By Emma Donoghue
This book is about the Great Flu during 1918, specifically in Ireland, on a maternity ward over the course of three days. Both beds and medically-trained staff are scarce due to the preponderance of the illness. The reader follows the day-to-day tragedies and miracles of Nurse Julia Power. Masterfully crafted by Donoghue, there are numerous other heart-warming characters that are difficult to let go of, leaving the reader both devastated and somehow full of hope.
The first thing worth noting is how detailed, scientific, and full of stomach-churning realism multiple births are described. Those of us who have gone through the ordeal will find ourselves relating to the experience occurring a century earlier. To those of us who have not: a startling amount has not changed. Perhaps that is indicative of the plight of childbirth since humans began. Also worth noting is the fact it is only recently that childbirth has not been a leading cause of women’s mortality.
The next amazing part of this book is Dr. Kathleen Lynn, based on a true woman in history from this time. Dr. Lynn respects Nurse Power’s experience and skill in a time when most doctors (being male) dismiss both outright as women are silly and emotional no matter how much education they receive. In opposition to most other doctors, Dr. Lynn is both caring and stoic, a student of history and prophetic, and a rebel both inside the hospital and out. Her great goal in life is to open a hospital for the poor and indigent, providing to care to those who truly need it the most. Her radical ideas change Nurse Power without didactic and repeated efforts.
The final character that makes this book exceptional is Bridie Sweeney. She is an orphan who is battered and bruised by the system throughout her life, but does not let it diminish her hope or zeal. Bridie comes to the short-staffed ward just as Nurse Power needs help most, and cements her place as the best assistant any nurse could ask for. Learning quickly, she helps guide desperate mothers through their ordeal while Nurse Power steers them all through the murky waters of childbirth and plague. Through her casual asides and unabashed ignorance of the basics of human life (children are not expelled through the belly button during childbirth), Bridie illustrates the indignities the poor are subjected to in Ireland that make it personal and real for Nurse Power.
Nurse Power is changed from all of these experiences. I don’t want to give away the culmination of the three days – read the book, it is awful and fantastic. The reader is left knowing that she is permanently changed, and hopefully will continue to fight for the basic human rights to which each person should be entitled.
Pros & Cons & Potential Spoilers
Pros
- Realism of childbirth – fluids, colors, sterilization, methods
- Indefatiguability of the human spirit
- Mothers helping other mothers
Cons
- So much death, and often of characters I really liked
- Prevailing, historically accurate attitudes
- There is not often a reason, and things are never fair – again historically accurate but infuriating