by Emma Donoghue
This is the book about a maternity unit at a hospital in Ireland during the Spanish flu. The book is set in a small room, with only three beds, where pregnant women with the flu are put for care.
The nurse is on the cusp of her 30th birthday. She has a brother who returned from the war unable to speak. The book covers various cases that come into the ward while the young nurse tries to cope with all the medical emergencies on her own. A young girl, from a local orphanage has come in to help as a volunteer. In the short time they are together they get very close. The nurse is amazed at how curious the girl is and how quickly she learns.
The book is about the flu but it is more about women's state in the world. We find out that one of the women, who eventually dies, is malnourished and has had too many children so her health is frail. She dies as does her unborn child. A wealthy woman is in the ward. Her baby is stillborn. Another girl comes in, a ward at the same orphanage as the helper. She is looked down upon because this is her second pregnancy out of wedlock. We learn that the orphanage girls are basically slaves, having to work off their board at the orphanage. Another young woman is obviously the victim of spousal abuse. The nurse asks her if she has any family who will take her in. When she says yes she advises the woman to leave her husband if he continues to abuse her.
The story also includes a female doctor who was charged with crimes for being part of a potential separatist group. She is allowed to work because she is a doctor but eventually gets tracked down and arrested again.
This book was brilliantly written It was so intense, so brutal, it felt claustrophobic. I don't think it is a book a man would want to read as it has so much graphic detail about women and pregnancy and complications.
As we are currently going through the Covid pandemic it made it even more difficult to read.
No comments:
Post a Comment