This event is part of our online Book Club series, in which we’ll be delving between the covers to examine the merits of a carefully chosen and remarkable book. You are invited to join in, as host Alex Clark settles down with a writer or fellow book lover for an entertaining evening of sparkling chat. If possible, do read the book in advance for maximum enjoyment.   

The old world dying on its feet, a new one struggling to be born… 

Emma Donoghue’s unnervingly prescient latest novel, The Pull of the Stars, is set in Ireland in 1918, where an unprecedented flu has forced a group of women into quarantine in an understaffed maternity ward. The strictly organised world of nurse Julia Power is invaded by two outsiders: Doctor Kathleen Lynn, on the run from the police, and a young and naive volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. 

Recalling the solitary confinement and intensity of Donogue’s hit book Room, the story of five-year-old boy Jack who lives in a single room with his Ma and has never been outside, The Pull of the Stars is an unforgettable and deeply moving story of love and loss. From a desolate place and virus-ridden confines of the ward, the women – carers, nurses, and expectant mothers – begin to change each other as some are lost to the sickness and new children are brought into the world. 

Join us, Emma Donoghue and chair Alex Clark to explore this extraordinary novel, more relevant than ever in the light of the coronavirus pandemic. Get ready to ask the author your own questions about her stories, voice, the novel’s construction, and writing pandemic literature. 

• Room, Emma Donoghue 
• Akin, Emma Donoghue 
• ‘The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue review’, Sarah Moss, The Guardian 
• ‘Don’t Believe History Repeats Itself? Read This Book’, Karen Thompson Walker, The New York Times 

Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight years in Cambridge, UK, before moving to Canada’s London, Ontario. She is best known as a novelist, with books ranging from the historical (The Wonder, Slammerkin, Life Mask, The Sealed Letter) to the contemporary (Akin, Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes; her screen adaptation was nominated for four Academy Awards.