Behind the Story: The Frozen River

The Bookery
Mar 26
4 min read

Ariel Lawhon’s novel has spent 16 weeks on the New York Times’ bestseller list—and counting!

Historical fiction is one of our favorite genres here at The Bookery, and author Ariel Lawhon is one of the best in the business. The author of books such as I Was Anastasia, a fictional take on Anna Anderson who claimed to be Anastasia Romanov, and Code Name Helene, based on a real-life story of a female spy in World War II, Lawhon published her first book in 2014.

The Frozen River, which released in late 2023, tells the story of Martha Ballard, an 18th century midwife in Maine who finds herself and her family entangled in a mystery when a frozen body is pulled from the Kennebec River. It’s a captivating novel that will keep you turning the pages to discover what will happen next—and the heroine is based on a real woman. That alone was enough to make us want to go behind the story to learn more about Martha Ballard, how Lawhon learned about her and how she weaved together fact and fiction to create the best-seller.

How did Ariel Lawhon learn about Martha Ballard?

In an interview with Scott Simon for NPR, Lawhon said she stumbled across Ballard’s name in a devotional book she found in her doctor’s office. Pregnant with her fourth son, Lawhon had gone to a routine doctor’s appointment, but her doctor was at the hospital delivering a baby. So as she waited, Lawhon read—and finished the book she brought with her. “All that was left was a pile of scary pamphlets in the corner, and hidden under that was a small devotional,” Lawhon said in the interview. “So I opened it to that day’s date … and I read the story of a woman named Martha Ballard, who had delivered over a thousand babies in her career and never lost a mother.”

Was Martha Ballard a real person?

Yes. Like in Lawhon’s novel, Ballard was a real woman who lived in Hallowell, Maine, and she kept a detailed diary for 27 years from 1785 until her death in 1812. In 1990, historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich published her book based on Ballard’s diary, called A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard based on her diary, 1785-1812. While many historians were aware of Ballard’s diary at the time, it had generated little scholarly interest, but Ulrich had previously researched a book on women in early New England and recognized the diary offered a first-hand account from a woman’s point of view, which was highly unusual for the time. The real Martha Ballard also served as a witness in the trial of Judge Joseph North in 1789, who was accused of raping Rebecca Foster, the wife of the local minister, which serves as a major plot point in The Frozen River.

How did Lawhon research her book?

After Lawhon stumbled across the idea of a book centered on Martha Ballard, she began an intensive research process. Lawhon, who lives outside Nashville, had intentions to travel to Maine and learn about where Martha lived and worked by seeing it, but the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted those plans. So, as she said at an event at the Bedford Playhouse, Lawhon turned to the research that was available to her: Martha’s diary, Ulrich’s book and a number of other books and resources that helped flesh out 18th century Maine. “I had all kinds of research books,” Lawhon said. “I had Botanical Shakespeare. I had Wildlife in America, and I had all of these little things I could build … I read, I research, I study maps, I do the best that I can to recreate the world as those characters knew it—and then I have to trust my gut and the version of the character that comes to me.”

How did Lawhon work to balance creative license and faithfulness to the real Martha Ballard?

In the interview with Scott Simon for NPR, Lawhon said that while she tries to stick to the facts for her novels, she often finds her story “in the cracks, the conversations that are not recorded, the betrayals we don’t know about.” With The Frozen River, Lawhon said she took liberties with Martha for the sake of the story she was writing, something she tried to make clear in the extended author’s note at the end of The Frozen River. “If you read The Frozen River and then you read the biography about her, you will not recognize the same woman,” Lawhon said at the Bedford Playhouse appearance last year. “The character in my book is my version of Martha. There comes a point when I have to take all of the information I gather and then go to the page and let it be mine.”