13. The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue
THE PUBLIC IS URGED
TO STAY OUT OF PUBLIC PLACES
SUCH AS CAFES, THEATRES, CINEMAS
AND PUBLIC HOUSES.
SEE ONLY THOSE PERSONS ONE NEEDS TO SEE.
REFRAIN FROM SHAKING HANDS, LAUGHING,
OR CHATTING CLOSELY TOGETHER.
IF ONE MUST KISS
DO SO THROUGH A HANKERCHIEF.
SPRINKLE SULPHUR IN THE SHOES.
IF IN DOUBT, DON'T STIR OUT.
You might remember when I reviewed Bricks and Mortar, I commented on the fact that the author had refrained from using historic events as Big Plot Things. If that represents a relatively minimalist approach to using history to define your book, then Donoghue represents the opposite approach. She's chosen a time and place which allow her to throw everything and the kitchen sink in, history-wise.
Julia, our protagonist, is a midwife working in a Dublin hospital. It's October 1918, the War is limping to a close, and the country is exhausted and beset by shortages. Julia's brother Tim has come home from the front physically intact but suffering from shell-shock. With the rise of Irish nationalism and the growing calls for independence, he doesn't know when he leaves the house whether he'll be treated as a war hero or a traitor (for having fought in the war with the British Army).
Meanwhile, there is a pandemic going on. With medical staff short on the ground, Julia is left in sole charge of her ward, Maternity/Fever, where pregnant women with Spanish Flu are sent to deliver their babies, or die - or both. (BTW I would give some heartfelt advice here that if you are avoiding vivid descriptions of childbirth and/or death, give this book a swerve). Both the patients and some of Julia's fellow hospital staff are victims of policies of the Catholic Church - married women exhausted and physically ill from bearing 12 children, unmarried mothers giving birth under the judgemental eye of nuns, who will take their babies for adoption and put the "sinful" mothers to work in laundries.
Donoghue wisely chooses not to layer too much extra plot on top of all this historically significant background. The narrative takes places over three days and mostly concerns Julia's struggles to care for her patients, in long, intense descriptions which hold the reader in thrall and capture the all-consuming, enclosed atmosphere of a room where birth or death is taking place. In between there are interludes showing Julia travelling across Dublin, or at home with her brother.
This book is pretty full-on, and you might want to avoid Pandemic Lit right now, but if you're in the right mood, it's beautifully written and powerfully evocative.