The Pull of the Stars: A Novel
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders -- Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.
In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.
In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.
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Community Reviews
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
291 pages
What’s it about?
This work of historical fiction takes place in Dublin during the flu epidemic of 1918. Julia Power is a nurse, working in an overcrowded and understaffed maternity ward in the city center. As the story begins Julia arrives to work and is told to take charge of a new room. The room has been converted to house maternity patients that arrive with influenza. For the next three days she will work tirelessly in this small room with both patients and two extraordinary women. Dr. Lynn is the first female doctor that Julia has ever seen and Bridie Sweeney is a volunteer. Both women will open Julia's eyes to a Dublin she was unaware of.
What did it make me think about?
Irish history. Caregivers.
Should I read it?
Any fan of historical fiction will enjoy this novel. I particularly enjoyed the characters Emma Donoghue created in this book. The novel reminded me in ways of The Wonder or Slammerkin (both earlier works in the same genre by Emma Donoghue). The fact that the story takes place during the last flu epidemic serves as a reminder that we have been this way before. It highlighted the similarities we face, despite all the progress made in the last 100 years. Maybe most importantly it reminded us of the importance and heroism of so many caregivers. What must it feel like to write a book and at its conclusion have this eery pandemic arrive and shed a new light on your story....
Quote-
"It felt colder inside the hospital than out these days; lamps were kept turned down and coal fires meagerly fed. Every week, more grippe cases were carried into our wards, more cots jammed in. The hospital's atmosphere of scrupulous order- which had survived four years of wartime disruption and shortages and even the Rising's six days of gunfire and chaos- was finally crumbling under this burden. Staff who fells ick disappeared like pawns from a chessboard. The rest of us made do, worked harder, faster, pulled more than our weight- but it wasn't enough. This flu was clogging the whole works of the hospital."
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Without spoiling the book, my main complaint is that the last section went by too fast. Everything there happened so quickly from the roof to the end of the day, it felt like that part of the story could have been spread out over two days.
Overall, a really compelling read that draws you in. I found it especially interesting as it parallels with our current pandemic.
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