"If anything was written in the stars, it was we who joined the dots and our lives were the writing."
This is a tough book to review, as it was a tough book to read. It's stunningly written and thoroughly researched.
My other experience with Emma Donoghue's writing is Room. The Pull Of The Stars has a similarity to that, oddly, in that it's a pair of strong unlikely heroes in a room under extraordinary circumstances.
Nurse Julia Power and aide Bridie Sweeney are tasked with working the "fever" ward with pregnant mothers afflicted by the Spanish Flu in 1918 Dublin.
Working rural healthcare, we do it all in one facility. Including labour and delivery. The more things change, many stay the same with something as primal as childbirth. (With the exception of whiskey, chloroform, carbolic and "pubiotomy"!) The scenes depicted in this book are graphic and sound for the time. Tensions run high with emergencies abounding, bookended by quiet moments of reflection and shared experiences.
Beyond labour and delivery and pandemics, society's issues remain unchanged over the years.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and connected with it so emotionally. It is written without use of quotation marks for dialogue, which took getting used to but ultimately feels more intimate.
Highly recommended, but do know what content you're getting into.