The Wonder
CBC Books | | Posted: March 1, 2017 9:58 PM | Last Updated: November 16, 2018
Emma Donoghue
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An 11-year-old girl stops eating, but remains miraculously alive and well. A nurse, sent to investigate whether the child is a fraud, meets a journalist hungry for a story.
Set in the Irish Midlands in the 1850s, The Wonder is inspired by numerous European and North American cases of "fasting girls" between the 16th century and the 20th. It is a psychological thriller about a child's murder threatening to happen in slow motion before our eyes. Pitting all the seductions of fundamentalism against sense and love, it is a searing examination of what nourishes us, body and soul. (From HarperCollins)
The Wonder was shortlisted for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
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From the book
All Matron at the hospital had said was that an experienced nurse was required for two weeks, in a private capacity. The costs of keep and travel to and from Ireland to be furnished, as well as a daily consideration. Lib knew nothing about the O'Donnells except that they had to be a family of means if they were cosmopolitan enough to send all the way to England for a better class of nurse. It occurred to her only now to wonder how they could know that the patient would need her services for no more nor less than a fortnight. Perhaps Lib was a temporary replacement for another nurse.
From The Wonder by Emma Donoghue ©2016. Published by HarperCollins.