BOOK DISCUSSION DATE AND TIME:
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13th, 2017, AT 2:00 P.M.
A village in 1850s Ireland is mystified by what appears to be a
miracle--a little girl seems to be thriving after months without food.
An English nurse and an international journalist try to get to the root
of why the child may actually be the victim of murder in this
psychological thriller. (NovelistPlus)
- :
- /* Starred Review */ An English nurse confronts Irish
history and entrenched prejudices—some of them hers—in this stinging
latest from Donoghue (Frog Music, 2014, etc.).Lib Wright has survived
the Crimean War and a failed marriage by the time she's summoned to
central Ireland to watch over 11-year-old Anna O'Donnell, whose parents
claim she has eaten no food in four months. The girl's physician, Dr.
McBrearty, and a committee of local bigwigs have hired Lib and a nun to
provide round-the-clock surveillance. Lib quickly realizes that Dr.
McBrearty, at least, is weirdly anxious to prove the girl's fast is no
hoax, even if he deplores loose talk of a miracle. An advocate of the
scientific nursing principles preached by Florence Nightingale, Lib has
nothing but contempt for such an absurd idea. Yet she is charmed by
Anna, as whip-smart as she is pious, and alarmed when the girl's
surprisingly robust health begins to falter shortly after the nurses'
watch begins. Clearly someone has been feeding Anna until now, but it's
also clear she believes she has eaten nothing. Lib's solution of this
riddle says nothing good about provincial Irish society in the mid-19th
century, seen through her eyes as sexist, abusive, and riddled with
ridiculous superstitions. Irish Times correspondent William Byrne
counters with a scathing analysis of the recent potato famine, angrily
instructing this blinkered Englishwoman in her nation's culpability for
mass starvation as well as the centuries of repression that have made
the Irish a defensive, backward people. Nonetheless, nothing can excuse
the wall of denial Lib slams into as she desperately tries to get Anna's
parents and the committee even to acknowledge how sick the child is.
The story's resolution seems like pure wish fulfillment, but vivid,
tender scenes between Lib and Anna, coupled with the pleasing romance
that springs up between feisty Lib and the appreciative Byrne, will
incline most readers to grant Donoghue her tentative happy ending. Her
contemporary thriller Room (2010) made the author an international
bestseller, but this gripping tale offers a welcome reminder that her
historical fiction is equally fine.(Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2016)
