With rigorous detail and moment-by-moment exposition, Pamela Erens drops readers into one of the most personal and specific experiences a woman can go through: labor. In shifting points of view,
Eleven Hours documents the story of two women who forge a relationship based on the experience of childbirth. Lore arrives at the hospital with no partner and no friends to support her, but she has a carefully laid-out plan for what she will not allow during her labor: no fetal monitor, no IV and no epidural. Franckline, also pregnant, is the nurse assigned to monitor Lore throughout her labor. Since she was six years old, Franckline has watched and helped the women of her village in Haiti deliver their babies; she was called the Ti Matrone, the little midwife. Together, these two strangers form an intimate bond as Lore's labor progresses during a snowy day in New York City.
Erens rapidly weaves their lives together, one story pulsing into the other, timed with the contractions Lore experiences. Lore was immersed in a love triangle and she is still struggling to recover. Franckline has lost one child and is fearful she'll lose the one she's carrying.
The tension builds and recedes, moving from a fast pace to an almost dreamlike one, as Lore's contractions increase in frequency and intensity. Erens's prose pushes readers to a finish that is raw, vivid and vicious, the last pages a race toward birth, fear, wonder and reverence as both women accept their respective futures. --
Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer
