The Pull of the Stars: A Novel

Emma Donoghue

Jul 2020 · Sold by Little, Brown

About this ebook

In Dublin, 1918, a maternity ward at the height of the Great Flu is a small world of work, risk, death, and unlooked-for love, in "Donoghue's best novel since Room" (Kirkus Reviews).

In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders—Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.

In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.

In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.

Ratings and reviews

1918, influenza, family-dynamics, friendship, historical-novel, historical-places-events, historical-research, historical-setting, history-and-culture, medical-treatment "That's what influenza means, she said. Influenza della stelle-the influence of the stars. Medieval Italians thought the illness proved that the heavens were governing their fates, that people were quite literally star-crossed." For Nurse Julia, those three days working the Maternity/Fever Ward in a Dublin hospital in 1918 was like being in hell with one ice cube to share among her patients. The medical research was very meticulous, but I'm not sure how non-medicals react to the bloody truths laid out in the story about several women who entered the hospital pregnant and yet with Le Grippe as it is quite graphic (I am a retired RN and did work Labor and Delivery for a number of years). This is not so many years after The Rising, and the doctor who plays a big part in this story, Dr. Kathleen Lynn, is very real and worked hard to right many wrongs of the time. This is a very moving story at any time, but even more meaningful in 2020. I cannot say enough positive things about it. I requested and received a free ebook copy from Little, Brown and Company via NetGalley. Thank you!

About the author

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight years in Cambridge doing a PhD in eighteenth-century literature before moving to London, Ontario, where she lives with her partner and their two children. She also migrates between genres, writing literary history, biography, stage and radio plays as well as fairy tales and short stories. She is best known for her novels, which range from the historical (Slammerkin, Life Mask, Landing, The Sealed Letter) to the contemporary (Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes. For more information, visit www.emmadonoghue.com.