Title: Milk Fever
Author Name: Lissa M. Cowan
Lissa M. Cowan is the author of Milk Fever and founder of Writing the Body. She speaks and writes about storytelling, creativity, work-life balance and creative spirituality. She is a Huffington Post blogger and writes regularly for Canadian and U.S. magazines and newspapers.
She is co-translator of Words that Walk in the Night by Pierre Morency, one of Québec’s most honoured poets. She has been writing and telling stories in one form or another since she was six years old and has received awards for her writing from the University of Victoria’s Writing Department and from The Banff Centre. She is an alumna of The Banff Centre and The Victoria School of Writing. She has had some wonderfully talented teachers along the way such as Nino Ricci, Jane Rule and Daphne Marlatt who have helped her hone her writing craft.
Lissa believes that inspiration for writing can come from anywhere and that lifelong creativity begins by cultivating a deep awareness of ourselves, and the world around us. She coaches her students to develop the skills to tune in—rather than wait for the muse—and to trust their intuition. She believes that true creative work begins with a loving relationship to self and spreads outwards to encompass all living beings.
When she’s not writing or teaching, you can most likely find her in a cafe working on one of her stories or book ideas. She just started work on a creative non-fiction book, though it’s too early right now to spill the beans on that one!
She holds a Master of Arts degree in English Studies from l’Université de Montréal and lives in Toronto, Canada.
Author Links -
Website: lissacowan.com
Blog: lissacowan.com/blog
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gosmall
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/lissamcowan
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/lissamcowan
Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lissamcowan
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/Lissamcowan
Book Genre: Historical fiction, literary suspense
Publisher: Demeter Press
Release Date: October 18, 2013
Buy Link(s): http://www.amazon.com/Lissa-M.-Cowan/e/B00G48XN3S
Book Description:
What if the only person you ever loved suddenly disappeared without a trace?
In 1789, Armande, a wet nurse who is known for the mystical qualities of her breast milk, goes missing from her mountain village.
Céleste, a cunning servant girl who Armande once saved from shame and starvation, sets out to find her. A snuffbox found in the snow, the unexpected arrival of a gentleman and the discovery of the wet nurse’s diary, deepen the mystery. Using Armande’s diary as a map to her secret past, Céleste fights to save her from those plotting to steal the wisdom of her milk.
Milk Fever is a rich and inspired tale set on the eve of the French Revolution–a delicious peek into this age’s history. The story explores the fight for women’s rights and the rise in clandestine literature laying bare sexuality, the nature of love and the magic of books to transform lives.
Excerpt:
My fever worsened. I don’t recall all who came to assist me on my
sickbed during those few days of torment, but I know the village
doctor was there for a time, along with a travelling barber-surgeon,
an apothecary and a healer of the stone evil. One advised bleeding
and another clysters. Still another insisted on purgatives in the way
of small spoonfuls of cinnamon water. Margot applied compresses
and told me to continue suckling even though the doctors warned
against it.
“Eventually your body will rid itself of milk fever,” she said.
Heat consumed every part of me, setting my skin on fire. One
night I didn’t sleep and hallucinated instead. In my half-mad vision,
all the saints were there before me—Augustine, Teresa, Sebastian,
Thomas, Francis, Cecilia—and many mortal beings who were now
absent to me. Although I lay in bed amidst damp sheets, I saw my
dear mother who died bringing me into the world, childhood playmates
of mine who fell during the scourge and were buried together
in one solitary grave. A neighbour who didn’t survive the birth of
her second child, and yet another woman crying out as her son lay
on his deathbed—all of them scaling the exterior walls of my house
like red-eyed lepers seeking a crypt to hide their half-deadness. At
first, I didn’t want to let these lost souls into my life. They were, after
all, echoes of the past, wreckage from a sea-bound ship that never
made it home. Although I am afraid of what they showed me, I was
compelled to let them in.
I awakened in a pool of water, nightshirt clinging to my hot, wet
body. My child was no longer beside me. Did the lost souls take her,
I wondered. Perhaps the flames licked her all away. Just when I had
given up hope of ever seeing my darling baby again, Margot walked
into the room. She passed a cool cloth over my forehead and cheeks.
Its freshness soothed me.
“Where is Rose-Marie? What happened to her?” I asked deliriously.
“She is asleep in a basket by your bed. There, you see?”
I raised my head and glimpsed her round face peeking out from the
covers. She batted the air with her fists, emitting rapid cries. Margot
sat on the bed and looked upon me as a mother does a daughter.
“You were burning up.”
“Yes. I have spent the night watching saints and others battle the
fires of Hades.”
“Take the child. She needs your milk.” Margot handed her to me
and I brought her to the spot of all my woes.
Amazed to find that feeding her soothed the pain in my bosom, I
felt my fever much less than before. A sensation that I cannot put
my finger on took hold of me when my milk fever subsided and I
became bright-eyed and shiny as a new coin.
I am no more able to understand my transformation than I am
able to blame Rose-Marie for taking me from intellectual pursuits.
My melancholia vanished with the morning mist.
My baby’s little mouth curled and eyelids like pea pods opened
and closed. When she looked up at me with knowing eyes, I couldn’t
help but think it was my milk that produced such a state. My heart
was suddenly joyful and I reasoned that there was no better place to
be. Her gurgles and chirps told me she was happy in my arms and I
now sensed the same emotion holding her. Ten little fingers and ten
little toes, she was built of the stuff that made a body unstoppable.
I held her always, all day, bestowing kisses upon her downy head. I
couldn’t believe that this little nut, this sleeping angel, was mine. I
cried and laughed as I rocked her. My words were caresses for her,
flowing and erupting. She drank in my sweet hums and coos, her
mouth lingering at my every syllable.
After feeding, I wrapped Rose-Marie and myself in a blanket and
madly raced down the stairs toward the door. As I combed the garden
for a bit of wind to quell what was left of my fever, I sensed my present
life slipping away. My head and heart informed me that mothering
wasn’t contrary to learning, yet instead part of it. I can write and reflect
and talk philosophy just as I can suckle a child. No one can tell me—not
even my own father—that it is not a woman’s privilege to do both.
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