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The wonder emma donoghue review5/11/2023 ![]() ![]() Such surveillance is required because, since the day of her 11th birthday, Anna is said to have consumed nothing but a few sips of water.įor four months she has survived on what she describes as “manna from heaven”, and because she remains mysteriously well, the parish is beginning to attract attention. Lib’s only duty will be to watch her for a period of two weeks, in a schedule of eight-hour shifts shared with a surly nun from the House of Mercy in Tullamore. ![]() she has been summoned by a committee of “important men” on behalf of the O’Donnell family’s only daughter, Anna, who is “not exactly ill.” It isn’t until Lib has been deposited in a pub/grocer’s/undertaker’s/inn in a village outside Athlone that the bizarre nature of her assignment is outlined by the local doctor. Emma Donoghue’s new novel, The Wonder, shines a light on one such “Nightingale”: Elizabeth “Lib” Wright, a young widow working in a hospital in London, who is singled out to travel to the Irish midlands on a well-paid but somewhat obscure mission. Those who returned to Britain in the conflict’s aftermath brought with them a certain repute. During the War, the Lady with the Lamp trained these women in her pioneering nursing practices. A little Googling told me she travelled to Constantinople in 1854 flanked by a 38-strong team of volunteer nurses. With my severely limited knowledge about the Crimean War, I always pictured Florence Nightingale as a lonesome figure, stalking hospital corridors with only a glow of light for assistance. ![]()
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