenty-five countries and in thirteen languages. They have achieved bestseller status in the United States, Germany, Scandinavia, Spain, and Japan. Her first novel, Mother Earth Father Sky, was a “Publishers Weekly” national bestseller, an Amazon number one bestseller, and was selected as an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults

When: Thursday, November 14th, 2024 at 7 pm Eastern / 6 pm Central
Where: on the Zoom platform -- please contact Evelyn Gathu in advance at egathu@crystalfallslibrary.org, or by phone at (906) 875-3344. We recommend you borrow a copy of these books from your local library or purchase from your local bookseller in advance to get the most out of these events.

SUE HARRISON was raised in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and lives in Pickford with her husband Neil, a retired high school principal. A graduate of Pickford High School and Lake Superior State University, Harrison was named an LSSU Distinguished Alumna and served eight years on the University’s Board of Regents. She was an adjunct instructor of creative writing and advanced creative writing and worked in the public relations department as the University writer and acting department head.
Sue has written six novels set in ancient Alaska. Her other novels include Sisu, a National Advanced Readers Book, and The Midwife’s Touch, which was selected as a semi-finalist in the 2023 Society of Midland Authors’ national literary awards adult fiction competition. It was also an Amazon top ten bestseller and named a 2024 Upper Peninsula Notable Book. In 2023, she was inducted into the Upper Peninsula Literary Hall of Fame.

  "...The Midwife's Touch is a great read that ranges from a rough community in the Ozark Mountains in the backwoods of Missouri where a Cherokee midwife and healer who, also, possesses a version of the 'Royal Touch' to change the lives of people births an exciting heroine given the strange Native American name China Deliverance Creed.
The Cherokee midwife trains China as her apprentice and, also, passes on the mysterious witchery of the Royal Touch to her.  The time frame for this passionate tale of mystery and the supernatural is just prior to the Civil War and eventually moves to the Gilded Age following the war in New York City as China grows to use of her gifted “touch” as well as her nursing skills – some of the most vivid scenes in the story deal with the details and suffering in breech birthing midwifery.  This is a necessary agony that God gives us that runs parallel as a metaphor for the agonies in our country of the Civil War to transform us into a better Nation.  The whole tale ends with trust, love, as well as a modern version of the “supernatural touch” that by the end of the 18th century was considered pure chicanery and had been removed from any mention in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer by 1732.   But like some other horrors of earlier times, it had survived in the backwoods culture of the Ozarks along with the vicious predation in American History that it took us to rid ourselves of slavery.  China’s long story, with a more or less happy ending, is a gripping American story from our culture of the 19th century."