Arms Wide Open: A Midwife's Journey
Nurse-midwife Harman pens a sort of prequel to her first memoir, The Blue Cotton Gown (2008), in which she revealed the trials of her patients and of her and husband Tom�s Appalachian ob-gyn clinic. This time she recounts, via a combination of personal journals and memory, the sometimes rocky road she took from being a card-carrying hippie/Vietnam War protester to matron midwife mentor. In the dusky haze of Harman�s recollections of the 1970s, the fact that there really was a movement espousing sustainable living and peace to all people easily gets lost. But Harman�s crystal-clear depiction of her not-so-halcyon days as a struggling earth mother living in a remote log cabin without electricity or indoor plumbing in a bona fide commune serves as an eye-opening reminder of an entire generation�s idealism. Moreover, as Patsy and Tom have aged, so, too, has their idealism, jaded by the hard facts of life in the medical profession. Harman is as candid as ever in this meaningful account of a woman dedicated to the service and support of her sister women. --Donna Chavez