Thursday, 26 March 2020

Book Review: THE PATRON SAINT OF PREGNANT GIRLS by Ursula Hegi

Author: Ursula Hegi
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Read: January 2020
Expected publication: 9 June 2020
My Rating:🌟🌟🌟1/2


Book Description:


In the summer of 1878, the Ludwig Zirkus has come to the island Nordstrand in Germany. Big-bellied girls rush from St. Margaret's Home for Pregnant Girls, thrilled to see the parade and the show, followed by the Sisters who care for them. The Old Women and Men, competing to be crowned as the island’s Oldest Person, watch, thinking they have seen it all. But after the show, a Hundred-Year Wave roars from the Nordsee and claims three young children. Three mothers are on the beach when it happens: Lotte, whose children are lost; Sabine, a Zirkus seamstress with her grown daughter; and Tilli, still just a child herself, who will give birth later that day at St. Margaret’s. And all three will end up helping each other more than they ever could have anticipated.

As full of joy and beauty as it is of pain, and told with the luminous power that has made Ursula Hegi a beloved bestselling author for decades, The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls is a shattering portrait of marriage and motherhood, and of the ways in which women hold each other up in the face of heartbreak. 

What attracted me to this book:


I’m often curious to see why certain books attract me, and there were several reasons why I couldn’t pass up a chance to read this one: a) the Nordsee setting in the mid 1800s, which promised an interesting background to an unusual story; b) Comparison of the book to WATER FOR ELEPHANTS, which I loved (even though I am always wary of comparisons to popular books); c) it had a circus in it! d) I wanted something character driven, quirky and unusual, and this one certainly fit the bill.


My musings:


I am happy to say that Hegi’s book with the unusual title THE PATRON SAINT OF PREGNANT GIRLS lived up to all my expectations. Set in the mid 1800s, it centres around the stories of four different women who are loosely connected by the setting and the terrible accident that happens right at the beginning of the book: the tragic drowning of three children when a freak wave rips them out of their mother’s arms. Whilst this event forms the a big part of the story, it is only one thread among many others, musing about pregnancy, motherhood, female friendship, marriage, loss, grief and womanhood in general in Germany in the mid 1800s. Hegi’s writing is lyrical and descriptive and vividly painted the characters and the setting for me right from the start.


What I love most about historical fiction – apart from learning about different eras in history – is trying to put myself in the character’s position and reflect on how I would act, how different my life would be. Being a woman in the 1800s was no picnic: childbirth was hazardous for mother and child, and many infants didn’t survive long, claimed by illnesses and complications that are easily treated today. And if you were unlucky enough to be young and pregnant outside of marriage, an even grimmer fate would await you: death at the hands of some backyard abortionist or escape to homes for unwed mothers, where the child would be taken from you straight after birth. And yet womanhood held some of the same joys, hopes and dreams as we experience today.


Summary:



THE PATRON SAINT OF PREGNANT GIRLS was a slow, reflective read that gently took me on its journey. I won’t be a good fit for readers who want action, or a definite progression of the journey towards a finale, or even a central plot, because this story isn’t like that. Instead, it flowed gently, like a gurgling brook, not reaching any destination. I was in the mood for such a story and appreciated the emotions the story awakened in me whilst reading, and the reflections it prompted. I can see that it will not appeal to everyone, but if you like that kind of story that rolls out in dreamlike pictures and landscapes, then I would urge you to give it a go.


Thank you to Edelweiss and Flatiron Books for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.

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