The Pull of the Stars: A Novel

Emma Donoghue is an extremely talented author, each of her books are unique and each are gems. In her latest “The Pull of the Stars” she takes us the maternity ward of a Dublin hospital at the height of the Spanish Flu pandemic, so…TIMING!

This novel is action-packed! It left me breathless several times. I could see it in my mind as a 4-act play taking place over three days, almost all of it set in a cramped three-bed hospital room that has been annexed to quarantine pregnant woman who also have the flu.

First person narrator, Nurse Julia Power, describes in lurid detail the symptoms and progression of this deadly flu and the medical conditions and practices of 1918. Reader, you will be shocked at some of the Obstetrics “treatments” are herein described! (She had previously had a mild case of the flu herself, so she is now immune.)

I didn’t like Nurse Power at first. She was judgmental about her maternity patients. She was critical of ignorance in the poor Catholic mothers, yet likewise critical of the privileged rich Protestant mothers. I found this cold moral superiority to be off-putting. But then…we meet poor, young, and uneducated, Bridie Sweeny, who shows up to help Nurse Power. Bridie has no experience but she has two BIG things going for her; she’s a quick and willing learner and she’s a kind person.

Into the mix arrives a female doctor (quite rare in 1918). Dr. Lynn (who was a real person) is a general practitioner and so Nurse Power isn’t confident that she can help much on the maternity/fever floor. To complicate matters, Dr. Lynn is wanted by the Dublin police for participating in the 1916 “Rising” against British rule. Nurse Powers is not sympathetic to Dr. Lynn’s politics (Powers’ brother, Tim, was mentally damaged by the war), but she needs Dr. Lynn for her patients.

The four sections of the novel are titled: RED, BROWN, BLUE, BLACK, which stand for the progression of color on the face of patients who are cyanotic – starved for oxygen.

(Warning: Donoghue’s descriptions of both the flu and of difficult childbirth are vivid and detailed. If you are someone who is particularly stressed and fearful of our current coronavirus pandemic, and/or are pregnant, you might want to wait until conditions change to read this novel.)

This book was perfect until the last 50 or so pages. Totally didn't see the ending coming, and it was very disappointing.

This book was so powerfully written that my only words when completing it were WOW, WOW, WOW! It is a gripping tale of just two or three days in the life of a nurse, her helper, and three pregnant women. Other minor characters add color to the story. It is not a happy book. There is nothing happy about the great flu pandemic. However, it is history and it hits your soul hard. I will recommend this book to those strong individuals who want to learn. I stayed up well into the night and read during the day to finish it.

Here was a book I thought to be well worth a five-star review: engrossing, informative (and eerily timely); capturing the feeling of its time and place; with varied, believable characters---until the beginning of the last chapter, when WHAM, BANG! an unnecessary, distracting, jarring interlude killed the rest of it for me. The net result: an extremely effective, if unintentional, "pull of the stars" - from 5 to 1.

Emma Donoghue's The Pull of the Stars is one of those books that snuck up on me. Until about 20% of the way in I was thinking, "This is good. Not great, but good enough." Then, just a few pages beyond that point the book grabbed me and didn't let go. I read. And read and read and read. I read much later into the night than I should have, but I finally started to drop off—so I got up early the next morning to finish the book before I did anything else.

The three central female characters in The Pull of the Stars are each compelling in her own way, and sharing their growing closeness gave me a fierce sense of loyalty to them. The mothers on the influenza ward are also an interesting mix of ages and attitudes. Many of the characters beyond these are rather two-dimensional, but the core trio easily carry the narrative.

We are living now in our own pandemic, though one not yet as destructive as the 1918 influenza, and The Pull of the Stars gives us an interesting perspective through which to view our own time. Yes, things could definitely be worse. Yes, people clutch at all sort of straws as they convince themselves they won't fall ill or desperately try questionable cures. Read The Pull of the Stars for its own sake and to come to a richer understanding of the present day.

I received a free electronic review copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions are my own.

What a read. I couldn’t put it down - it read like a thriller. A daunting period in history pared down to three days in a Dublin hospital .. more specifically in a three bed maternity ‘room’ with pregnant women ill with the deadly flu of 1918. Donaghue is such a splendid writer that all the gore and tragedy were so realistically described that she brought the reader into that tiny space, but at the same time the reader’s experience was bearable. It is partly based on a real character, which makes the book more compelling. Brilliant just like all of Donagjue’s books.

"Woe unto them that are with child."

The year is 1918. The world is in the throngs of a deadly flu pandemic, overcome by crippling death and despair. In Dublin, the country is doubly challenged by both the Great Flu and the World War. With most citizens occupied by one of these two hardships, the city has become, "...a great mouth holed with missing teeth." In a matter of extreme literary foresight, this is the world that author Emma Donoghue has chosen to set her latest novel. The Pull of the Stars sees Donoghue tackle the pandemic of 1918 in a novel that takes on an ever more poignant tone given the state of the COVID-19 pandemic that the world continues to grapple with today. Her works always resonate with me emotionally, but the parallels between this historical fiction and the real world make this particular novel all the more affecting.

