Books › The Pull of the Stars
The Pull of the Stars
416 pages
A fiercely intimate, ticking-clock descent into a 1918 maternity ward where life and death collide in the span of three harrowing days.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like holding your breath in a small, brightly lit room while a storm rages outside. Confined almost entirely to a tiny quarantine maternity ward over three intense days, the narrative is incredibly propulsive, driven by the relentless, visceral demands of the human body in crisis. The atmosphere is undeniably claustrophobic and steeped in the harrowing realities of a pandemic, yet it is simultaneously illuminated by flashes of profound tenderness and sudden, fierce intimacy. The prose is clinical yet deeply compassionate, refusing to look away from the blood, sweat, and agony of women's labor, both medical and maternal. It is a gripping, emotionally exhausting, but ultimately beautiful experience for anyone who loves historical fiction that reveals the raw, beating heart of survival and human connection.
- Mood
- claustrophobic
- tense
- harrowing
- tender
- Tone
- compassionate
- urgent
- clinical
- intimate
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- visceral realities of the female body · intimacy forged in crisis · resilience of caregivers · queer awakening amid tragedy · finding light in profound darkness
- The writing
- Visceral and unflinchingly precise, grounding the reader entirely in the physical, sensory details of the human body and the immediate environment.
- The arc
- Begins in a state of overwhelming exhaustion and dread, building through harrowing medical crises to a profound, bittersweet crescendo of connection and hope.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave intense, deeply researched historical fiction that centers women's hidden labor and the gritty, unromanticized realities of medical history.
Content notes
- pandemic trauma
- childbirth complications
- infant death
- maternal mortality
- medical gore
- references to child abuse
About the book
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders -- Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumoured Rebel on the run from the police, and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney.
In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways. They lose patients to this baffling pandemic, but they also shepherd new life into a fearful world. With tireless tenderness and humanity, carers and mothers alike somehow do their impossible work.
In The Pull of the Stars, Emma Donoghue once again finds the light in the darkness in this new classic of hope and survival against all odds.
Description from Open Library.
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