“When she got to the bit in the book where Julia almost steps in a pothole and thinks, ‘Well, if I’d broken my leg, I’d have to take some time off,’ my copy editor underlined it and was like, ‘Yes, yes, that! I’ve had that feeling.’ I was trying to capture not just the courage of healthcare workers but their stamina.”Īt night Julia heads home through the desolate city. The course of the pandemic in “The Pull of the Stars” closely mirrors our own - illuminating in particular the lives of healthcare workers under tremendous strain.“I was lucky enough to have an emergency room doctor as my copy editor, a dream situation,” Donoghue said. “I’m focused on ‘Oh, God, which one will I write next?’” (Three novels, two children’s books and a short-story collection.) “The new books are always coming down the highway at me,” she said. She has a hard time remembering how many books she’s published since her 2010 novel “ Room” became an international bestseller. That sensation of hurtling through the story seems to reflect Donoghue’s own creative metabolism. “The Pull of the Stars” moves with the quickness of a thriller, but instead of spies and helicopters there’s nurse Julia Power in an ad hoc maternity ward. It doesn’t feel, though, like a historical novel at all. During our Zoom talk, she pulled a 1910 obstetrics book off the shelf and held its graphic illustrations of difficult births up to the camera to demonstrate what went into her story. It’s like a seagull poking through a garbage can,” Donoghue said cheerfully, her Irish accent worn soft by two decades of living in Canada. “I love researching for fictional storylines because you could just look for the interesting stuff.

A pull of the stars