Ms. Hen reviews The Pull of the Stars

 

The Pull of the Stars

Emma Donoghue

Little, Brown and Company

2020

Ms. Hen decided to read this novel because she has been interested in reading about plagues lately, since there is a pandemic going on, and she has been trying to read as much fiction as she can about this subject. There is not a lot written about the Spanish flu by the people who lived through it, but this novel was published last year. The author decided to write this for the one hundred year anniversary of the pandemic in 2018. She didn't realize that the book would be released during COVID, but it happened that way.

This novel is about a nurse in the maternity ward in a hospital in Dublin, during the flu outbreak of 1918. The Great War is still raging and Nurse Julia Power's brother came back from it so shellshocked that he could not speak. She takes care of the women in the flu maternity clinic, where expectant mothers have the flu. 

A volunteer comes in to help Julia named Bridie, who has never been around patients before. Julia explains what to do, and Bridie learns fast. She is an orphan who has been raised by nuns in a home, and was sent to Dublin to board with the nuns because she has nowhere to go. Those were different days, when it was shameful for a woman to be an unwed mother, and the nuns cursed the women who had conceived a child out of wedlock. Tragedy strikes the small ward, but Nurse Power perseveres, and she keeps working to help the women and their children.

This novel is well researched. The details about birthing children in that time are so intricate, that Ms. Hen knows the author must have done a lot of work to make it seem realistic. However, Ms. Hen is disgusted by the details of childbirth, and it is not her favorite thing to read. Ms. Hen knows having a baby is difficult, but she doesn't want to know about it.

But the whole novel is not about giving birth. It's also about struggling and poverty and trying to make a place in the world. It's about sudden friendship between two people who are different, Julia and Bridie, and finding out that they care about each other. This novel centers on a moment in history similar to the one we're living now, but the difference between now and then is that back then, those people had nothing and they knew nothing, and today most people have too much and we know too much. Julia was shocked that the only time Bridie saw a film was when she sneaked into a door of a theater. To people today, that would be unfathomable.

The only character in this novel that is based on a real person is Dr. Kathleen Lynn. She was a member in Sinn Fein and a doctor. She was released from prison to help treat patients during the flu epidemic. She is a hero in the novel, though some of the characters don't treat her well because she is a rebel and a woman doctor.

Ms. Hen enjoyed this novel. It's emotional, so be prepared. She was sitting in the cafeteria area at the hospital where she works when she finished the book, and she almost started to cry! She was too embarrassed to let her tears fall right before work while she was reading a book, but the hospital is a sad place anyway, and she thinks nobody would mind. A lot of people are crying these days, and she would not have been out of place. It's better for a book to make a person cry than real life.