One member got sick of ‘staring up the fannies of women giving birth’ in this novel. If the gory details of delivering, in the crowded and primitive conditions of a hospital in 1918 Dublin in the midst of a pandemic, have no appeal, then this may not be the book for you.
However, members mostly liked the story which has a number of interesting themes. So if you can look past the details of midwifery and obstetrics of the times - and the lack of treatment for flu patients beyond hot whiskey (no doubt these are facts well researched and correct) - you will meet a group of women in advanced pregnancy from a variety of backgrounds whose stories unfold as they are cared for by Nurse Julia Power, the narrator of the book.
The hospital is overcrowded and the women all have symptoms of flu so they are quarantined in what was previously a store room. The story opens with Nurse Julia arriving to find one of her patients has died overnight (soon to be replaced). The scene of the three beds and their patients hardly changes throughout the book, reminding the reader of a play.
It's World War I and so doctors, orderlies and nurses are few on the ground. Those well enough to be pressed into service are mostly elderly or bearing up under the results of horrific wounds. Nurse Julia is particularly unhappy with one of the orderlies, also a veteran, who has little respect for the dying and dead.
Nurse Julia is approaching her 30th birthday, conscious she is still unwed. She lives with her brother, who is also a veteran and while physically well, cannot speak. She has worked at the Catholic hospital for nine years and during this time was supervised in her diploma of midwifery by one of the nursing nuns, Sister Finnigan, now the ward sister. Sister Finnigan is called away to help on the main maternity ward and Nurse Julia becomes Acting Ward Sister in her stead.
She must cope alone on the 'ward' until the arrival of an untrained volunteer, Bridie Sweeney, recommended by Sister Luke, another of the nursing nuns. Nurse Julia is a Catholic but dislikes Sister Luke's lack of compassion towards people not of the faith or who are unwed and pregnant. It turns out that Bridie, who proves herself to be a willing and intelligent assistant, has grown up in the Catholic home for unwanted children down the road, where Sister Luke also resides as part of the management.
The only obstetrician at the hospital is Dr Prendergast who is overworked and has little time with each patient. Nurse Julia knows not to argue with him. He announces that he is going home to rest but will be replaced by a general practitioner who surprisingly is a woman.
This is Dr Kathleen Lynn, who is based on a true person. In 1918 she was vice president of Sinn Fein's executive and its director of public health. She was arrested in 1918, as she is in the book, but the Mayor of Dublin in real life intervened so that she could continue to combat the flu at a free clinic she has set up with her partner Madeleine Ffrench-Mullen.
The book has a number of interesting themes including whether the Irish should fight for the British in World War I, the worth of the Easter Rising of 2016, the subsequent activities of the Sinn Fein, the abusive behaviour of the Catholic Church in Ireland towards 'unwanted' children, the efforts by the authorities to contain the flu, the plight of the poor, and the social norms between men and women in these times. At its heart is a poignant love story and room for another novel detailing what happens next.
Who is Emma Donoghue?
Novelist, screenwriter, literary historian and playwright, Emma Donoghue was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1969. She was the youngest of eight children. Her father, Denis, is an academic and literary critic.
She has a first-class honours Bachelor of Arts degree from University College Dublin (in English and French) and a PhD in English from Girton College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge she lived in a women's co-operative which inspired a short story, The Welcome. Her thesis was on friendship between men and women in 18th century fiction.
Donoghue's first novel was Stir Fry in 1994, a coming of age story about a young Irish woman discovering her sexuality. This was followed by Hood in 1995, about an Irish woman coming to terms with the death of her girlfriend. It won the 1997 American Library Association's Gay Lesbian and Bisexual Book Award for literature, now known as the Stonewall Book Award for Literature.
At Cambridge Donoghue met her future wife, Christine Roulston, a Canadian. They moved permanently to Canada in 1998 and Donoghue became a Canadian citizen in 2004.
Donoghue's 18th Century historical novel, Slammerkin, about a prostitute prepared to murder for fine clothes, was published in 2000 and won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction.
Her 2010 novel Room was a winner in the Irish Book Awards, a finalist for the Booker Prize and an international best-seller. It is told by a five year old boy who is held captive with his mother in a small room. Room was adapted by Donoghue into a film of the same name. For this, she was nominated for the Academy, Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards, presented for books with appeal to young adults.
Donoghue published five other historical and contemporary novels before The Pull of the Stars came out in 2020, just in time for COVID.
Her latest novel, Haven, came out last year and is set among monks in the seventh century on the Irish island of Skellig Michael.
She lives with Christine in London, Ontario with their two children.
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