The Pull Of The Stars

Emma Donoghue's latest novel unfolds over an unimaginably intense few days in a maternity fever ward in Dublin during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Nurse Julia Power has survived a bout of the flu and is at no risk of catching the disease from her extremely ill patients but she has her work cut out for her. The hospital where she works is dangerously overcrowded and understaffed and Julia has only an inexperienced volunteer to help her. Young Bridie Sweeney is keen to do her best but the learning curve will be steep. Dr. Kathleen Lynn, a doctor and an actual historical figure, who is wanted by the police for her role in the 1916 uprising works alongside Julia and Bridie. She explains that that the word “influenza” comes from the Italian phrase “influenza delle stelle,” the influence of the stars. But she also makes it clear that the real problem is social injustice. The story proceeds at a furious pace with non-stop suffering and death. The cruel workhouses run by nuns and the opposition to contraception by the Catholic Church are seen as root causes of women's suffering. Julia knows this only too well:

"Always on their feet, these Dublin mothers ... living off the scraps left on plates and gallons of weak black tea. The slums in which they somehow managed to stay alive were as pertinent as pulse or respiratory rate, it seemed to me, but only medical observations were permitted on a chart. So instead of poverty, I'd write malnourishment or debility. As code for too many pregnancies, I might put anaemia, ... low spirits, ... torn cervix, or uterine prolapse."

There is a brief side story about Julia's life at home with her brother who has returned from the WW1 battlefields mute from trauma but most of the book takes place within the four walls of the cramped fever ward. One feels the heat and the misery.
This is a compelling book written with true compassion but if you are feeling overwhelmed by the current real life pandemic the grinding bleakness of it may prove particularly disquieting.

My reviews of previous books by Emma Donoghue: Akin, Room, The Wonder