The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue

 

 

Reviewed by Christy

            Julia Power is a young Irish nurse on the cusp of turning thirty. She’s a midwife in the maternity ward of the hospital, and finds great fulfillment in her career. But work has been chaotic and overwhelming the past couple weeks. The hospital employees are overworked and understaffed, and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. It’s 1918, and the Spanish Flu is ravishing Dublin and the entire world.

            The Pull of the Stars is a day-in-the-life type of book that takes place over three merciless days in a makeshift maternity ward for expectant mothers with the flu. Julia must keep her patients comfortable and keep an eye on their vital signs, all while delivering an occasional baby and deferring to male doctors who are quick to dismiss her expertise. Sometimes the deference is more difficult than the rest. Luckily, she has the assistance of a scrappy, young volunteer who is a quick learner and an enormous help. She also meets the new female doctor who is rumored to be an activist against British rule but seems to be on Julia’s side when it comes to medical practices.

            Once I realized the book would be “merely” following Julia around as she does her job, I was a little apprehensive that it wouldn’t grab me or worse, bore me completely. I could not have been more wrong. While there are glimpses of her home life with her World War I veteran brother, most of the action takes place in the hospital. And it is action! Julia is a wonderful, capable nurse who always has her patients’ best interests in mind. Her volunteer, Bridie, is bright-eyed and eager to learn. The female doctor, Dr. Lynn, is gentle and understanding. Basically, I loved all of these characters. My only real qualms were a romance plot line that felt a little out of nowhere, and some of the events at the end of the book. I’m not really sure how I feel about them but I can say I didn’t love them.

            I was fortunate enough to catch the audio book available on READS, and at times, the performance had me on the edge of my seat. Listening to a lyrical Irish accent was certainly nice too. Although Donoghue had started work on this book in October of 2018, the release is quite timely, and I’m sure our current state of affairs factored into the urgency I felt while reading this book. I’ve read a couple of Donoghue’s books and enjoyed them immensely, but for some reason it’s been quite a long time since I’ve given her another go. I don’t think that’s a mistake I’ll repeat.

Fever Year: The Killer Flu of 1918 by Don Brown

Reviewed by Jeanne

I like the way Book Bingo expands my reading.  This year I had another “read a graphic novel” square so I was looking around for something to fit when I saw Fever Year on our catalog.  Given the current coronavirus outbreak, it seemed more than timely.

The book begins on New Year’s Day, 1918.  World War I is raging and the U.S. has men in training camps around the country, preparing to send them to Europe.  In a town near one of those camps, a doctor has encountered a strange illness that seems to target the young and vigorous rather than the elderly.  Despite this, Dr. Miner suspects this new illness is some sort of influenza. The outbreak in the town seems to disappear, but then a young man at the training camp falls ill.

Thus begins one of the greatest pandemics the world has ever seen.  Brown explains the origin of the name (ex influential colesti, referring to the belief that the disease came from the heavens) and notes some possible outbreaks dating back to ancient times.  He then charts other outbreaks—one that started in Russia in 1899 that killed a million people—before detailing the epidemic that changed the world.

I found a wealth of information in this book, from the reason for the name “Spanish flu” to famous people who survived it (Walt Disney, Franklin Roosevelt, Gandhi) to the various theories on how to combat the disease to the present day ethical questions about recreating the disease to study it.  While the format doesn’t allow an in-depth examination, it does provide a sound foundation for anyone interested in learning more.  A bibliography is provided.

The illustrations are quite well done, mostly tans and browns suggesting the sepia of old photographs.  The sketches are evocative and sometimes moving.

Brown is also the author of similar non-fiction books, including titles on the Dust Bowl and Hurricane Katrina.

Pandemic 1918 by Catharine Arnold

Reviewed by Brenda G.

Arnold, Catharine. Pandemic 1918: eyewitness accounts from the greatest medical holocaust in modern history. New York: St Martin’s Press, 2018.

The Spanish flu. The flu epidemic that killed more people than died in World War I. A true pandemic. As the subtitle, shown above, declares, a medical holocaust. What were the contributing factors that led to this global epidemic? Where did it begin? Could it happen again? This book examines these questions and more.

The author begins by exploring the known history of influenza and the epidemics it has spawned. Catharine Arnold notes that mentions of what seems to have been flu date to ancient times, to Hippocrates in the Greece of 412 BCE. The word “influenza” appears to have originated with an Italian concern for the “influence of the stars” upon illness, around the year 1500. Incidents of flu epidemics, affecting peasants and nobility alike, occurred across the world repeatedly. None, however, has been found to equal the impact of the flu epidemic of 1918-1919. The author endeavors to address this impact upon individuals from various socio-economic strata, focusing upon the personal stories available. One set of the author’s grandparents succumbed to this flu. She chooses to use the term “Spanish Lady,” one often applied to this epidemic, perhaps because Spanish newspapers were not bound by wartime censorship rules and could discuss the disease.

The author proceeds through a discussion of what, in retrospect, were clearly early cases of the flu in 1917 European soldiers.  She them moves to a vast military encampment in France, peopled by English and French at that point, with a vast medical complex. One of the soldiers she highlights does not survive, developing the deadly bronchial or pneumonia-like complication of the flu. Another, a nurse, does not develop that complication and survives to write a memoir of her experiences.

She then moves to Haskell County, Kansas, where the flu, at one point, killed 3 of its 18 victims, sparking fear by striking the young and healthy. This death rate of 16.6% represents a surprisingly high rate in such a small rural community. The author reports traffic at the time between Haskell County and Fort Riley, Kansas, a military training camp with many young recruits. The young men unwittingly spread the disease.

The well-told and well-investigated tale continues its documentation of the spread of this disease. Viruses were unknown at the time. Influenza was believed to be bacterial. Army camps provided a perfect breeding ground for influenza, packing many young men into a confined space where they breathed air that was common to all of them, and in that and other ways, they shared their infections. 

Among the interesting facts shared by the author is that flu epidemics often occur in at least two waves, with the second being more virulent than the first. At this point in modern life, we have no common point of reference. No one epidemic has killed so many around the world in recent memory. Computer models estimate that a “modern-day Spanish flu event would result in 188,000-337,00 deaths in the United States alone.” The scientific and medical communities want us to be prepared for the likely occurrence of such an event caused by this, or perhaps another, frequently mutating virus. 

This book, though dense with fact, is also replete with stories of people from the time, including those of survivors and victims of the “Spanish Lady.” It is both readable and enjoyable. I was fascinated by the level of detail, whether anecdotal or scientific. Kudos to the author for an excellent job.