"The women sat in the lovely steamy greenhouse baring their breasts in the name of science. Or was it Naturopathy?"
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A Breast of the Times by Hester Trafford Publishing
book review by Michael Radon
In this lighthearted saga of homeopathy versus big pharmaceutical companies, a small village in the United Kingdom winds up in the strange scheme of Hetty, an eccentric but well-intentioned farmer who stumbles across perhaps the largest medical breakthrough ever. After bumping her head and reading through some lost notes, Hetty comes to the conclusion that human breast milk has all of the properties to work as the mother tincture that can cure all diseases. By recruiting nearby like-minded women who believe in the power of natural remedies, soon the farm is turned into a secret human dairy, with women being put into groups and put on specific diets in order to test her theories and to focus on particular ailments or conditions. When Hetty releases her discovery into the larger world though, she is forced to avoid the risks of having the secret of her success discovered.
The characters and scenarios in this book are all so vivid and quirky that it can be difficult to tell who is being lampooned and who is being championed, and so every character feels that much more real. From the intelligent but slovenly neighbor who doesn't see the point in tidying to the new posh American at the top of the hill who believes that any problem can be solved by throwing money at it, it seems like nobody in Nebden Village leads a dull life. The main conflict in the book is driven by people who have strayed so far from nature and common decency that they'll do anything to get ahead, compared to the laid back "do unto others" attitudes of the girls at the dairy. Not for the faint of heart, this book is at times funny but always interesting.