The Pull of the Stars

 

The Pull of the Stars was my third novel by Emma Donoghue. (I first read Room, and more recently, in 2017, read Hood.) I think that The Pull of the Stars is my favorite. Donoghue started writing this novel, about 3 days in a maternity ward in a Dublin hospital for women suffering with influenza during the 1918 flu pandemic, in 2018. She submitted it to her published right about the time that the world learned that we were at the start of yet another global pandemic. Talk about being prescient!

 

What really astounded me were things that Donoghue wrote about 1918 Dublin that could be written about “Anywhere, USA” right now. Wacky treatments, conspiracy theories, propaganda. Patients being treated in storage rooms. Giving credit to frontline healthcare workers for going the extra mile.

 

All that was set against the backdrop of 1918 Dublin, in the midst of World War I and Ireland’s political upheaval.

 

This, however, is really a novel about women. Women’s lives, women’s friendships. The central character is Nurse Julia who lives with her brother, Tim, who was left mute by what he had seen during his combat days. She’s put in charge of a makeshift maternity ward, just for those women who have been diagnosed with influenza. The mothers-to-be had varying degrees of symptoms and came from a variety of  social circumstances. On Julia’s first day in charge, a young woman, Bridey, who thinks she’s “about 22” years old, appears out of nowhere and  becomes an amazing help to Julia in keeping things going in the ward.

This book might not be for everyone, but I enjoyed this well-written, totally engaging novel.