What Are You
Reading?
What Are You Reading? A project sponsored by the Friends of the Macomb Public Library District to encourage reading and book discussion in our community. Would you like to share your favorite books with other readers? Please send your name, occupation or grade level, book author and title, and a brief statement about the book and why you liked it to Kate Joswick, [email protected].
Reviewer’s Name: Nancy Erlandson Reviewer’s Occupation: Retired Book Title: The War Nurse Book’s Author: Tracy Enerson In the historical fiction, The War Nurse, Tracey Enerson follows Julia Stimson from St. Louis, where she recruits sixty-five nurses to relieve battle weary British nurses in war torn France in 1917 before American troops join the battlefield. Stationed at British Base Hospital 12 in Rouen, France, they are greeted by primitive conditions, both living quarters and hospital facilities, a convoluted supply system, the horrors of trench warfare, and a male dominated military chain of command. Written in first person, The War Nurse, gives a look at the personal and professional difficulties women nurses faced at a time when nurses were expected to do little more than change bandages and comfort patients. Within a few months of caring for soldiers, Julie bangs into the glass ceiling and becomes frustrated with the limitations imposed by the male-dominated military doctors. After executing an unauthorized medical procedure needed to save a dying soldier's life, Julie only receives hostility from the doctors.
The hospital’s resources are overwhelmed when trains begin arriving with soldiers with a deadly unknown respiratory illness (today we know as Spanish Influenza). Julia must decide whether to go against accepted boundaries or risk her career by doing nothing and watching soldiers and those she cares for die a miserable death. The War Nurse brings to life worn torn WWI France through the experiences of courageous female nurses caring for severely wounded soldiers and fighting a deadly unknown illness.