We meet Julia as she approaches the stone facade of the hospital, mentally preparing herself for the daunting day that lies ahead. As a nurse who has also trained as a midwife, the twenty-nine-year-old has been assigned to the makeshift maternity ward specifically reserved for those expectant mothers who have contracted the flu. Julia enters the overstuffed room to see that the middle of the three hospital beds is empty. Another life was lost in the night. This is a new reality. Julia quietly makes a small scratch in the back of her pocket watch, a silent and permanent acknowledgment of the lost life. With hospital beds overflowing and hospital staff hard to come by, Julie knows two things. One, it will not take long for that empty bed to host the next woman. Two, she will be overseeing the care of this ward completely on her own.

"Patient first, hospital next, self last.

Julia is right on both accounts. The night nurse, a stern and disapproving nun from the local convent, informs Julia that she will be the sole nurse for the meager maternity room. Julia is quickly overwhelmed by the sheer multitude of her daily tasks. One patient is in and out of consciousness, struck by the absolute worst parts of this horrid illness. She is able to stop the fits long enough to vomit all over the floor, leaving Julia to tend to her patients while also completing janitorial duties. Relief comes in the form of Birdie, a young woman who has been plucked from the streets to assist in any way possible. Birdie has no training in nursing, let alone even the most primary understanding of basic human anatomy, but she is a welcome sight. Unprompted, she begins mopping the mess on the floor allowing Julia to tend to the patients uninterrupted. As if on cue, the orderlies bring another pregnant woman into the room, filling the last remaining bed.

From a plot perspective, that is pretty much the focus of The Pull of the Stars. We follow Julia as she makes her way through a couple of days in this hospital room. Women come and go, giving birth in between. Some are successful, bringing in new life amongst the despair of this plague. Others are tragic, a reminder that this life is not promised to us, even in birth. The cramped confines of this impromptu ward become a microcosm of the world at large. Just like those lives outside, Julia and the women in her care are forced to reckon with the mystery of life in a time of unparalleled adversity.

Emma Donoghue is known for placing her readers directly into the worlds that her novels are set within. We were all in that storage shed with Jack and his kidnapped mother in Donoghue's novel Room. In Akin, she transported us to the streets of France as an elderly man searched for answers to his family history. It comes as no surprise then that The Pull of the Stars plants us directly amongst the crowded beds of the hospital. We feel the joy, hope, and pain as Donoghue writes of every striking detail. The medical procedures are given as much credence as the emotional strife that happens in between. The characters soar off of the page, connecting on a level that only the most well-tuned authors are able to create. There is an innate intimacy that exists between a nurse and her patients, a trust that forms between two relative strangers. Donoghue invites us into that confidence, allowing us to experience all of the emotions that the women in that room do. This emotional prowess combines with the strange synchroneity of this historical novel mirroring the events of our present-day pandemic to make for a read that touches the reader on every level. We are only halfway through this eventful year, but The Pull of the Stars is already my favorite novel of the year.

Wow...
This story felt so short!

The history, ( inspired by the Spanish flu), and story ( not for the squeamish),
in “The Pull of the Stars”, is certainly relevant to our current pandemic health crisis today.....

....The writing was compelling
with spare yet vividly descriptive prose.

...Parts were slow -

...Parts were disturbing and graphic -
$
...The eerie environment descriptions were strong.

...It was haunting and easily imagined.

...Not my favorite book of the year - but it had redeeming qualities.

elysejody

Pandering...an interesting narrative, albeit reliant on pathos, war, disease and gore to sustain interest. Then at the end a predictable affair between the two female protagonists cheapens the whole thing. By playing the lesbian love card at the end the author accomplishes three lower order disappointments: 1) diminishes a potentially powerful narrative with a cliche love plot — turning it into a juvenile romance novel; 2) yawningly predictable lesbian plot twist, detracting from a bigger feminist narrative; 3) turns this into a shameless recruiting tool for opportunistic predators to influence rudderless lonely girls. Ugh. Don’t support this agenda.

Wow! Such an unforgettable story, especially reading this during our current times. I am really glad I waited to read it until after I had my baby in June. A lot of the story revolves around maternal fetal medicine, which during the early 1900's and a war shortage, was pretty basic. I found myself flinching through a lot of the descriptions of procedures and really cannot understand how these women survived delivering their babies with such rudimentary medicine and tools!

The story of Julia and her assistant Bridie (I LOVED Bridie!) was my favorite part of the book. Their journey together over such a short time, the relationship that grew from their shared experiences was truly the most hopeful part of the book! I loved the ending too, it was PERFECT.

Also, bonus points for Donoghue crafting a title that pulled on my heartstrings- the meaning behind it spoke volumes for the time period and our lives today.