The Pull Of The Stars by Emma Donoghue

 

It's 1918 and Dublin is feeling the effects of the Great Flu and the last days of World War I like the rest of the world.  Julia Powers is a nurse on the small ward made for those women about to give birth who also have the flu.  Julia lives quietly with her brother who came back from the war physically intact but wounded mentally and who is now mute.  The ward is tiny, a former space repurposed for the women who need it.  The hospital is understaffed and in the throes of the pandemic.

The novel looks at three days in Julia's life.  In that time, babies are born, some healthy, some not.  Some mothers recover from the flu and go home while others leave their newborns orphaned.  Two women enter Julia's life.  One is a volunteer named Bridie who comes to help.  She had been orphaned as a child and grew up in the care of nuns, a care that was akin to slavery.  She and Julia feel an instant connection and Bridie quickly picks up the ways to help the suffering women.  The other woman is Doctor Lynn.  The hospital needs her expertise but the police are looking for her as she had sided with the rebels in the recent troubles.  

Emma Donoghue is best known for her novel Room which was a major success but she has written quite a few novels.  Her interests include women's relationships and historical fiction but some of her novels also have a bit of supernatural influence.  In this novel, she explores how women made the best of things during the War, serving in ways different from the men who went to fight but ways that were just as important.  I thought the ending was a bit abrupt but overall enjoyed the novel, which Donoghue turned in to her publisher a month before the start of our own Covid pandemic.  This book is recommended for historical fiction and women's fiction readers.