The Page Turners #15

The Pull of the Stars written by Emma Donoghue

Prepared by Kathryn Raymond

Talk about timing! Emma Donoghue became interested in the Great Influenza in 2018 because of its 100 year anniversary. But as she put the final touches on her draft, the COVID-19 virus reared its ugly head in 2020 and started another world pandemic. Our medicines and capabilities are better, but we, too, were held hostage by a virus. As with our current crisis, the book points out the incredible strain on the workers tasked with caring for the sick.

WWI is still ongoing. In 1918, men are returning to Dublin from the war broken, damaged and changed. The world is being ravaged by the Spanish flu and has Dublin in its grasp.

Emma Donoghue wrote this book as historical fiction and based it on a three-day period in the lives of Nurse Julie Powers, Kathleen Lynn, MD (who as a woman was only allowed to practice in the hospital as there was a shortage of male physicians), their helper Bridie and several pregnant women who also had the flu and found themselves in their ward.
Dr. Katherine Lynn was a real person, as is detailed in the authors note, as are many of the historical details.

Medicine was so primitive then that there was little that could be done to help these women. There are similarities to our current epidemic, with overflowing hospitals, supply shortages and the need for masks, but we also got to see how many routines have changed. No doctors now would prescribe whiskey to labouring women for comfort, or linseed poultices to cure a cough.

We were all interested to see how names we use today originated – such as Influenza. As well, we were heartened to see how medicine has grown so that nurses no longer need a physicians “OK” to administer an aspirin, and how much better women in labour are now treated. The three days of this story are grueling. There is the overwhelming sense that even when this flu is “over”, that most of the people who lived through it have nothing better ahead of them.

While The Pageturners all enjoyed reading and discussing the book, it’s not a fast paced story. But we all wished to know what the outcome would be for the overworked nurse, the helper and the physician as well as the patients under their care.

A compelling offering by Ms. Donoghue which, read in the times of COVID, could not escape comparison between the present and 1918.

To hear Emma Donoghue discusses her novel The Pull of the Stars, play the 4 minute video below: